Eleven Promised Dates: What Shipped, What Slipped, and What Keeps Asking for Your Time
Eleven Promised Dates: What Shipped, What Slipped, and What Keeps Asking for Your Time
Updated September 26, 2026. This page used to be a list of games coming after September 2026. Four of them have since come out, so it has been rebuilt as something more useful: the published record of every date each of these eleven games has been given, what the publisher has actually committed to about how much of your time the game will want, and what the store's refund policy does for you when a date you paid for moves. Every figure below was read that day from the publisher's or platform holder's own pages, linked at the end. No review scores, no press coverage, no retailer listings.
First, the correction: four of these are already out
| Game | Status as of September 26, 2026 | Platforms, as officially listed |
|---|---|---|
| Marvel's Wolverine | Released September 15, 2026 | PS5 only |
| Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave | Released September 17, 2026 | Nintendo Switch 2 only |
| Silent Hill: Townfall | Released September 24, 2026 | PS5, Steam, Epic Games Store |
| Control Resonant | Digital released September 24, 2026; physical moved to October 15 | PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Mac later in 2026, GeForce NOW |
| Minecraft Dungeons II | September 29, 2026 — three days away | Xbox Series X|S, Windows, Steam, supported handhelds |
| Gears of War: E-Day | October 6, 2026 | Xbox Series X|S, Windows, Steam, Cloud, Play Anywhere |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 | October 23, 2026 | PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch 2 |
| Grand Theft Auto VI | November 19, 2026 | PS5, Xbox Series X|S — no PC listed |
| Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV | December 3, 2026 | PC (Steam) only |
| Fable | February 23, 2027 | Xbox Series X|S, Windows, Steam, Cloud, Play Anywhere |
| DokeV | No date has ever been announced | "PC, Console" — no specific console named |
Two corrections worth making while the table is open. Dawn of War IV is published by Deep Silver, not SEGA, which matters if you are looking for the official page. And Control Resonant's physical edition and its digital edition are now three weeks apart — the disc is October 15, the download was September 24.
The delay record, which is the only part of this list with predictive value
A release date is a forecast, and forecasts have track records. Here is every publicly announced date for each game, from the publisher's own announcements.
| Game | Dates the publisher has announced, in order | Official moves |
|---|---|---|
| Grand Theft Auto VI | "2025" (Dec 4, 2023) → May 26, 2026 (May 2, 2025) → November 19, 2026 (November 2025) | 2 |
| Fable | "2025" → "2026" (Feb 2025) → February 23, 2027 (May 2026) | 2 |
| Dawn of War IV | "2026" (Aug 2025) → September 17, 2026 → December 3, 2026 | 1 |
| Control Resonant | "2026" (Dec 12, 2025) → September 24, 2026 digital; physical Sept 24 → October 15 | 1 (physical only) |
| Gears of War: E-Day | Revealed June 2024 with no date → "later this year" (Mar 30, 2026) → October 6, 2026 (Jun 7, 2026) | 0 — narrowed, never moved |
| Marvel's Wolverine | "Fall 2026" (Sept 24, 2025) → September 15, 2026 | 0 |
| Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave | "2026" (Sept 12, 2025) → September 17, 2026 (Aug 4, 2026) | 0 |
| Minecraft Dungeons II | September 29, 2026 (announced June 7, 2026) | 0 |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 | October 23, 2026 (announced May 28, 2026) | 0 — 148 days from announcement to release |
| Silent Hill: Townfall | September 24, 2026 — earlier announcements not retrievable from Konami's own pages | Unknown |
| DokeV | Revealed 2021; still listed as "In Development" with no date | No date has ever existed to move |
The pattern in that table is worth more than any individual row. The games that slipped are the ones that announced a year before they had a date. Grand Theft Auto VI was given a year in December 2023 and has moved twice since. Fable was given a year and moved twice. Modern Warfare 4 was announced on May 28 with a hard date 148 days out and has not moved at all. Rockstar's own wording on the second delay was "we are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect."
The practical reading: a date attached to a year-out announcement is a plan; a date attached to an announcement five months out is a schedule. DokeV is the limit case — five years from reveal with no date ever set.
