This year at Sony’s E3 Press Conference, they decided to put on quite the show. There focus this year was on the games. Now, you may be thinking, “Well duh, it is a game conference.” But this year it was just games, with very little talking in between. Just trailer after trailer after trailer, with some gameplay as well. To me, this was a pleasant surprise. Sony brought some old familiar faces and dropped some new IPs for the future. Here is the rundown:
Sony started things off with a live orchestra followed by their first gameplay demo. We weren’t sure if this was something new or what until a mysterious man stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself as a grizzled bearded Kratos. That’s right, the God of War is back and having literally killed all of Greek mythology, he has decided to tackle Norse mythology instead. It appears to be a sequel but it could also be a soft reboot or retelling. We’ll have to wait for more details.
Next, we got a trailer for Days Gone, a post apocalyptic zombie-esque game about a biker. That’s really all I could tell you since the trailer didn’t show a whole lot (more on it later) but I was picking up a The Last of Us vibe. Then we got another trailer for The Last Guardian with an actual release date! The Last Guardian is set to release October 25, 2016.
We got a gameplay demo for Horizon: Zero Dawn. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It’s a good looking game, and the demo showed off some crafting, dialogue choices, machine animal riding (you have to watch the demo to understand that) and some combat. Looks like it’ll at least be a decent game.
One of my Dark Horse picks of the Sony Conference was Quantic Dreams’ Detroit: Become Humans. The trailer shows off how your character deals with situations and how your choices effect the outcome. They showed off a lot of different choices that had different outcomes, and that’s got me excited. These guys made Heavy Rain so I know they know how to but in branching choices, but I’m hoping that this game can really do that and give a lot of different outcomes that effect the story like the trailer is alluding at.
What looked like another P.T. demo turned out to be the next installment of the Resident Evil Series with Resident Evil 7. This looks to be going back fully to its horror roots, maybe even going supernatural, and it will also be fully compatible with Sony’s VR set. I don’t know if the non VR version will be fully first person or if the trailer was just trying to hype up VR, we’ll have to wait and see. Playstation users will also be able to play the demo for RE7 now. RE7 is set to release January 24, 2017.
Speaking of VR, after the RE7 trailer Sony announced the price and release date for is VR headset. The Playstation VR will release on October 13, 2016 and will cost $399 and have 50 VR games by the end of this year. Some games announced for the VR, but without any release dates at this time, includ Farpoint, a new first person shooter, Star Wars Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission, and Batman: Arkham VR.
Something many longtime Playstation owners have been clamoring for was dropped… sort of. Crash Bandicoot is back baby! Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, and 3 are being remastered from the ground up. Crash will also be appearing in Skylanders Imaginators.
We also got a new Final Fantasy XV with some really cool action scenes and the reveal that it will also have a VR mode. Judging by the trailer, this seems to be a separate thing from the actual story proper. Not sure exactly what it will be but if you are getting a VR set it could be something to check out. Sony seems to really be doubling down on the whole Virtual Reality. FFXV is set to release September 30, 2016.
Remember one of the most downvoted videos in history was the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite War? Well Sony showed off some gameplay in space… I don’t know, it looked pretty interesting. Activision definitely needs to change up the formula and take the series in a different direction than just further and further into the future, but this seems alright. There was also the reveal the Playstation users with get the Modern Warfare Remaster 30 days before anyone else.
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens got a nice little trailer. IF you like the Lego Game series this looks like another must have. It also got a release date of June 28. A demo is available on the PS4 if you are interested in trying it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux_dI0sH5M8
My other dark horse pick… and I can’t even really explain it. Hideo Kajima (need I say more?) is free from Konami and has teamed up with Sony and brought us Death Stranding. It has a naked Norman Reedus and a baby connected to him by some sort of metal umbilical cord and dead sea life all around him and something way off in the background… it’s weird! And I’m so intrigued to see what Kojima can do outside of Metal Gear Solid. Thank you to IZUNIY for uploading a good quality of the trailer.
And for my favorite reveal (light horse pick?). Insomnia, creators of the Infamous series, is making a Spiderman game exclusively for the PS4. Insomnia really knows how to make an open world superhero game and what the showed in this trailer really looks good. We’ll have to wait and see but as of now this is what I am looking forward to the most.
Lastly, Sony finished off a demo of Days Gone. I still didn’t get a whole lot from this other than they are using the fast running/climbing zombies. Still got a big The Last of Us vibe which may or may not be good.
If you want to watch the press conference in it’s entirety you can watch it here. The actual conference starts at 30 min in. Before and after is a little bit of Sony’s show before hand. E3 is just getting underway stay tuned for more E3 news