All of the news. All at once.

This past week was video game conference season and as such was packed to the brim with video game announcements and news.  Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

Summer Game Fest

Sumer Game fest kicked off the week’s activities with gameplay for Mortal Kombat 1 taking place in a new canon created at the end of the last game. Alan Wake 2 showed off its pulpy scares and we saw a big chunk of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Marvels Spider-Man 2 got a firm release date of October 20 this year. Capcom announced the upcoming Exoprimal will have cross over content with Street Fighter 6 so you’ll finally be about to throw a hadouken at a t-rex. A zombie shooting and driving game called Toxic Commando is coming from legendary film director John Carpenter built on the same engine as Snowrunner so you can expect some serious vehicle physics.

Perhaps the most exciting of all was this (and many of the other events) had a stage and a crowd which we haven’t seen since before the pandemic. Which means a return of awkward presenters and surprise celebrities. Nicholas Cage graced the stage to wild applause to help announce that he is an upcoming character in the horror game Dead By Daylight.

Xbox

Microsoft was the only platform holder to hold an event this year and they had a lot to prove after securing so many developers under their belt in recent years.  The show started with footage from the new Fable which showed very little that could be considered gameplay but did feature comedian Richard Ayoade as a giant you will be fighting in the final game.

Compulsion games of We Happy Few fame revealed South of Midnight a heavily stylised game exploring folklore of the American deep south. RPG studios Obsidian and inXile showed off Avowed and Clockwork Revolution respectively. Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG where you play a powerful magic wielder and is described as closer in scope to The Outer Worlds than Elder Scrolls while Clockwork Revolution is a departure from inXile’s usual rpg style and shares many similarities with Bioshock infinite.

The new Forza Motorsport is on its way with a release date of the 10^th of October and Microsoft Flight Simulator is adding a slew of new features for it’s 2024 update including content based on the modern Dune films.

Atlus was represented heavily at Xbox’s showcase showing off 3 games that will all come to gamepass on day one. A remake of Persona 3 subtitled Reload, a tactics game Persona 5 Tactica and a new IP Metaphor: ReFantazio which looks to share many similarities with the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series.

Sea of Thieves is getting a new campaign based on Monkey Island!  It features many of the series characters and voices as well as recreated locations. The Legend of Monkey Island comes to Sea of Thieves on July 20^th

The show ended with a 45 minute deep dive into the incredibly ambitious Bethesda Sci Fi RPG Starfield.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft came out swinging with some big titles this year.  Star Wars Outlaws is a new open world 3^rd person action game based in the period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora based in James Cameron’s Avatar universe is a canon story that will fit in with the movies. You and a friend in co op can explore the world of pandora in first person, fighting the RDA and riding animals of the planet. It only looks a little bit like Far Cry.

While the remake of Prince of Persia Sands of time is still missing in action a new game in the series was revealed. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown takes the series back to its side scrolling routes but also moves to a metroidvania style structure with a focus on combat, fast action and time based magic.

Being Ubisoft they also had not one, not two but three  Assassin’s Creed games present! Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the more traditional title set for release later this year. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR is a new title being made for the meta quest and promises a full Assassin’s creed experience in VR. You must provide your own straw. Lastly the free to play title Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade will take players to China on their mobile device. You can register to be part of the playtest on the official website.

This is only a small amount of the games shown in the last week. If only there was a way to share more of them in a short time…

Game releases

Crime Boss: Rockay City (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S), Layers of Fear (2023) (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – June 16

F1 23 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Park Beyond (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – June 17

Aliens: Dark Descent (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Crash Team Rumble (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) – June 21

That was some news I guess!