Gaming

Tides of Annihilation: Inside the Gamescom 2026 Demo

A clear look at the combat, knight summons, gear, and bosses shown in Eclipse Glow Games' Arthurian action-adventure.

A clear look at the combat, knight summons, gear, and bosses shown in Eclipse Glow Games’ Arthurian action-adventure.

Tides of Annihilation is a third-person action-adventure set in a ruined, fog-shrouded London warped by an Outworld invasion. You play as Gwendolyn, the city’s last survivor, moving between the wreckage of London and the mythical realm of Avalon while summoning fallen Knights of the Round Table to fight beside you. The Gamescom 2026 build put its combat, exploration, gear systems, and multi-phase boss fights on display for the first public playtest.

Quick answer: Tides of Annihilation is a fast-paced hack-and-slash from Eclipse Glow Games, coming to PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It has no confirmed release date. The Gamescom 2026 demo featured branching paths, gear customization, and bosses including Anubis, Mordred, and Gerent.


Tides of Annihilation setting, platforms, and cast

The game leans on Arthurian legend but drops it into a Neo-Medieval version of modern London. Landmarks are distorted, lifeforms are transformed, and colossal knights roam Greater London as both threats and traversal challenges. Gwendolyn’s journey ties into saving her family, restoring the city, and deciding the fate of reality itself, with her origin and powers unraveling as the story goes.

Gwendolyn stands amid a fog-covered ruined London under a broken skyline
Gwendolyn explores a ruined, fog-covered London at the start of the demo. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Angela Sant’Albano voices Gwendolyn. The game runs on Unreal Engine 5 and is built for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. You can find the official product listing on the Steam store page.


Combat: dodging, combos, and executions

Combat is built around fast, high-speed swordplay rather than slow, defensive Souls-like trades. The core toolkit covers locking on, switching targets, dodging, and stringing basic combos. Enemies build a stagger meter, and once they are staggered you can trigger a high-damage execution to finish them quickly.

Gwendolyn locks on and lands a sword combo against an enemy during the combat tutorial
The basic-actions tutorial covers lock-on, target switching, dodging, and combos. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Timing matters against tougher foes. Boss and elite attacks that flash red can be parried, and many enemies have specific weak points to target. When an enemy is opened up, an R1 counterattack or execution prompt appears so you can convert the opening into heavy damage.

Player attacks an Aett enemy with an R1 counterattack and execution prompt on screen
An R1 counterattack and execution prompt appears while fighting an Aett enemy. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Summoning the Knights of the Round Table

Gwendolyn’s signature mechanic is calling in spectral Knights of the Round Table to fight alongside her. Each knight brings its own Main Knight Skills and Sub Knight Skills, and you can mix their abilities into cooperative attacks. Sub-Knights can be summoned for ranged support during a fight, which helps against enemies you cannot easily close on.

Tutorial prompt to summon a Sub-Knight for ranged attacks during combat in a shattered arena
A tutorial prompt shows how to summon a Sub-Knight for ranged attacks. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Knights become “Sworn Knights” only after you beat them as bosses. Defeating a boss knight unlocks that character as a summon you can then deploy in combat and use to clear environmental obstacles. Named knights shown in the demo include Gaheris, Palamedes, and Bedivere, with the game promising a roster of more than ten summonable knights across the full campaign.


Exploration and Fog Sense

Fog Sense is the exploration tool that highlights interactive objects in the environment. Activating it reveals ziplines, climbable vines, chests, and other points of interest so you can route through ruined halls and courtyards. You can also fire a bow to create or activate ziplines and reach higher ground.

Traversal and puzzles are tied together in the demo. Reaching the museum meant scaling vines and ziplining across broken architecture, then aligning laser mechanisms on Anubis statues in the Egyptian Gallery to trigger a stone tablet. Summoned knights double as puzzle tools, moving heavy obstacles and breaking barriers to open sealed doors.

A Knight's Memories notification for Grand Commander's Will prompts a long-press to view
A Knight’s Memories entry, “Grand Commander’s Will,” can be viewed with a long press. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Gear, gauntlets, and Fog Runes

Customization runs across outfits, gauntlets, weapons, and runes. Outfits, called Regalia, cover cosmetic sets like Crimson Rose Regalia, Gilded Night Regalia, Immortal Sands Regalia, and the default Survivor’s Attire. Gauntlets carry defensive stats and unique perks you buy from a store, while weapons scale your attack power and can be socketed with runes.

Attire menu previewing Immortal Sands Regalia with its description and character model
The attire menu previews Immortal Sands Regalia on Gwendolyn’s model. Image credit: Eclipse Glow Games

Weapons hold up to four Fog Runes, one in each socket position, to raise stats such as attack power, vitality, and defense. Here is how the gear shown in the demo breaks down:

ItemKey statEffect
Skyward GauntletsDefense 24 (Price 150)Reduces damage taken while airborne
Fogbound GauntletsDefense 20 (Price 150)Restores health the first time Gwen drops below 50%; resets at an Oathblade Throne
Curved DeathbladeAttack 100Life Steal rises as health falls, up to 15%
SkycleaverAttack 110Increases damage to airborne targets
Rejuvenation ElixirPrice 150Fully restores health and raises Max Health by 25% for 90s

Oathblade Thrones and healing

Checkpoints are called Oathblade Thrones. Resting at one restores your health, refills the Cauldron of Abundance (your healing item supply), and respawns common enemies in the area. Some gauntlet perks, like the Fogbound Gauntlets’ one-time heal, also refresh when you rest, so returning to a throne resets those effects for the next stretch.


Bosses in the Gamescom demo

Boss fights run through multiple phases, with parryable red-flash attacks and weak points to exploit. The Egyptian Gallery leads into a fight against a giant golden winged Anubis that uses sandstorms and holy-light strikes, and defeating it drops the party into a desert. The library confrontation with Mordred shifts into a second phase where she becomes a winged crystalline form and moves the battle into a floating void arena.

BossNotes
AnubisMuseum Egyptian Gallery; multi-phase, sandstorm and holy-light attacks
MordredLibrary duel with a winged crystalline second phase in a floating arena
RedendFought in the desert environment alongside puzzles
GerentNoted as the hardest boss in the Gamescom demo
Darknight IkaFeatured among the demo’s encounters

The full game is set to include more than 30 unique bosses, several drawn from Knights of the Round Table lore, plus the towering colossal knights you can scale and battle across the city.


Release status and PC features

Tides of Annihilation does not have a release date. Its first public demo debuted at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, marking the studio’s first global playtest, and a new trailer premiered at Gamescom Opening Night Live. On PC, the game is planned to support path tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation. Until Eclipse Glow Games confirms a launch window, the Gamescom build remains the most complete look at how the game plays.