Sony’s PlayStation E3 2018Â press conference has come and gone, giving fans around the world a taste of what’s to come in the future — and it’s a pretty damn good one. Yes, there weren’t as many reveals when compared to Microsoft, but Sony was wise to emphasize what it really needed to show off this year: gameplay.
Indeed, with games such as The Last of Us Part II, Spider-Man, Death Stranding and Control, there was a good deal to be excited about. Per usual, some of the announcements were better than others, so let’s get down to it shall we? Here is the good, bad and ugly of Sony’s PlayStation E3 press conference:
The Good
The Last Of Us Part II
Sony started off strong right out of the gate by showing us a trailer for The Last Of Us Part II featuring Ellie.
Things start off sweet and simple, with Ellie enjoying a normal life at a dance with a girl named Deena. However, things soon take a dark and brutal turn when the trailer immediately cuts to some gameplay where Ellie is alone in the wilderness.
During this segment, we see a whole new set of features that weren’t present in the original, like being able to craft different types of arrowheads, using silencers on your firearms and even being able to dodge enemy attacks during combat. In addition, since Ellie is older now, she can actually fight enemies head-on and not immediately find herself overwhelmed. This is definitely for the best, as from what we’ve seen so far, the enemies are intelligent, very meticulous in their search when they know the player is nearby but can’t find them and absolutely relentless when they find you.
After a final scene where Ellie decapitates what looks like an enemy lieutenant, everything quickly pans back to the dance where Ellie is finishing her kiss with Deena.
If anything, this trailer illustrates that there is some level of normalcy in the world — however fleeting it is. Great stuff.
Death Stranding Gameplay!?
Who would have thought we’d actually see gameplay for Death Stranding?
Unfortunately, the new trailer leaves us with more questions than answers. What’s the lore behind the world? What are those mysterious entities that accelerate the time of whatever they touch? Why does Tom’s equipment include a baby inside a yellow pod?
Hopefully Hideo Kojima offers more info in the coming months (TGS 2018?).
As for now, all I can say is that I’m happy that this game is legitimately progressing.
Resident Evil 2 Remake
It’s been three years since Capcom announced it would be making a remake of Resident Evil 2, and we finally got to see a trailer for it.
Honestly, more gameplay would have been great to see, but just knowing that Capcom is focusing its efforts on this game now is more than enough to make it one of the highlights of the presentation. Seriously, what is there not to love about Resident Evil 2 with Resident Evil 4-style gameplay?
That said, there was one surprise: the game is coming very soon — Jan. 25, 2019.
Control
Remember a game called Psi-Ops on the PlayStation 2? Well, it’s back in the form of a new game called Control.
Control puts you in control (heh) of a woman named Jesse Fadens who uses a combination of firearms and psychic powers to dispatch her enemies. We don’t know much in terms of setting or story, but if this game has even a fraction of the options that was present in Psi-Ops (different weapons and psychic powers), then it will be a winner.
Color me intrigued.
Oh right, Control is due out in 2019, so hopefully we’ll learn more about it in the coming months.
The Bad
I must sound like a broken record at this point, but there wasn’t anything bad with Sony’s PlayStation E3 presentation this year. I was watching it with my younger brother who complained about the amount of games shown, but I was more than happy with what we saw because there was a good deal of new gameplay for the titles that needed them, such as The Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix should have shown this during its presentation this morning) and Death Stranding.
If anything, the weakest part of the presentation was what wasn’t revealed.
No Mortal Kombat 11?
NetherRealm Studios has made a habit of announcing a new Mortal Kombat during PlayStation E3 conferences in the past, but there was no announcement this year despite the time being seemingly perfect for one.
Seriously, MK XL was released in 2016 and its other main game in circulation, Injustice 2, seems to nearing the end of its lifespan.
There’s still a few days left of E3, so NetherRealm revealing a new Mortal Kombat at a later time is still a possibility — it would be unusual though.
Ahead Of Its Time
Maybe I’ll talk about this in greater length in a future article, but I’ll just go ahead and get this off my chest: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale should have been a 2018/2019 title revealed during this year’s conference.
Compared to 2012 when it was actually released, 2018/2019 would have suited it far better. Why? Because many of PlayStation’s iconic characters are actually relevant now.
Crash Bandicoot and Spyro are back in action, while Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper and Ratchet & Clank are all present on the either the PlayStation 4 or Vita. What’s more, Sony can still use God of War, Uncharted, Devil May Cry, InFAMOUS and an assortment of other PlayStation-exclusive IPs it wants to market (The Last of Us?), making for a far more coherent game than the one we got all those years ago.
Honestly, I can easily see a fully-fleshed out game of this nature going head-to-head with Super Smash Brothers so long as the game isn’t riddled with bugs and busted characters.
The Ugly
The Last Of Us Part II (Again)
How brutal was the gameplay we saw? Between the decapitations, stabbing and executions, it seems Naughty Dog made it their goal to make TLOU: II even more grotesque than its predecessor.
And guess what? They’re doing a bloody good job of it. I seriously can’t wait to see what Naughty Dog shows us next.
On a somewhat related note: Where’s Joel?
Finale
That’s it for the good, bad and ugly of Sony’s PlayStation E3 event. What were your favorite (and least favorite) parts of the event? Do you think Sony did a good job overall? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Published: Jun 11, 2018 11:26 pm