Xbox announces Summer Game Fest: Play Days 2026 featured games

Xbox has announced the lineup of playable demos it will exhibit at Summer Game Fest: Play Days 2026, the invite-only media and creator preview event set to run from June 6 to 8 in Los Angeles following the annual Summer Game Fest Live Kickoff on June 5.

The lineup includes Xbox Game Studios‘ own Grounded 2 among titles from various third-party partners.

Here is the list of featured games:

• Aniimo
  • Developer: Pawprint Studio (Hangzhou, China)
  • Demo Length: We encourage people to play for 15-30 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Aniimo is a next-gen creature-catching open-world game full of original creatures called… Aniimo! You can explore the world as a human Pathfinder or transform into any Aniimo by twining with them, totally changing your perspective in battles and exploration. The world of Idyll is full of mysteries, but your Aniimo will help you to solve these in a unique way. Collect Aniimo, twine with them, unleash their power and see how the world reacts!
  • Something the Developer Loves: For the team at Pawprint Studio, Aniimo is truly the game of our dreams. As lifelong fans of creature-collecting adventures and expansive open worlds, we’ve always imagined a game that seamlessly blends both. With Aniimo, we finally brought that vision to life. In the game, Pathfinders will explore the vibrant continent of Idyll, form deep bonds with the Aniimo, and even ‘Twine’ with them to unlock new abilities. But Aniimo is about so much more than collecting; it’s about discovery, connection, and finding your place in a dynamic world full of mystery and endless possibility.
• Don’t Fret
  • Developer: Scary Kid Studios (Sacramento, CA)
  • Demo Length: 40 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Don’t Fret is a first-person survival horror game where you play as Fret, a sentient guitar trapped inside a twisted music school. Survive tense encounters using stealth and combat, solve music-based puzzles, travel through mind bending dimensions, and uncover a dark story to learn why you were brought here.
  • Something the Developer Loves: I love making stuff people haven’t felt before. Don’t Fret is me taking everything I love about music and horror and smashing it together into something weird and different. The whole world runs on that idea, and it ends up feeling kind of surreal—almost like something out of a Tim Burton nightmare. You don’t see something like this very often and I am excited to be able to bring my crazy ideas to life.
• Erosion
  • Developer: Plot Twist (Krakow, Poland)
  • Demo Length: 30 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Your daughter’s been kidnapped. Every death costs you a decade. Explore a roguelike open world where your actions reshape the timeline. Join a cult, steal a ride, gamble Cheddar. Collect over 100 weapons and abilities, demolish destructible voxel dungeons. Can you save her before time steals her away?
  • Something the Developer Loves: Can you save your daughter when every death costs a decade? Erosion is an ambitious roguelike that ventures beyond the standard looping dungeon format to an open overworld filled with sidequests, secrets and a voxel neon-West. But when each attempt skips time forward, the land erodes, buildings fall apart, townsfolk get older and your daughter does, too.
• Grave Seasons
  • Developer: Perfect Garbage / Blumhouse Games (globally distributed)
  • Demo Length: About an hour
  • Game / Demo Description: The Grave Seasons demo will allow players to engage in a week of gameplay. Meet the residents of Ashenridge, break and enter, farm, forage, and maybe even prevent a murder from taking place… The main tenets are: an in-game week of play; farming mechanics as well as fishing foraging and breaking and entering; prevent, or decide not to prevent, a murder.
  • Something the Developer Loves: If you’ve played farming sims before, you think you know what’s coming, but Grave Seasons uses that familiarity to surprise you in ways that feel both unsettling and satisfying. We’ve woven tension between cozy and the undercurrent of horror, and we love how it lets us reimagine both these beloved gaming genres. Each week can play out differently depending on how you spend your time, who you meet, what you explore or investigate, making even small decisions feel like they could change everything.
• Grounded 2
  • Developer: Obsidian Entertainment (Irvine, CA) / Eidos Montreal (Montreal, QC, Canada)
  • Demo Length: 30 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: The demo is a four-player multiplayer cooperative battle against King Dozer, the new lizard boss from the latest “Beat the Heat” spring update.
  • Something the Developer Loves: One of the things we love most about Grounded 2 is building with and for our community. Players have helped shape the game—most evident in the rideable Buggies, which were the most fan requested feature from the first game. Buggies fundamentally change how you explore, fight, and experience the new huge park setting. Pair that with the magic of co-op with friends to ride and survive together, and it becomes an even more epic shared adventure where you can take on all kinds of threats like the new colossal lizard boss in our latest update.
• Gungrave G.O.R.E: Blood Heat
  • Developer: Iggymob (South Korea)
  • Demo Length: 20-30 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Gungrave G.O.R.E: Blood Heat takes the stylish combat of Gungrave G.O.R.E to the next level, delivering a more intense and dynamic experience beyond simple shooting. Players are encouraged to stay aggressive, building up a gauge through parries, executions, and combos, leading to the powerful Demolition Shot.
  • Something the Developer Loves: Every action connects seamlessly, creating a relentless combat rhythm where players feel like the true protagonist of an action film. It’s not just about defeating enemies, but about how dynamically and stylishly you fight.
• My Arms Are Longer Now
  • Developer: Toot Games (Melbourne, Australia)
  • Demo Length: One hour
  • Game / Demo Description: The demo is the game’s first level. You are an extremely long arm and must sneak, rob, and slap your way through a train carriage.
  • Something the Developer Loves: This game is a fresh take on a classic heist story. A hard-boiled detective is on your tail and you must do whatever it takes to pull off the perfect crime… as a very long and yucky arm. This game surprises players with unique gameplay and keeps them laughing with absurd humor throughout. It’s a game that has been just as fun to make as it is to play.
• Valor Mortis
  • Developer: One More Level (Krakow, Poland)
  • Demo Length: 30 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Valor Mortis is a first-person action Soulslike from the creators of Ghostrunner. Rise from death as a former soldier of Napoleon’s army. Wield supernatural powers, battle horrifying monsters, and unravel a conspiracy that threatens all of humanity.
  • Something the Developer Loves: One More Level is bringing a fresh take on the beloved soulslike formula. From our experience making the Ghostrunner series, we are blending precise sword dueling combat with parkour platforming level design. From a unique first-person perspective, Valor Mortis will immerse you in a war-torn fantastical retelling of the Napoleonic era.
• Way to the Woods
  • Developer: onepixel.dog (Melbourne, Australia)
  • Demo Length: 20 minutes
  • Game / Demo Description: Play a short, 20-minute glimpse introducing the Deer and Fawn, as they stumble into a world that is not theirs. Collect and absorb light to charge up old machines, and wash away the oil left behind. Way to the Woods has flavours of old RPGs and adventures, wrapped in a fun cinematic third person game.
  • Something the Developer Loves: Whenever I get a chance to watch someone play Way to the Woods from afar, like a weirdo, I always see them smile at the little things we put in there. You play as a deer in a strange world, and that is a premise that lets us throw in a ton of surprises.