Today Sony hosted their “The Future of Gaming Show” for the PlayStation 5, which revealed a litany of games slated to appear on the console. It was a pre-recorded video, and locked to 1080p/30 FPS (though the company promised to have more videos of each title at 4K uploaded in the near future). Let’s go ahead and breakdown what was revealed.
The show opened with the console review, which was concealed in a white box that slowly transformed into the iconic Triangle, Circle, Cross, and Square symbols. After all four were revealed it segued into a quick history of PlayStation sizzle-reel that highlighted many of the popular exclusives seen since the PS3 days. This was followed by a trailer for GTA V. Why an older, well-established game? Well . . . it’s coming to the PlayStation 5, enhanced, and GTA Online will be free to PlayStation 5 owners. Tepid start, but the show quickly moved on to a speech from Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Entertainment.
Ryan spoke a bit, but the stream rolled into a slew of reveals starting with Spiderman: Miles Morales (Spiderverse fans rejoice), and it will be a launch title. After, we were shown Gran Turismo 7, with footage from it’s new campaign mode, including the home and editor UIs. Admittedly, at 1080p, the newest Gran Turismo looked great, but it didn’t quite feel “next-gen” compared to what we’ve seen from current racing titles like Forza. Again, trick of the resolution, and I’m sure the game sings at 4K.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHzuHo80U2M
After Gran Turismo 7 a new Ratchet and Clank was shown off, and it appears the duo have found them self-selves stuck in some multidimensional shenanigans (if you ever wanted to see an alternate universe female Ratchet, cause she made an appearance at the end). If the footage shown here was in real-time then, yeah, that was “next-gen.” Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart was then given a full gameplay trailer (like, an honest-to-God gameplay trailer with UI, though it transitioned between scenes quite a bit), and the game was confirmed to be in development by Insomniac.
After Ratchet and Clank we moved on to Square Enix’s next title from Luminous Studios, Project Athia. It certainly looked stellar (choppy framerate aside), and was designed exclusively for PlayStation 5 (and in a later Tweet, Gary Whitta of Rogue One fame announced he and other writers are contributing towards the project). The show then moved on to Bluetwelve and Annapurna Interactive’s next title, Stray , featuring what appeared to be a post-human robot civilization (and all the robots had old-school CRT-style heads). That said, it looks like a regular house-cat is the playable character, and it will come out in 2021.
It was here that the show talked more about the console, but it didn’t really share anything we didn’t already know. We saw the already known buzzwords trotted out, like “ray-tracing” and “4K HDR”, and the controller was given a moment in the spotlight. Once the tech-jargon was out of the way Hermet Hulst, Head of Worldwide Studios, hyped up the power of the PS5 a bit before Housemarque’s next game, Returnal, was shown off. A crashed pilot voiced by who sounds like Sigourney Weaver narrated her struggles on an alien planet that is slowly consuming her mind. It’s ultimately a third-person shooter with some horror sensibilities, and perhaps even some Metroidvania flavoring thrown in.
Sackboy, A Big Adventure was then given some time to shine, a platformer featuring the titular mascot from Little-Big Planet. No word on if creation will play a role in Sackboy, A Big Adventure, but it does appear to feature four-player coop. Lucid’s futuristic demolition derby racer Destruction Allstars was shown next. The Footage showed off some impressive destruction, and racers leaving their cars to sabotage their opponents.
Josh and Mike Grier from Ember Lab then revealed their game, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, which looked much like an animated film than a game in the trailer (not surprising, given their background in animation). That’s not a slight: that’s how visually impressive the trailer was. The bit of gameplay we did see showed off a good ole’ fashioned action-platformer, but with a healthy dose of charm.
Goodbye Volcano High was shown off after, which also looked like an animated short, though more Stephen Universe with humanoid high-schooler dinosaurs. Oddworld Inhabitants revealed their next Oddworld title after, Oddworld: Soulstorm. Abe is back, and gameplay looked familiar to previous games, yet that doesn’t mean it hasn’t evolved over the years.
A new trailer for Ghostwire: Tokyo from Tango Gameworks was given room to breath, showing off more of the ghostly and macabre setting. The game will be in first person, and you’ll be tasked with combating and removing the spirits causing Toyko no shortage of grief. The game will release sometime 2021.
