There is a useful kind of release window where none of the games mean the same thing. Big Walk is trying to turn online co-op into a long, stupid hike with friends. Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is asking whether Arc System Works can make a modern Marvel tag fighter that survives real fighting-game scrutiny. The Sinking City 2 is moving Frogwares' Lovecraft series away from detective sprawl and toward survival horror.
No final review scores are live for these three yet. OpenCritic and Metacritic do not have scored consensus pages for Big Walk, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, or The Sinking City 2 as of July 25. This is a preview roundup instead: what critics and hands-on writers are saying before the reviews land, and what to watch once they do.
Big Walk preview: House House wants a co-op hike, not a checklist
Big Walk is developed by House House and published by Panic. It is scheduled for August 4, 2026, on PC, Mac, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2. The clean pitch is simple: the Untitled Goose Game team has made a cooperative puzzle adventure about walking around a large island with friends. The interesting part is how little the previews sound like normal co-op coverage. People are not talking about loot or boss phases. They are talking about space, voice chat, hand gestures, and whether doing very little together can still feel designed.
IGN's hands-on preview places Big Walk near the current wave of proximity-chat friend games, though it seems warmer and less hostile than the horror-leaning side of that scene. The demo had players searching for key items, describing symbols to one another, stacking bodies to reach high places, and solving puzzles while communication was deliberately awkward. The previewer's read was clear: if the opening hour is representative, Big Walk could work for players who want low-stress online chaos more than a strict puzzle gauntlet.
Game Informer gets closer to the design intent. House House calls Big Walk a "walker-talker," and the team is intentionally leaving distance between objectives. Nico Disseldorp described the walk itself as the negative space, the part where players make their own fun. That matters. A lot of co-op games are afraid of silence. Big Walk seems to be betting that silence, bad jokes, getting lost, and somebody dropping an important object in the wrong place are the game.
Video Games are Good came away from a Panic HQ preview with more practical details. It says Big Walk supports up to 12 players, is likely to run 10 to 15 hours, and has a definitive ending. It also notes small frustration guards, like an ocean system that returns lost items to shore. Anyone who has watched a co-op puzzle night collapse because one physics object went missing knows that is not a tiny feature.
The main concern is not whether Big Walk has charm. Every preview suggests it does. The concern is access. Game Informer says there is no public matchmaking, so you need to bring your own group. That feels right for a game about social rhythm, but it narrows the audience. Big Walk might be magic with four close friends and much harder to love alone.
What to watch when reviews land: whether the walking still feels good after several hours, whether two-player groups get enough out of it, and whether no matchmaking reads as confidence or a wall.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls preview: Arc System Works brings Marvel back to tag chaos
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is developed by Arc System Works for PlayStation 5 and PC, with launch currently set for August 6, 2026. It is a 4v4 tag fighter, which gives it a very specific burden. It has to serve Marvel fans who want spectacle, but it also has to survive players who can smell weak systems in about 20 minutes.
IGN's earlier coverage of the playable Evo build said the demo lineup included Captain America, Iron Man, Storm, Star-Lord, Ms. Marvel, and Doctor Doom. Director Kazuto "Pachi" Sekine thanked players for the response to the reveal and said the team wanted feedback from the first trial version. The important part is the venue. Evo is not a soft room for a fighting game. If movement, assists, defensive options, or match flow feel wrong, the crowd tends to find out quickly.
Eurogamer's newest coverage is more roster-focused. At Evo 2026, Marvel Games, PlayStation, and Arc System Works revealed the Samurai Outriders team: Robbie Reyes' Ghost Rider, Blade, Deadpool, and Loki. Eurogamer says the full launch roster is now confirmed at 20 characters, including Storm, Magik, Wolverine, Danger, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Peni Parker, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Hulk, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, Carnage, Ghost Rider, Blade, Deadpool, and Loki.
That roster count is useful. Twenty characters is not enormous, but in a 4v4 game it creates a lot of possible team shapes. Eurogamer compares the launch size to Street Fighter 6's 18 and Tekken 8's 32, which is a fair frame. The question is not just how many characters are there. It is whether each one changes how a team plays.
There is also an accessibility thread running through the coverage. Eurogamer refers back to an earlier preview that called the game "exceptionally accessible." That could be good or dangerous, depending on execution. Marvel fighters need a low enough floor that people can enjoy the fireworks, but a high enough ceiling that the fireworks are not hiding shallow decisions. Arc System Works has the animation chops and genre history. The unresolved question is readability. A 4v4 Marvel game can turn into noise fast.
What to watch when reviews land: netcode, training tools, assist design, team variety, and whether the single-player Episode Mode has substance for people who love Marvel but do not want to get folded online for three weeks.
The Sinking City 2 preview: Frogwares trades detective sprawl for survival horror pressure
The Sinking City 2 is developed by Frogwares and launches August 18, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Push Square reports that the game has a one-hour Steam demo available now, although that demo is not coming to PS5. PC Gamer also notes the August 18 date and describes the sequel as more focused than the original, closer to "H. P. Lovecraft's Resident Evil" than a free-roaming supernatural mystery spread across a whole town.
That shift is the whole story. The first Sinking City had ambition, mood, and a lot of rough edges. It wanted to be a detective game, an open-world game, and a Lovecraft horror game at once. The sequel appears to be cutting away some of that sprawl. PC Gamer says its preview build had room for exploration inside levels, but not an entire town to roam around. That sounds like a sensible correction if the goal is tension.
Game Rant's hands-on preview is more conflicted. Its early build covered roughly an hour and a half across two semi-open sections, and the writer came away with promise and concern in equal measure. The combat focus surprised them. Exploration was often driven by supplies: health items, ammunition, and the basic survival-horror loop of checking spaces because you need to stay alive. That may make The Sinking City 2 more playable moment to moment, but it also risks sanding down what made Frogwares' detective work distinct.
Push Square adds useful development context. Most of the work has happened in Ukraine since January 2023, with a team of more than 90 people working through power cuts, air raid sirens, and team members being called away to serve. That context should not turn into a free pass for the final game, but it is part of the story of how this sequel exists at all.
The preview consensus is cautious. PC Gamer seems encouraged by the tighter survival-horror direction. Game Rant worries that the sequel may be stepping into more conventional territory. Push Square frames it as a much more survival horror-focused follow-up. That spread is exactly why The Sinking City 2 is worth watching. A cleaner, scarier sequel could finally make the series click. A more ordinary sequel could lose the strange detective flavor people remember.
What to watch when reviews land: whether combat is good enough to carry the new focus, whether investigation still matters, and whether Arkham feels like a place with secrets rather than a corridor with monsters.
The August watchlist, in brief
Big Walk feels like the safest emotional bet and the hardest practical one. It could be wonderful with the right friends. It could also be a game people admire from a distance because getting the right group together is its own puzzle.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is the loudest of the three. It has Marvel, Arc System Works, Evo attention, and a launch roster people will argue about immediately. It also has less room for vague praise. Fighting games become honest quickly.
The Sinking City 2 has the most interesting tension. Frogwares is making a sharper survival horror game, but the sharper shape may cost it some of the odd detective identity that made the original worth remembering.
If you use Perthro to track what you plan to play, this is the kind of week worth logging early. Not because any of these are guaranteed. Because each one is trying to answer a different question: can walking with friends be enough, can Marvel tag fighting feel new again, and can a messy Lovecraft series become scarier without becoming less itself?