Friday is usually review day, but this one is stranger. The biggest fresh reviews are either already covered in Perthro's last two weeks of posts or still settling after launch. The cleaner move is to look forward: three notable games are close enough to release that critics and previewers have started showing their hands, but far enough out that the final scores are not here yet.
That matters if your wishlist is already sagging under August. A preview is not a verdict. It is a weather report. You look for pressure changes: the thing every writer mentions without being asked, the worry that keeps showing up between compliments, the little detail that sounds like it might become the whole game once people have it for thirty hours.
The three games worth watching right now are Onimusha: Way of the Sword, The Blood of Dawnwalker, and Star Wars Zero Company. None have final OpenCritic or Metacritic averages at the time of writing, so this is a critic preview roundup rather than a score roundup. The useful signal is softer, but it is still there.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword preview roundup
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the loudest one in the room this week. Capcom's revival launches September 4, according to IGN's release-date tracker, with PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, and PC listed. The final preview wave landed on August 6, and the consensus is surprisingly specific: this is not simply a Soulslike wearing Onimusha's old armor. It sounds like a stylish action game that uses boss pressure carefully, then lets the player breathe between fights.
IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe described the central tension cleanly. Regular enemies can be cut down with theatrical ease, while bosses demand patience, defensive timing, and actual learning. His preview says the game balances two kinds of action-game pleasure: the joy of overcoming something hard and the joy of looking impossibly cool while doing it. That distinction matters. A lot of modern action games pick one lane. Onimusha seems to be trying to let the player flow between both.
The big mechanical point is defense. IGN breaks down Parry, Deflect, and Issen as separate ideas rather than one mushy counter system. Parry opens an immediate counterattack. Deflect works more like a stamina-breaking tool. Issen remains the old Onimusha flourish: a risky, exact-timing strike that can erase normal enemies and make you feel like you meant to do every frame of it. The preview also notes that several journalists at the event stopped trying Issen against bosses because the risk was too high. That is not a complaint exactly. It is a warning label.
PlayStation Blog's hands-on preview focuses more on structure. After the public demo's Kiyomizu-dera Temple duel, Musashi reaches the Oni Refuge, a surreal floating space where the Oni Bow becomes both a combat tool and a light puzzle tool. The same post says Kyoto opens into a larger hub-like area, with rifts to seal, demonic fog to clear, gear upgrades, soul absorption, and bosses built around specific gimmicks. Daidara, the giant Genma, can consume souls before the player does. Rasho-gan fights around mystical threads and body horror. Byakue changes behavior as its own blood drives it wilder.
Polygon's preview, at least from its headline and Google News listing, is even warmer: after two hours, Capcom's new Onimusha became the writer's most anticipated action game of 2026. That is the highest-temperature signal in the preview set. Pair it with IGN's more granular caveats and a shape appears: critics like the combat a lot, but the open spaces and repeated rescue events may be the part to watch.
What to watch for when reviews land: whether Kyoto feels like a meaningful space or just connective tissue between better boss fights. Right now the combat reads as the safe bet. The exploration is the question.
The Blood of Dawnwalker preview roundup
The Blood of Dawnwalker is a different sort of risk. Rebel Wolves is led by former Witcher 3 talent, including Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, and that comparison is going to follow the game everywhere whether anyone likes it or not. IGN's release tracker lists it for September 3 on PS5, Xbox, and PC. The preview coverage is already circling the same promise: a vampire RPG where the open world is meant to feel authored, not padded.
IGN's Matt Purslow spoke with the Rebel Wolves team for an IGN First feature, and the quote that stuck is blunt: creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz says he has a "personal vendetta against filler content." That is the kind of line preview cycles love, but the surrounding details make it more useful than marketing fluff. The team talks about an open world built from connections, where quests feed into the region's lore, the vampire court, anger and infamy systems, and the player's shifting identity as Coen.
The day-night split is the core hook. Coen is human by day and more vampiric at night, and IGN says that changes fighting, exploration, traversal, and quest options. At night, some routes and stories become available that human Coen cannot reach. The studio also says enemies will not fully scale to match the player, because it wants progression to feel real. That gives the preview a faint old-RPG smell, in a good way. You may be able to wander into trouble before you are ready for it.
