The open-world shooter returns as an Xbox One exclusive after a disappointing second installment in 2010. The online multiplayer portion—which takes place in a separate, fully destructible city—is expected to be ready to play this summer, though you'll likely have to wait a bit longer for the single-player campaign.

After Dark Souls II earned raves from critics and a slightly less enthusiastic response from gamers, FromSoftware's brutally difficult fantasy action-RPG series returns with a third major chapter that returns mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki to a more active role in the game's creation. Early looks at the new game revealed a faster, more fluid, slightly more accessible gameplay experience—though it's just as challenging as ever.

Eidos Montreal's cyberpunk RPG/shooter picks up in a 2029 plagued by growing anti-augment sentiment, two years after the events of acclaimed 2011 title Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Shooting isn't required; the entire game, including boss "fights,"can be completed in stealth if that's your preference. (Good luck trying that in the new "hard mode.") Despite the subtitle, Mankind Divided also features more female characters—including female combatants for the first time.

Again developed by Arkane Studios, the first major sequel to the award-winning 2012 game Dishonored picks up the action 15 years later and gives players the option of playing again as Corvo Attano or selecting Princess (now Empress) Emily Kaldwin instead—the missions are the same either way, but you get through them using different paths and skills. The action this time shifts mainly to the coastal city of Karnaca, which offers more of a blend of urban and nature settings.

The sequel to Larian's acclaimed 2014 RPG is again funded in part through a Kickstarter campaign (which, in this case, raised just over $2 million, a major sum that is allowing for a much more expansive game than was originally planned). Changes should include a new crafting system, greater character development (including an origin story for your character that impacts many of your future interactions), and support for up to four players in co-op gameplay.

The simply titled Doom is meant to serve as a reboot of id Software's 23-year-old FPS series, which has been mostly dormant since 2004's Doom 3. (A planned Doom 4 was scrapped in 2011 and replaced with this project.) Meant to be fast, hard, and completely over-the-top (or "rock 'n' roll" as the developers term in), the new Doom will again emphasize action over story and will feature single player and a variety of multiplayer modes, as well as a new "SnapMap" custom content creator.

A new spinoff from the Far Cry series, Primal takes place in the Stone Age, allowing you to explore an open world filled with massive beasts like saber-tooth tigers and mammoths. Your job, as the lonely hunter Takkar: simply survive, by crafting your own weapons, finding food, learning how to build a fire, taming wildlife, and defending yourself against rival tribes. Ubisoft has promised a world as big as any of the major (numbered) Far Cry games, though the new game lacks multiplayer.

Originally developed as Final Fantasy Versus XIII (beginning in 2006!), this new major installment in the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" FF sub-series is an open-world, action-RPG blend that is expected to be much darker and more realistic than past Final Fantasy games. The story, inspired partly by The Last of Us, takes place in a world similar to present-day Earth. Early demos suggest that visuals will be impressive, with a diverse array of locations. Expect a release date to be announced in March alongside a reveal of much more of the game.

Released in three different versions—Conquest, Birthright, and the downloadable Revelation, each with a different storyline centering on different characters—Fates serves as a sequel to the 2013 hit Fire Emblem Awakening. The new game will introduce an easy mode for anyone finding its turn-based strategy-RPG gameplay too difficult.

Two years after Microsoft acquired the rights to the Gears of War third-person shooter series from Epic Games (and five years after the release of Gears of War 3), a new installment is heading exclusively to the Xbox One. Developed by Microsoft's new-ish Vancouver studio The Coalition, GoW4 is intended to return the series to its gritty and tension-filled roots, with a more intimate, personal, and morally ambiguous story. A beta should be ready to play this spring.

A late scratch from 2015, the first Hitman game since 2012's Hitman: Absolution—and, oddly enough, the first to be called by this title—is intended to be more open and less linear than its predecessor, while also featuring much larger maps and eliminating that game's checkpoint system. Even with the release delay, the new Hitman will be almost episodic in nature, with new content (including missions and locations) added on a regular basis over the following year, with some missions available for a very limited time after they appear.

This delayed sequel to the somewhat disappointing 2011 FPS Homefront is much more of an open-world game but still takes place in a near-future America that has been occupied by superior Korean forces, with your American fighters forced to resort to guerrilla tactics. Expected to be very different than its predecessor, Revolution has a single-player campaign plus a new four-player online co-op.

The Wii U might be on its way out, but it's not leaving without getting its first brand new Legend of Zelda title. It'll be the first Zelda game to debut in HD, and it will also be the first truly open-ended (i.e., non-linear) Zelda title in recent memory, with a huge open Hyrule that players can explore in any order they please. How huge is it? The entire Twilight Princess map makes up just one small part of the new game. That extra size translates to plenty of side quests to keep you busy. The new Zelda likely won't arrive until the end of the year, but impatient Wii U owners can pick up a new HD remaster of Twilight Princess on March 4th.

