Fables

After impressing folks with a heart-wrenching episodic story based on The Walking Dead (game of the year at Spike’s VGAs and elsewhere), many gamers are highly optimistic about Telltale’s next major project, which also happens to be based on a comic: Fables by Bill Willingham. As with The Walking Dead, Fables the game will be faithful to the source material, though it will tell a unique story based on Willingham’s universe. A release date hasn’t been revealed, but many expect the first episode to launch this year, possibly as early as the spring.

Furious 4

World War II shooters have spanned from the hyper-realistic to the supernatural, but Gearbox seems to be aiming for an arcadey, comedic style that has drawn comparisons to Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds. The story will follow four fictional soldiers – Montana, a lumberjack turned machine gunner, Crockett, a Texan who brands dead foes with a cattle iron, Stitch, a zany Irishman who zaps enemies with a custom taser, and Chok, a hatchet-wielding Native American – as they roll through Germany wasting Nazis in search of Hitler.

Fortnite

Developed primarily for PC and set to be the first game to use Unreal Engine 4, Fortnite is described as a mash-up of The Walking Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world with cartoony graphics and you’ll be tasked with scavenging for building materials, weapons and other items during the day to fend off monsters that spawn at night. As the game’s title implies, this process will include you and your buddies creating and maintaining a fort using construction mechanics that are said to be more complex than Minecraft’s.

Grand Theft Auto V

While Rockstar has only announced console versions of the game, it seems safe to assume that GTA V will eventually appear on PC – perhaps by the holidays, akin to how GTA IV made it to PC in December 2008 after hitting consoles in April. The latest title returns to Los Santos (where San Andreas took place) and has three intersecting protagonists who you can switch between to explore the world, which is said to be bigger than Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas and GTA IV combined, with new elements including a fully detailed ocean floor.

Grid 2

In addition to being the first game powered by EGO 3.0, an upgraded version of the engine used by the latest Dirt and F1 releases that offers improved graphics and AI handling among other refinements, Grid 2 builds upon its predecessor’s TrueFeel Handling System to strike a balance between accessibility and simulation. The campaign spans the US, Europe and Asia with races taking place in Miami, Paris and Abu Dhabi, while the multiplayer component adds a new progression system with customization options as well as RaceNet integration.