The other sources line up around that identity. Google News surfaced Tom's Guide saying its opinion flipped after four hours and that Witcher 3 fans should pay attention. Game Informer's preview frames the combat as the thing the game still has to prove. Eurogamer's earlier preview, from a 90-minute look, sounded cautiously excited and asked whether this could become 2026's breakout RPG. CGMagazine focused on Coen's duality as the way the game defines destiny rather than just as a mechanical gimmick.
That range is useful. Nobody seems bored by The Blood of Dawnwalker. The question is whether it can make all its systems meet without collapsing into busywork. Vampire identity, open-world questing, non-scaling regions, Gothic folklore, handcrafted content, and combat all sound good in isolation. The hard part is making them feel like one game instead of five good pitches in a cloak.
What to watch for when reviews land: combat feel and quest density. If reviewers say the world actually rewards curiosity without checklist fatigue, The Blood of Dawnwalker could become the September RPG to beat. If they say the combat is merely adequate, the Witcher shadow gets longer.
Star Wars Zero Company preview roundup
Star Wars Zero Company may be the easiest of the three to understand on paper and the hardest to judge early. Bit Reactor's tactics game launches August 27 on PS5, Xbox, and PC, according to IGN's release-date list. PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Xbox Wire, StarWars.com, EA, and RPGFan have all covered it in some form, with the strongest hands-on and commentary focused on its XCOM-like structure.
The encouraging part is restraint. PC Gamer's Fraser Brown picked up on the 30 to 40 hour estimate from Bit Reactor's Q&A and seemed relieved by it. Zero Company is apparently a linear campaign with no New Game Plus, no branching story, no formal romance paths, and no official mod support. For some tactics players that will sound thin. For others, especially anyone who has watched modern RPGs balloon into second jobs, it sounds almost merciful.
Rock Paper Shotgun's preview-commentary had more fun with the squad details. Tel-Rea, the Jedi Padawan, is powerful but permakillable, and you only get one of her. You can also field a squad full of astromechs, which is exactly the sort of dumb tactical possibility a Star Wars game should allow. RPS also notes 12 classes, including four exotic classes, a shared Advantage resource, optional Operations, expiring missions, map scouting, and mission types meant to discourage the slow overwatch crawl that can flatten tactics games into routine.
That last bit is important. The danger for Star Wars Zero Company is not that it looks too strange. It is that it looks too familiar. XCOM remains the obvious reference point, and several of Bit Reactor's leads carry tactics pedigree. The preview material suggests the studio knows the genre's habits well enough to push back against them: more mission variety, less infinite stalling, more squad identity, and just enough Star Wars texture to make the battlefield feel playful.
The caveats are also obvious. A linear 30 to 40 hour tactical campaign has to land its mission design. If it does not, there are fewer side systems to hide inside. No New Game Plus and no official mod support may also limit the long tail for players who usually treat tactics games as forever machines.
What to watch for when reviews land: whether Zero Company has enough tactical friction to stay lively for the full campaign. If the mission variety holds, the restraint may become its best quality. If not, people will ask why a tactics game with this much Star Wars toy-box potential closes so many doors.
The takeaway
Onimusha: Way of the Sword has the cleanest preview momentum. Critics are already talking about the feel of its blade, the rhythm between stylish regular fights and serious bosses, and the small ways Capcom is reworking older Onimusha ideas. The Blood of Dawnwalker has the biggest upside, mostly because its promise is messier and more ambitious. Star Wars Zero Company has the clearest pitch: a focused Clone Wars tactics campaign from people who understand why squad decisions hurt.
If you track games in Perthro, this is exactly the kind of week where notes help more than stars. There are no final scores yet. There are only reasons to care, reasons to wait, and reasons to stay suspicious. Put Onimusha on the list if action combat is your thing. Put The Blood of Dawnwalker there if you want a Gothic RPG that might actually respect your time. Put Star Wars Zero Company there if you miss tactical campaigns with sharp edges and permanent mistakes.
Then leave yourself a note. Not a shopping reminder. A real one. "Check whether Onimusha's exploration holds up." "Wait for Dawnwalker combat verdicts." "See if Zero Company has enough mission variety." A wishlist without the reason attached is just a pile of covers. A good note gives future-you a fighting chance.