What each publisher actually commits to about your time
This is the question the release date cannot answer, and it is the one that decides what a purchase costs you in hours rather than dollars. Publishers do say this, in the store listing and the announcement post, if you read for it: whether the thing has an end, or whether it has seasons.
| Game | What opens | What repeats after that |
|---|---|---|
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 | A finite campaign across Korea, New York, Paris and Mumbai; 12 six-versus-six maps at launch plus large-scale vehicle maps | The most of any game here. "Season 1 shortly after" launch, a battle pass, DMZ described as "a living combat arena where every deployment is a new story", and BlackCell sold as one season with up to 20 tier skips |
| Gears of War: E-Day | A campaign playable in two-player split-screen or up to four-player online co-op | Horde Siege wave-based PvE and four-versus-four Versus; the Premium Edition includes five seasonal customisation packs, the first at launch and the rest after |
| Dawn of War IV | "70+ epic campaign missions" across four factions, each feeding one overarching narrative — the only hard content number any of these eleven publishers has printed | Last Stand, Crusade (solo or co-op), Skirmish and competitive multiplayer; a free "Year One Expansion" running Fall 2026 to Spring 2027, plus paid expansions. No battle pass |
| Minecraft Dungeons II | A campaign playable solo or with up to three others, online or in couch co-op | Two paid DLC packs, included in the Deluxe Edition "as released". No seasons, no battle pass |
| Fable | A single-player, choice-driven open-world RPG — "each choice shapes your journey, reputation is everything" | An "Order of the Hero" expansion in the Premium Edition. No live-service language anywhere official |
| Marvel's Wolverine | Single-player narrative action-adventure | Nothing. No multiplayer, no seasons, no post-launch content announced |
| Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave | Turn-based tactics across four interconnected storylines with base management between missions | Nothing announced |
| Silent Hill: Townfall | One player, offline, first-person, with multiple endings | Nothing. Multiple endings is a replay hook, not a live service |
| Control Resonant | Single-player action-adventure following Dylan Faden | Nothing announced |
| Grand Theft Auto VI | Jason and Lucia's story | Not stated for launch in anything first-party we could confirm |
| DokeV | "A creature-collecting open world action-adventure" | Nothing characterised — no multiplayer, seasons or battle pass mentioned on any official page |
Read the right-hand column as the real price tag. Six of these eleven are finite: you buy them, you finish them, and the obligation ends. Two — Modern Warfare 4 and Gears of War: E-Day — arrive with a seasonal calendar attached, which means the purchase is the start of a schedule rather than the end of a decision. Dawn of War IV sits in between: a year of free content with no battle pass, which is a genuinely different deal from either.
The number almost nobody publishes
Across eleven games from ten publishers, exactly one printed a content figure you could plan an evening around: Dawn of War IV's 70-plus campaign missions. Modern Warfare 4 printed a map count. Everyone else published editions, bonuses, currencies and platforms, and nothing at all about length.
That absence is not an accident of this particular list — it is the industry norm, and it is why "how long is it" has to be answered by players after release rather than by publishers before it. Anyone telling you a pre-release hour count for any of the nine games above is not quoting the publisher, because the publisher did not say.
There is also a case here of two official pages disagreeing with each other. Gears of War: E-Day's Horde Siege mode is described as four-player co-op on one Xbox store description and as twelve-player PvE in the June 2026 Xbox Wire article. Both are Microsoft's. This page does not pick one; if the mode matters to you, that is a question worth having answered before launch day rather than after.
Early access is a preorder term, not a release date
Four of these games sell time itself, and the amounts are specific.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 — campaign early access from October 16, seven days before the October 23 launch, on the Vault Edition. The Vault upgrade from Standard is stated at $30 US SRP.
- Gears of War: E-Day — up to five days early with the Premium Edition at $99.99 against $69.99 Standard. That is $30 for five days plus cosmetics and 1,000 in-game currency.
- Fable — five days early with the Premium Edition, February 18 rather than February 23, 2027.
- Dawn of War IV — three days early with the Commander Edition, November 30 rather than December 3, at $89.99 against $59.99 Standard.
Two of those are also on subscription: Gears of War: E-Day had an open beta from August 6 for pre-orders and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, and Fable is confirmed day one on Game Pass. If a game is arriving in a subscription you already pay for, the premium edition is buying you days, not access.
Tip: Four of these land inside six weeks, and console storage is the one thing you cannot fix on launch night. An external SSD for your console is bought once and outlasts every game on this page. (These are Amazon Associate links — we may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.)