The show then transitioned to Superbrothers’ next game, Jett: The Far Shore , and it appears the audio-visual experience will be as evocative here as it was in Sword and Sorcery EP. Instead of a fantasy setting, Jett is a sci-fi game, and will launch Holiday 2020. Gearbox and Counterplay then showed more of their next game, Godfall, a third-person melee brawler featuring pseudo sci-fi mythical creatures and gods. It will launch Holiday 2020.
The next game from the creator’s of Hyper Light Drifter then had a moment to reveal their upcoming title, Solar Ash which shares a similar look to Hyper Light Drifter (and soundtrack), but in full-fat 3D (and I swear the voice in the trailer was Rebecca Ford, but that could just be me having dumped too many hours into Warframe as of late). It will launch sometime in 2021.
IO Interactive came after Solar Ash to announce the next Hitman game, Hitman III, with a cinematic trailer that emphasized a story. It will land January 2021, and conclude the World of Assassination trilogy. A brief “gameplay” segment followed, featuring Agent 47 doing what he does best in Dubai. By brief, I mean brief.Â
After we where shown the next Playroom title that will likely drop with the PlayStation 5, Astro’s Playroom. This entry appeared to have a bit more meat on the bones, so we’ll see how it pans out. After the short trailer neostream’s fantastical action-adventure game Little Devil Inside made its debut, transitioning between an old man living a dull, regular life in the city and a younger man exploring a land of medieval myth and wonder.
NBA 2K21 came after, and the trailer was apparently recorded from actual PlayStation 5 footage. It was graphically impressive, and will drop Fall 2020, but it didn’t really show much off in terms of gameplay. NBA 2K21 was followed by the next game Octodad developer Young Horses’, though this time it looks like the game will be less of a physics gag and more of an actual platformer. Plot-twist, all the bugs in Bugsnax were made of food.
Shuhei Yoshida then came on to reveal none than the long-rumored Demon’s Souls remake, which I will admit sent chills down my spine. It looks absolutely stunning with modern graphics, and will hopefully run at a far better framerate. Bluepoint was confirmed to be behind the remake, alongside Japan Studio.
Arkane then came on to show more of their time-locked assassin thriller, Deathloop, and the gameplay had some heavy BioShock vibes. In Deathloop you will need to try and break out of the time-loop you found yourself in (and escape all the inhabitants and fellow assassin hunting you). The trailer was rather meaty, and the gameplay shown off didn’t disappoint.
The next reveal was for all the horror fans in the audience, showing a mix of classic Gothic horror, folk terror, and classic monsters. The game’s title was revealed at the end: Village – otherwise known as RESIDENT EVIL VIII! Yep, we’ll once again be controlling Ethan in first-person, and even Chris Redfield made an appearance at the end (looking more like the Chris we know and love than he did in RE VII I’d argue).
Once that reveal was out of the way the show rolled on to Pragmata, where an astronaut patrolled post apocalyptic New York, though this one got weird quick. A little girl who could create matter, an astronaut with on a mission, and a gravity altering satellite. It’ll come 2022, so expect to learn more details further down the road.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West was finally revealed after, though we got to see some actual life in the cinematic that wasn’t entirely mechanical. Aloy will return, and this time around she’s looking to save the entire world from the major force revealed at the end of the first game. She can transverse underwater now, and it appears the entire west coast of America will be in play here (we see San Fran and what appears to be Las Vegas) will play a major role in Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West. So, if you though the first game was large, brace yourself.
Before ending the show we finally got a look at the console itself, and if you made fun of the Xbox Series X for looking like a fridge then I’ve got news for you: the PlayStation 5 is also a tower! Well, not as fat or rectangular as the Series X, but it appears you’ll need the stand if you want the console to lie down flat (so, try not to lose it). If the screenshot opening this article wasn’t any indication, the console is sleek, though Sony did not reveal a price or hard release date (other than “later this year”). Also, the PlayStation 5 DIGITAL EDITION was revealed, which omits the disc drive, meaning it should retail for less (though, I still wanna know Sony’s streaming plans, seeing as everyone is jumping on that bandwagon).
That was the end of the show. Now we have a better idea what to expect from Sony later this year. Hopefully we get some 4K trailers up soon, but for now we at least know not only what the console looks like, but what the launch and post-launch library looks like. If you’d like to see it all for yourself I’ve shared the full video below (it’s over an hour long, by the way). Now that we’ve seen both consoles and a line-up of exclusives from Sony the ball is back in Microsoft’s court. Safe to say the hype-trains have left the station.
