Originally published February 8, 2019.

What comes to your mind when you think of video games?

Do you think of storylines that only get more confusing the further you look into them? How about the way a story sadly unfolds right before your eyes?

2019 might be a big year for movies, but it’ll also be the year for daring games that’ll change the industry as well. From Hideo Kojima’s first break-away game from Konami (most likely) releasing this year, to sequels from extremely successful franchises like ‘Far Cry’ and ‘The Last of Us’, 2019 will be a hell of a roller coaster as far as games go. Although there are popular, ground-breaking games that have already been released this year (e.g. ‘Kingdom Hearts’ and ‘Resident Evil 2’), we are only looking at the games to come. Best break out the wallet and prepare to spend a lot of money within the next few months.

DOOM Eternal | Bethesda/ID – 2019 (TBA)

No one really saw this announcement coming. Bethesda is pretty good at keeping secrets from its primary audience right up until the first peek. You can imagine the shock that engulfed the E3 crowd when the large screens hanging above the stage below began playing a short teaser trailer for ‘DOOM Eternal’ with no immediate introduction. The trailer showed a slow pan-over of an infested, damaged dystopian Earth that has been taken over by demons that once plagued Mars. Doomguy quickly becomes the center of attention towards the end of the trailer, and proceeds to fight the demons that have destroyed the planet.

After the success of the Bethesdas 2016 ‘DOOM 4’, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that fans would be granted a sequel to the game. Although not much of the story has been revealed, gameplay was shown during Bethesdas ‘Quakecon’ in Aug. of 2018. We currently do not have an official release date for the game, but, knowing Bethesda, fans are anticipating a third-quarter 2019 release.

Death Stranding | Kojima Productions – 2019 (TBA)

This game will be hard to try and describe, but that’s why it’s on this list, and so highly anticipated. After Kojima’s shaky fallout with lifetime company-partner Konami, he’s ready to show fans that he is back and better than ever with this (confusing) gem of a game that he is producing from his brand-new self-startup video game production company.

Each time Kojima releases a new trailer (and gameplay) for ‘Death Stranding’, the story and plot only become more and more muddled to fans. Kojima has been hard at work with Norman Reedus (from ‘The Walking Dead’), Guillermo Del Torro, and many others to bring to life a game that no one has ever seen before. Fans have speculated that ‘Death Stranding’ could relate to Kojima’s wildly successful horror playable teaser, ‘P.T.’, from the few (incredibly subtle) hints that have been present within some of ‘Death Strandings’ trailers.

This is another game with no official release date yet, but most are expecting it to drop sometime within the year.

Anthem | BioWare/EA – Feb. 22nd

‘Anthem’ is a bit of an ambitious, newly original open-world game that BioWare has been developing over the course of a few years.

‘Anthem’ is currently in it’s official Beta stage in preparation of it’s Feb. 22nd release. The trailers and bits of gameplay have shown a huge open-world setting that the player will explore through Iron-man-like exosuits. We don’t have a lot of information as far as a storyline goes, but from the information we have so far, the games’ focus is how humanity can survive in a world filled to the brim with diverse threats and foreign creatures roaming the planet.

‘Anthem’ will be available on Xbox One, PS4, and Steam.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 | Ubisoft – March 15th

Ubisoft has produced some gems within the last couple of years, and have deviated away from ‘Assassin’s Creed’ being the only thing they are primarily known for.

After the first online-only, multi-player game was released back in 2016, Ubisoft decided that the sales from that game were good enough to warrant a second. So far, fans have been given a few trailers and a bit of gameplay, and it appears to look a little bit different than it’s first counterpart. With rougher, grungier characters taking the spotlight in ‘The Division 2’s’ trailer, Earth is on the edge of immaculate devastation from a plague that rapidly spread through the exchange of money during the holiday season.

Look out for ‘The Division 2’ on Xbox One, PS4, and Windows.

Metro Exodus | 4A Games – Feb.15th

The ‘Metro’ series has been a staple in the foreign dystopian, survival genre. It’s no surprise that 4A Games would continue it’s legacy with another ‘Metro’ installment.

Unfortunately, the video game industry has been plagued with plenty of drama within the last year, and ‘Metro’ is no exception to that. After 4A Games decided to pull the game from the Steam store and only make it available for the Epic Games online store, fans were understandably angry.

Fans are still excited to dive head-first into the first-person survival, mixed with elements of horror, shooter that’ll take the story of previous ‘Metro’s’ and turn it up a notch.

“Metro: Exodus’ will be available to play on Xbox One, PS4, and Windows.

The Outer Worlds | Obsidian Entertainment – 2019 (TBA)

This game got A LOT of coverage after it’s surprise announcement at the 2018 Game Awards. We didn’t get much information about the game other than a short trailer and the fact it’s by former ‘Fallout: New Vegas’ developer Obsidian Entertainment.

The short teaser trailer features an older gentleman guiding the the player through a futuristic spaceship, shortly revealing that they are indeed on another planet. Sporting a colorful landscape that feels like a mix of ‘Borderlands’ and ‘Halo’, the player is stuck at the furthest edge of the galaxy, and must explore the planet that’s in the midst of a deep conspiracy concerning the Halcyon colony.

After years of wishing Bethesda would let Obsidian make another ‘Fallout’ game like ‘New Vegas’ or a sequel to it, with no luck, Obsidian decided to go on their own. We do not have an official release date yet, but rumors speculate that the futuristic first-person RPG will be released sometime within the year.

Keep a look-out for these games, and many others, coming in 2019.