Thought Golf With Your Friends 2 Was Dead? It's Not

A game teased a couple of years ago, then left to rot in silence long enough for most people to assume it was quietly cancelled, just showed up at the ID@Xbox Showcase yesterday like nothing happened. Golf With Your Friends 2 is real, it has a Fall 2026 release window, and it's coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam, and Switch 2 with full cross-platform multiplayer.

Team17 and developer Radical Forge made the announcement during the showcase, confirming up to 12 players can join a single match across all platforms. That last part matters. The original Golf With Your Friends lacked cross-play entirely, which meant convincing your whole friend group to own it on the same platform or not bothering at all. Cross-play being baked in from day one is exactly the kind of baseline feature I keep saying should be standard, and I'm glad they're not treating it as some post-launch addition.

What's Actually New

Six new courses are confirmed, and each one is built around its own gameplay mechanic rather than just offering a different coat of paint. Gravity shifts, physics-bending traversal, environmental twists; the idea is that no two courses play the same way. There's also a revamped level editor that Radical Forge says gives players more control and better tools for building and sharing custom courses. If the community tools are good enough, that alone could give the game legs well beyond launch, which is something the original managed through a steady drip of DLC content over years.

On the cosmetics front, Golf With Your Friends 2 is introducing "Hole Explosions," celebratory visual effects that trigger on a successful putt, alongside a progression system where every cosmetic is unlockable through gameplay. No purchases required. I want to highlight that because it's increasingly rare. A party game shipping in 2026 with a clear "play to unlock everything" model and zero microtransaction pressure deserves to be called out as the right call, especially when so many competitors would have slapped a battle pass on this without thinking twice.

The contrast between how this game disappeared and how it's now being presented is striking. There was no roadmap update, no "hey, we're still working on this" blog post during the long silence. It just vanished. That kind of communication gap is the exact thing that makes players write a game off, and I suspect a lot of people believed this sequel was dead. Showing up at a major showcase with a concrete release window and a feature-complete pitch is a strong way to course-correct, but the radio silence beforehand didn't need to happen.

The original Golf With Your Friends carved out a surprisingly durable niche as a go-to party game, partly because Team17 kept feeding it content for years after launch. If the sequel can replicate that support while delivering on the level editor and cross-play promises, it has a real shot at becoming the default mini-golf game for mixed-platform friend groups. Fall 2026 is the target, and the Steam page is live now for wishlisting, though no exact date has been set.