To put it mildly, September's video game release calendar is crowded as almost every studio in the world tries to avoid something like GTA 6 breathing November air. This is a problem, but the 24th, in particular, has quickly become the eye of the September storm.
The shinobi made it six
Sega revealed on Thursday that Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is finally coming to the Nintendo Switch 2. Brilliant, because it's a great game that feels like it was made to be played on a console. Then I saw the release date, September 24th, and after remembering why that date is so familiar, my heart sank.
It sure looks like Nintendo has something big to go up against with GTA 6
Nintendo's November is currently empty, with two big first-party games slated for release in 2026 still without release dates.
September is stacked from top to bottom, with September 24th being the busiest day of that incredibly busy month. Now that Shinobi has joined the party, there are six big games all releasing on the same day. Controls: Scope and Silent Hill Townfall is the biggest of the bunch. Even those two sharing the same release date alone seem to need a change.
Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush, the newest installment in Hot Wheels' video game series, will also be released on September 24, if its developers also decide not to play Harvest Moon: Echoes of Terradia. Add in the Switch 2 version of Dragon Quest 11 S which is also launching that day, and along with Art of Vengeance, you have six triple-A titles with the same common release date.
It looks very crowded before and after September 24
Look around the day, and things get worse both for those who want to play more of these games and for the studios all competing against each other for game time and sales dollars. The next day, on September 25th, we're getting Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Four days after that, Minecraft Dungeons 2 arrives, which, judging by the original's recent record-breaking player count, people are more excited than you'd think.
Just before September 24th, Dune Awakening's console launch, Lego Batman comes to Switch 2, and the day before that, Nintendo's big Switch 2 launch for September, Fire Emblem: Weave of Fate. September 24 could be even busier. Valor Mortis was originally planned to launch on that day, but its creators just smartly flipped from that date for fear of their game being buried under a growing mountain of fierce competition.
You have to wonder at this stage how much better it is to release in September than just bite the bullet and share the month with GTA 6. If I'm a developer, I think if my game releases in the first week of November, two or three weeks before the arrival of GTA 6, it has a very good chance of reaching people when other games are launched when it's released in five days.
