State of Play September 2026: what to buy before the sequels

Sony ran two shows back to back on 3 September, and the pattern in them is easy to miss if you only read the headlines. State of Play September 2026 was not really a night of new things. It was a night of sequels, expansions and closing chapters — and almost every one of them attaches to a game that is already three, six or eleven years into its discount curve. That is unusually good news for anyone who buys games rather than pre-orders them.

Here is what was actually announced, which of the originals are worth picking up now, and the two things on the list you should not spend money on yet.

The full 3 September broadcast, uploaded by PlayStation itself — the primary source for every date below, rather than a recap of a recap.

What State of Play September 2026 actually announced

Sony split the night in two: a main show of PlayStation Studios and third-party partners, then State of Play Japan, hosted by Yuki Kaji, for studios across Japan and Asia. The main show closed on an extended look at Final Fantasy VII Revelation.

The dated items, in order of when they land: Marvel's Wolverine on 15 September, exclusive to PS5. Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition on 1 October. Crimson Desert's Charting the Unknown expansion on 15 October. Hunter's Moon on 26 October. Two limited-edition GTA 6 DualSense controllers, pre-orders from 10 September, shipping 19 November. Until Dawn 2 on 28 January 2027. Metro 2039 on 4 February 2027. Gundam Rogue Orbit on 5 March 2027. Final Fantasy VII Revelation on 8 April 2027. Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance and Maneater 2 both carry nothing narrower than 2027.

Notice the shape of that. Four months of small releases, then a wall of sequels in the first four months of 2027. If you are budgeting, the gap is the useful part.

Until Dawn 2 is sixteen months of runway on the original

Until Dawn 2 arrives on 28 January 2027, and Sony has not confirmed a PC version. That is worth stating plainly, because it changes the calculation: the safe way to find out whether you like this kind of game is the one you can already buy.

Until Dawn, the 2024 rebuild by Ballistic Moon, is on PC and has been discounting steadily since. It is a branching horror story where the choices genuinely fork — characters die permanently, and the ending you get is assembled from about eight hours of small decisions. If the sequel's premise (a ghost-hunting TV crew working abandoned locations) does nothing for you, the original will tell you that in one evening for very little money. Check the live price on its game page before you commit; it moves often.

Until Dawn's PC rebuild is the cheapest way to find out whether the sequel is for you — and the only version confirmed for PC at all. (Official Steam screenshot)

Metro 2039 is the one with a confirmed PC date

Metro 2039 was shown running on PS5 Pro and dated to 4 February 2027, and unlike Until Dawn 2 it is confirmed for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. That makes it the most straightforwardly relevant announcement of the night for anyone reading this on a keyboard.

The obvious homework is Metro Exodus, which is now six years old and behaves like it. It is 4A Games at their most ambitious — the series stepping out of the tunnels into large, semi-open regions, with a weapon-maintenance loop that punishes you for hoarding and a day-night cycle that changes which creatures are awake. It is also one of the better-aged ray-tracing showcases on PC, if you have the hardware for the Enhanced Edition.

Metro 2039's PS5 Pro gameplay reveal, posted on PlayStation's own channel.

Six years on, Exodus is the cheapest entry point into a series whose next instalment now has a firm February 2027 date. (Official Steam screenshot)

Final Fantasy VII Revelation closes a trilogy you can still catch up on

Square Enix dated the third and final part of the Final Fantasy VII remake project to 8 April 2027, and confirmed it for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC. Nineteen months of lead time on a trilogy finale is a lot, and the two games in front of it are both on PC and both well past their launch pricing.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is the 2020 first chapter plus the Yuffie episode; Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the enormous middle one, and the better game by some distance. Between them that is somewhere north of 120 hours if you engage with the side content, which is why starting now rather than in March is the sensible move. Rebirth in particular has a combat system that takes a dozen hours to click and then never stops opening up.

Rebirth is the middle chapter and the long one. Starting it in March 2027 is how you arrive at the finale half-finished. (Official Steam screenshot)

The expansions are the near-term decisions

Two of the night's items are things you can act on this month rather than next year, and both are upgrades to games people already own.

Ghost of Yōtei got a proper look at Echoes of Sekigahara, its narrative expansion, which arrives on 1 October alongside the free Most Wanted combat survival mode and a Complete Edition. Sony had already announced that bundle back on 12 August; the show was the gameplay reveal, not the announcement. If you own the base game, the upgrade path is cheaper than the Complete Edition — a distinction publishers rely on people not checking. On PC, the relevant purchase remains Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut, which is the same studio's previous game and one of the better Sony ports; we went through whether it holds up on PC separately.

Sucker Punch's previous game is the PC-side equivalent, and it discounts far more readily than the PS5 exclusive it inspired. (Official Steam screenshot)

Crimson Desert gets Charting the Unknown on 15 October, adding underwater traversal and naval combat across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Mac. And Monster Hunter Wilds has its story expansion, Ascendance, penned in for 2027 on the same three platforms. Capcom's expansion pattern is well established: the base game gets its deepest discounts in the months before the expansion lands, not after. That window is open now.

Maneater 2, and the reveal with nothing attached

The surprise of the night was Maneater 2, a sequel to Tripwire's shark RPG, set in a luxury resort. It came with no date narrower than 2027 and, at this distance, nothing to act on. The original is five years old, frequently very cheap, and roughly a ten-hour joke that lands well — you eat tourists, you level up, a nature documentary narrates it. It is not a game to buy at full price, and it will not be at full price again.

Maneater is a ten-hour joke told well. Wait for the price you want; there is no hurry on a sequel dated only to 2027. (Official Steam screenshot)

The two things not to buy yet

The GTA 6 DualSense controllers open for pre-order on 10 September and ship on 19 November. Limited hardware is the one category where pre-ordering has an actual argument — scarcity is real, resale markups are real. Everything else on this list is software, and software behaves the other way round.

That is the second thing: do not pre-order any of the 2027 games. We tracked nineteen recent launches through our own price data and found the pre-order price itself drifts downward across the whole pre-order window, so the person who commits in September pays more than the person who commits the night before launch, for an identical key. The full working is in our piece on pre-ordering, and the general method is in the price-tracking guide. Set an alert, not a reminder.

The bottom line

State of Play September 2026 handed you a calendar with a sixteen-month gap in it, and the correct response to a gap is to fill it cheaply. Buy Metro Exodus and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth now — both are long, both are old enough to be properly discounted, and both have sequels with firm dates that will make you glad you started early. Pick up Until Dawn if branching horror appeals, on the understanding that the sequel may never reach PC. Leave Maneater until you see the number you want. And pre-order nothing on this list except, arguably, a controller.

If you want the wider view of what 2027 actually holds — including the game everybody keeps listing that is not coming — we mapped it in our 2027 preview. And for what Sony's PC strategy now means in practice, the closed list of PlayStation ports is the piece to read next.