Warhammer Skulls did most of the heavy lifting this week, and not just with the usual parade of grimdark logos. The better trailers gave different corners of Games Workshop's world their own shape: a stealthy Skaven action platformer, a Deathwatch tactics sequel and a louder, meaner look at Boltgun 2.
Outside that showcase, the week still had useful range. Pokémon TCG Pocket put a date on its next expansion, Honkai: Star Rail set up a June story turn, Where Winds Meet opened the gates to a huge new palace zone and The Florist made fixed-camera horror look strangely beautiful. Here are the trailers to catch up on before the next wave arrives.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster turns Skaven into stealth action
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster was the most immediately distinctive new reveal out of Skulls. Instead of another strategy campaign or squad shooter, Dotemu and Old Skull Games are building a single-player 2D action platformer around a Skaven assassin trying to climb the Eshin clan's bloody ladder.
The Games Press announcement confirms Deathmaster for PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2027. The trailer works because the Skaven fantasy fits the genre: skulking through decay, setting traps, striking from shadow and turning Warhammer's ratmen into something more agile than the usual battlefield horde.
Pokémon TCG Pocket: Paradox Drive brings Area Zero to mobile decks
Pokémon TCG Pocket trailers can look gentle next to the week's louder reveals, but Paradox Drive is a big update for a very large mobile audience. The new expansion arrives May 27 and pulls from Scarlet and Violet's Area Zero mythology, with Koraidon ex, Miraidon ex and other Paradox Pokémon moving into the digital card game.
The official Pokémon post frames Ancient and Future cards as the mechanical hook, not just a theme. We covered the expansion date and early card details earlier this week, but the trailer is the cleanest way to see how Pocket is turning a familiar Scarlet and Violet idea into its next deck-building cycle.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Deathwatch swaps Grey Knights for alien-hunters
Chaos Gate - Deathwatch is the Warhammer trailer for tactics players. Complex Games is following Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters with a direct sequel that moves the spotlight from Grey Knights to the Deathwatch, the Imperium's elite alien-hunting Space Marines.
Steam lists the game as coming soon, with Frontier Developments publishing for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The store page names Genestealer Hivecults, Orks, T'au and Chaos among the threats, plus vehicles such as a Redemptor Dreadnought, Scout Sentinel and Leman Russ tank. Our standalone Deathwatch story goes deeper, but the trailer already makes the pitch clear: broader enemy variety, heavier toys and a tactical canvas that looks less narrow than another Grey Knights retread.
Honkai: Star Rail Version 4.3 points Blade toward a reckoning
Honkai: Star Rail's Version 4.3 trailer is dense in the usual HoYoverse way, but it has a clear center: Blade's story is moving toward a major turn. The update, titled The Lethe Below the Living, launches June 1 and continues the Planarcadia arc with the Trailblazer, Mortenax Blade, the World in Canvas and the shadow of Lord Ravager Asat Pramad.
HoYoverse's press announcement also confirms Mortenax Blade as a 5-star Fire character on the Path of Nihility, a Gift of Tempered Blade event, reruns for Yao Guang, Cyrene and Phainon and new event play around Wispae Amusement Park. For regular players, the trailer is less about a single feature than the sense that Version 4.3 is tying character drama, banners and endgame pressure into one busy June update.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 gets faster, bloodier and playable now
Boltgun 2 had one of the week's most useful gameplay trailers because it arrived with something players can actually try. Auroch Digital and Big Fan Games released a Steam demo during Skulls, with two levels playable as returning Ultramarine Malum Caedo or new Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath.
The Steam page lists a 2026 release and describes a branching single-player campaign with new weapons, enemies and locations. We recently covered the sequel's Chaos enemies and Death Korps of Krieg allies, but the trailer sells the immediate feel: strafing, chunky weapons, pixelated gore and a sequel that understands why the first Boltgun clicked with boomer-shooter fans.
Where Winds Meet opens the Imperial Palace
Where Winds Meet has always had scale on its side, and the Imperial Palace trailer leans into that strength. Everstone Studio's open-world wuxia RPG is moving from the Hexi expansion toward a royal court setting, with palace grounds, faction intrigue and a more political slice of 10th-century China.
The half-anniversary announcement says Imperial Palace launches in late May and opens a 1-million-square-meter palace space with more than 3,000 NPCs. The same roadmap points to homesteads, a companion system, five-player cooperative PvE, ancient tombs and Gauntlets as a future weapon. It is a live-service trailer, but it has the useful kind of specificity: a new place, a new social texture and more reasons to return beyond another reward track.
The Florist makes survival horror bloom in daylight
The Florist is the smaller trailer here that sticks in the mind. Unclear Games is making a fixed-camera survival horror game about Jessica Park arriving in the lakeside town of Joycliffe just as floral growth turns the place into something hostile, colorful and wrong.
Gematsu's overview via Unclear Games lists The Florist for PS5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC via Steam in 2026. The trailer's strongest idea is visual: it does not lean on the usual abandoned-hospital darkness. Joycliffe is bright, overgrown and pretty enough to feel unsafe in a different way. For players who miss fixed camera angles but want modern friction removed, the promise of unlimited inventory, autosave checkpoints and accessibility options is worth noticing.
KILLER INN opens the door with a free trial
KILLER INN is the week's strangest Square Enix trailer: a 24-player asymmetrical action shooter built around murder, deduction and social pressure inside an old castle. Wolves blend in and kill. Lambs gather clues such as hair, fingerprints and clothing to narrow down the suspects.
Square Enix's press release confirms the free trial has no playtime restriction, although trial players face limits around match eligibility and playable characters. Progress carries into the paid version, which is discounted until June 4, and the trial arrives alongside a NieR:Automata collaboration with 2B and 9S skins. The trailer is messy in a way that fits the pitch. If the deduction side holds up under real players, this could be more than another multiplayer curiosity.
What this week showed
This was a showcase-shaped week, but not a one-note one. Warhammer Skulls gave players several different answers to what a licensed Warhammer game can be in 2026 and 2027, from stealth platforming to tactical RPGs and throwback FPS chaos.
The rest of the week was about live games trying to stay legible. Pokémon TCG Pocket, Honkai: Star Rail and Where Winds Meet all used trailers to put dates, characters or spaces around updates that could otherwise become patch-note fog. The Florist and KILLER INN helped keep the week from becoming pure franchise gravity, and both looked sharper for arriving with a strong idea instead of just a familiar name.