Six years after Mafia II, a sequel is heading to the latest consoles (and PC), courtesy of 2K's brand new California development studio Hangar 13. The third game is set in New Orleans in 1968, where a black Vietnam veteran finds a home in organized crime and begins a quest for revenge after his colleagues are slaughtered by a rival gang. The developers have suggested that the new game will resolve some narrative loose ends from its predecessor while also addressing issues of racism and prejudice in the late 1960s.

The fourth Mass Effect game kicks off a brand new story, with all new characters and new alien species who inhabit a previously unseen portion of the universe. Your lead character—who definitely will not be Commander Shepard—will be charged with finding a new home for humanity. The new game will see the return of the original's all-terrain Mako vehicle and will feature a story by the lead writer of Halo 4.

Considered a reboot rather than a sequel to the stylish, first-person 2008 dystopian parkour game Mirror's Edge, Catalyst will feature an open world for you to climb, explore, and bounce off. Other changes include the absence of guns, a deeper storyline for your protagonist Faith, and third-person views of Faith's finishing moves. Catalyst will also introduce puzzles for you to solve inside the city's buildings.

Nier, the minor cult hit from 2010 (itself a spinoff from Drakengard and its sequels) known for its mature themes and oddball story and perspective shifts, gets a sequel of its own that will be exclusive to the PlayStation 4. A few of the prior game's characters will make appearances in Automata, but otherwise the story is entirely new, centering on an android force sent by humans on the moon to re-take Earth from robotic alien invaders. And PlatinumGames has been brought in as developer to beef up the action side of Nier's action-RPG equation.

After a year delay, the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona RPG series is set to come to the PlayStation 4 for the first time in 2016. Persona 5 will center on a group of high school students in Tokyo who explore the Palace, an alternate world created by the hearts of other people. Expect a more episodic-like story this time, as there won't be one major overlying villain or crisis as in past releases.

More than just a simple HD remaster, this new PlayStation 4 re-imagining of the original 2002 platformer adds new levels, weapons, bosses, controls, and story. Some of the new elements come from other games in the series, while the new story developments are borrowed from Ratchet & Clank's first animated feature film, which arrives in theaters just a few weeks after the game's release and features a vocal cast that includes Paul Giamatti, Sylvester Stallone and John Goodman.

The previous console release in Nintendo's scrolling shooter series was the disappointing (or underrated?) Star Fox: Assault, released for the GameCube back in 2005. Over a decade later, the series is reborn in the form of Star Fox Zero, which retains enough of the formula to be a true Star Fox game while advancing the gameplay in several ways. Co-developed by Platinum Games (Bayonetta 2), Zero utilizes the GamePad's second screen to give you a first-person in-cockpit view to help increase your targeting accuracy, while your Airwing now has the ability to transform into a walking, two-legged robot (a concept borrowed from the aborted Star Fox 2). Experienced Star Fox players should expect an adjustment period for the new controls.

Capcom's venerable arcade fighting series comes to PlayStation and PCs—but, unlike 2009's Street Fighter IV, not Microsoft consoles—next month with a mix of new and old characters. In all, the game will launch with 16 fighters, with at least six more due to be released later in the year as DLC.

The first three Uncharted games—88 Drake's Fortune, 96 Among Thieves, and 92 Drake's Deception—were easily among the best games released for the PlayStation 3 console. This spring, Naughty Dog's beloved action-adventure franchise delivers an original PlayStation 4 title for the first time. The new game takes place three years after the last, and it will conclusively wrap up Drake's story as he sets off in pursuit of a fabled pirate treasure that's caught up in a historical conspiracy. Thief's End will also include a few series firsts, including player-controlled branching dialogue in a few spots as well as a single-player story expansion at a later date (in a DLC "Triple Pack" that also includes enhancements to competitive multiplayer). Personnel changes at Naughty Dog mean that there will be some new faces involved in Thief's End, but given that those faces (specifically, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley) were behind 2013's great The Last of Us, there may be nothing to worry about.

The 11-year-old MMORPG continues to shed subscribers (by last summer, user figures were down to nearly half its 2014 peak of 10 million), so Blizzard is counting on yet another expansion to re-generate interest. Legion, WoW's sixth expansion, raises the level cap to 110, introduces the Demon Hunter class, and adds a new continent, the Broken Isles.

Yet another planned 2015 release that was delayed to 2016, XCOM 2 is a follow-up to Firaxis Games' 2012 series reboot XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The action picks up 20 years later in a world in which humanity has lost its war against the aliens. The new game will feature procedurally-generated levels (originally planned for Enemy Unknown but scrapped) and the increased complexity in development that requires means the game will be a PC exclusive for the foreseeable future. Other changes include a new looting system and increased destructibility of environments.