To + verb in sentence without any other verb

From time to time I come across a sentence with to + verb, but with no other verb in it. I see it often in news titles. For example:

Squall, Tina and Lightning to appear in Final Fantasy Explorers

But what does it mean? What is the difference between this form, and that:

Squall, Tina and Lightning are appearing in Final Fantasy Explorers

The first time I saw that, I thought it was a mistake.

Solution 1:

The example you quote is not grammatically correct, but it's not a mistake. It's an unofficial abbreviated form of English often called 'headlinese', used for newspaper headlines and similar statements. Words that would be commonly understood are removed (such as the 'are' in your example) so that the headline can fit in the available space, and so that the font can be as large as possible while getting the meaning across.