What the refund policy does when a date moves
If you preorder a game on this list and the date moves again, the store's published policy is the only thing standing between you and a year of holding a charge. The four differ enormously, and all four publish the terms.
| Store | Published window | What voids it |
|---|---|---|
| Steam | 14 days from purchase and under 2 hours played. Pre-orders refundable any time before release | Playing more than two hours. Downloading alone does not void it |
| PlayStation Store | 14 days from purchase. Pre-orders: request before the release date if ordered 14+ days ahead | Downloading or streaming the content at all — not playing it, downloading it |
| Xbox / Microsoft Store | No guaranteed window. "All sales of Digital Game Products are considered final", with refunds assessed case by case on "time since date of purchase, time since release, and use of the product". A 30-day exception exists only if you are unsatisfied with the licence agreement or warranty and keep no copies | Not defined as a rule — it is a judgement, not a window |
| Nintendo eShop | None. "All payments that you make through the Nintendo Account services (including pre-purchases and subscription payments) are final and non-refundable" | Not applicable — there is no window to void |
Line that up against the platform column in the first table and a real consequence appears. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is a Switch 2 exclusive, and Nintendo's published policy says pre-purchases are final and non-refundable. Modern Warfare 4 ships on all four stores, so the same game bought on Steam and bought on the eShop comes with completely different protection. Dawn of War IV is Steam-only, which happens to be the most generous of the four.
Reading this list as a time budget rather than a wishlist
Between September 15 and December 3, seven of these games arrive. That is seven launches in eleven weeks, four of which have already happened. Nobody plays seven games in eleven weeks, so the list is not a schedule — it is a set of mutually exclusive choices, and the published record above narrows them down more than any preview can.
On the evidence here, the defensible way to spend the next eleven weeks is to take the finite ones first and the seasonal ones last, for a reason that has nothing to do with quality. A finite single-player game is worth the same amount whenever you play it; a seasonal game is worth most at launch and degrades, because its content is time-gated and its player population is highest at the start. Buying Modern Warfare 4 in January means paying full price for Season 1 you missed. Buying Silent Hill: Townfall in January costs exactly what it costs now, probably less.
The counter-argument, stated fairly: the two seasonal games are also the two where the social element is the product, and if the people you play with are all starting on October 23, that is a real reason to be there on October 23. That is a scheduling decision about other people, not about the game — but it is a legitimate one, and it is the only case in which launch-day pricing on a live-service title is the rational purchase.
And on Grand Theft Auto VI specifically: it has moved twice in under two years, most recently by nearly six months. November 19 is a real date from a studio that has apologised twice for missing them. Anyone building a November around it should read the refund column for their chosen store first.
What to check before preordering anything on this page
- Find how long ago the current date was announced. Under six months has held every time on this list; over a year has moved twice.
- Read the store page for the words "season", "battle pass" or "post-launch" before you read anything about the story. That is the difference between a purchase and a subscription to your own evenings.
- Check which store you are buying from against the refund table. On the eShop the answer is that there is no refund.
- Price early access separately. On Gears of War: E-Day it is $30 for five days plus cosmetics; decide whether you would pay that on its own.
- If the game is on a subscription you already hold — Fable on Game Pass, day one — you are buying days, not the game.
Related reading on this site: our Gamescom 2026 wishlist for working gamers, what the GTA VI gameplay reveal shows and leaves out, and what The Witcher 3 Remastered actually confirms.
Official pages every figure came from
- PlayStation, Marvel's Wolverine and the September 14, 2026 PlayStation Blog post — release date, editions, single-player framing.
- Nintendo Direct, August 4, 2026 — Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave date and format.
- PlayStation Store, Silent Hill: Townfall — September 24 date, $49.99 and $59.99 editions, one player, multiple endings.
- Remedy, Control Resonant launch article and the Steam listing — platforms, $59.99 and $69.99, physical edition moved to October 15.
- Minecraft.net, Dungeons II date announcement, June 7, 2026 and the Steam listing — September 29, four-player co-op, $29.99 and $49.99, DLC 1 and 2.
- Xbox, Gears of War: E-Day and Xbox Wire, June 7, 2026 — October 6 date, $69.99 and $99.99, co-op, Horde Siege, open beta from August 6.
- Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 4 announcement, May 28, 2026 and the Vault Edition page — October 23 date, platforms, Season 1, 12 maps, DMZ, $30 upgrade, October 16 campaign early access.
- Rockstar Newswire, November 19, 2026, the May 2, 2025 delay and the original December 4, 2023 announcement — the full delay chain and both apology statements.
- Deep Silver, Dawn of War IV release date update and the Steam listing — December 3 date, 70+ missions, $59.99 and $89.99, Year One Expansion.
- Xbox, Fable and the Xbox Game Studios update — February 23, 2027, Premium early access, Game Pass day one, and the quoted 2025-to-2026 delay.
- Pearl Abyss, DokeV — still listed in development with no date.
- Refund policies: Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox digital game purchase refund terms, Nintendo refund and return policy.
Dates, prices and edition contents change without notice and several of these games are still months away. Konami's own announcement history for Silent Hill: Townfall and Pearl Abyss's release target for DokeV could not be retrieved from first-party pages and are marked as such above rather than filled in from press coverage. Check the linked official pages before preordering.
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