Published Nov 3, 2026, 3:30 PM EST
Ari Notis is deputy editor of games at Polygon, where he oversees the gaming section. Previously, he was Polygon’s guides editor. Prior to joining Polygon, he was a reporter at Kotaku, the popular gaming site, and a senior editor at the lifestyle publication Best Life. He also served in various editorial capacities at various Hearst publications, including Esquire, Veranda, and Metropolitan Home. Ari is one of the people who still play Halo Infinite on a weekly basis. There are dozens of them!
There's more God of War here than expected
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Right now, the gaming world is obsessed with Phantom Blade Zero. S-Game’s Wuxia-inspired action game landed as one of the highest-rated games of 2026 and immediately tore up the charts on Steam, cracking 800,000 concurrent players on launch weekend. I’m enjoying Phantom Blade Zero, even if it does have a few too many parries for my taste. But it’s primarily made me more excited about a similar, promising game I briefly played earlier this year: Tides of Annihilation.
Tides of Annihilation is a forthcoming contender in a specific subgenre of games largely developed in China that defy easy characterization but have been rapidly growing in popularity, thanks to hits like Phantom Blade Zero and Black Myth: Wukong. Earlier this year, at Gamescom 2026, I played about 45 minutes of what appeared to be an early level. It ruled. (Tides made Polygon’s list of the best games at Gamescom 2026.) It’s a little bit character action game, a little bit Soulslike. But in many ways, it’s more in conversation with God of War (2018) and its sequel, God of War Ragnarök, than with anything out of FromSoftware’s haunted halls.
In fact, here’s a line directly from my notes: “Hot girl god of war???”
Image: Eclipse Glow GamesThere is simply no way around it: Gwendolyn, the main character of Tides of Annihilation, is stunning. This has become some matter of debate among the game’s community.
In July, 2025 Game Awards winner Jennifer English, initially slated to play Gwendolyn, dropped out of the role, citing health concerns. Eclipse Glow Games quickly revealed her replacement as Angela Sant’Albano (best known for her role as Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem), and around the same time, redesigned Gwendolyn’s facial features. “Do we all agree that she looks beautiful?” reads one top Reddit post from the time. You’ll never believe this but: No. No they did not all agree.
Hands-on with Tides, I can say that Gwendolyn’s model doesn’t look cheap, rushed, or like “every mmo Korean AI slop model,” to quote one Reddit user. She looks great — like an actual human being rather than an anime figurine tucked into the corner of an IKEA bookshelf. And yes, she happens to be conventionally attractive. But Gwendolyn’s character design isn’t played for sheer objectification, like, say, genre contemporary Stellar Blade treats its main character Eve. The camera never lingers uncomfortably at creep-shot angles, nor are scenes framed like peep shows. That said, because I only played a small portion of Tides, who knows what the full game will be like. But given how much discussion Gwendolyn’s character model has already generated, this will almost certainly be a hot topic upon its release.
Image: Eclipse Glow GamesAnyway. The game. Tides of Annihilation’s fantasy elements are inspired by Arthurian legend (there’s another God of War nod for you). Set in modern-day London, a mysterious entity called the Fog has wrought apocalyptic destruction, as tree roots a foot wide snake their way through the city. Rage-red crystals pepper the buildings that remain, as do a variety of Gothic-inspired humanoids and fantasy creatures. Gwendolyn appears to be the only person left alive who possesses any way to resist the Fog, and seeks a way to undo its damage.
On a basic level, combat in Tides is a lot like many other flashy, fast-paced character action games: You can perform light attacks, heavy attacks, and various combos that string both together. You can jump, dodge, and parry, and variously colored glints of enemy attacks will indicate which of those defensive moves you should make. Enemies have stagger bars that you whittle down, stunning them when depleted. And finishing moves tend to be stylish as hell; in one, Gwendolyn ripped a 15-foot-long spear out of her enemy’s hand, then leapt into the air before careening it through her foe. But the biggest gimmick in combat is the addition of equippable knights.
Knights are avatars, inspired by the famous Knights of the Round Table, who accompany Gwendolyn at all times. You can use these knights to “enhance” your attacks; though Gwendolyn is always a speedy fighter, knights can alter your moveset to be more defensive, to prioritize staggering, or apparently to even introduce game-changing abilities like a time-stopping mechanic. Though I only was able to use two in my demo, Gwendolyn can unlock up to ten knights in the full game. (Historians disagree about how many knights actually sat at the table.)
These knights are also critical parts of the 3D Metroidvania aspects of Tides. My preview was largely located in a single area, in and around a museum of Egyptian history. To explore the museum fully, I needed to use my knights. Bors had to fire his bow to create ziplines across wide chasms, while Palamedes needed to smash down fractured walls and reposition bookshelves between balconies, creating makeshift bridges. It’s all reminiscent of the ways Kratos and Atreus navigate the nine realms of Norse myth: merrily moving along until you need to tap Triangle to shoot the thing. All the combat prowess in the world, and you still can’t navigate it alone.
That’s not all the God of War on display here. For instance, at one point, my path forward was blocked off by a wall of red crystals. I later earned the ability to pick up an explosive red sphere that looked like a grapefruit; tossing it at the wall of crystals caused them to shatter, a mechanic that’s an almost 1:1 recreation of God of War Ragnarök’s Shatter Crystals.
Image: Eclipse Glow GamesI say this not as a knock on derivative game design but rather as a compliment to an evolving niche of popular video games. You don’t need to closely follow the industry to see that the Chinese action game scene is popping off in a real way in recent years, with a string of slick projects that each have a distinct feel and style. Tides of Annihilation comes on the heels of Black Myth and Phantom Blade, but is also on most-anticipated lists alongside Blood Message, one of the most promising games out of Summer Game Fest 2026. (This is to say nothing of the behemoth that is miHoYo, which has its own game in this vein with the forthcoming Nodusfall.)
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These games all neatly fit into what my colleague Oli Welsh has deemed the “outsider AAA” game — highly polished games from well-funded studios that nevertheless outside of the Nintendo-Xbox-PlayStation Bermuda Triangle. These games aren’t quite born from the halls of megawatt funding, but they’re no less excellent — nor held in lower esteem. Black Myth: Wukong nabbed a Game Awards nomination in 2024. Phantom Blade Zero is in the conversation for 2026, though faces a steep uphill climb against the likes of You Know What. For many reasons, least of all that it does not yet have a release year, I would not even begin to wager a formal prediction about Tides of Annihilation, let alone in writing. Then again, you don’t need to see the tides change to know that they will.
Tides of Annihilation will be released for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
