Tag: Summer Game Fest

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!

This week in gaming news

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3 has come and gone for another year and in its, and other non-official event’s wake we have a mountain of game news and announcements.

Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighly’s alternative E3 program kicked off the major events of the week starting with an announcement of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Gearbox’s High Fantasy Borderlands’ spinoff staring Tiny Tina. A splattering of other announcements followed including Jeff Goldblum introducing us to Jurassic World Evolution 2, Hideo Kojima announcing Death Stranding Director’s Cut for PS5 and finally the major reveal of footage from Elden Ring, the long-awaited new game by From Software in collaboration with the writer George R.R. Martin which will launch January 19 2022.

Ubisoft hit the ground running showing off gameplay for the latest Far Cry game starring Giancarlo Esposito as well as the upcoming DLC’s which will allow players to play as the antagonists from several of the other games in the series and includes a remastered copy of Blood Dragon. More details for the extreme sports game Rider  s Republic were shown along with the PvE spin off of Rainbow Six Siege, Extraction which will pit the operators against an alien force. A new version of Rocksmith was announced called Rocksmith+, a guitar playing and teaching service that will allow player to use their real instruments and their phone or microphones to connect. The game supports electric, acoustic and bass guitar and you can currently sign up to a beta for the service online. A sequel to the 2017 hit Mario + Rabbids was announced subtitled Sparks of Hope with Mario and his strange collection of Rabbid dopplegangers going on a new cosmic scale adventure. The final announcement for Ubisoft was a reveal of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora a game set in James Cameron’s Avatar universe made by Massive Entertainment who are most well-known for The Division.

Microsoft started their event with the first footage of Bethesda’s long-awaited RPG Starfield. While we are still yet to see gameplay from the title, we were given a glimpse at the universe we will be exploring and details that it is currently slated for release in late 2022 as an Xbox and PC exclusive. The Outer Worlds 2 was announced as early in development, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was shown off with a release of next year along with sequels to Slime Rancher and A Plague Tale. Halo Infinite was confirmed to be release later this year with the multiplayer being made free to play for everyone to enjoy. Forza Horizon 5 was shown with its new Mexican location. Sea of Thieves has a story based cross over in the Pirates of the Caribbean universe coming very soon called A Pirates Life featuring Jack Sparrow and other characters from the film franchise. And the show finished on a reveal of Arcane’s new game Redfall an open world co-op shooter featuring magic, vampires and a lot of style.

Square Enix announced Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy a single player 3^rd person adventure where the player controls Star-Lord leading his band of misfits across the universe. It is being developed by Eidos Montreal best known for the modern Deus Ex games and is set for release on October 26. There was also a look at Platinumgames’ new live-service game Babylon’s Fall, the new Life is Strange True Colors and a reveal of the Final Fantasy action spin off Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin.

Nintendo apologised that they had no details to share on Metroid Prime 4 but quickly followed up with a reveal of Metroid 5, which is also known as Metroid Dread a title originally in development for the DS 15 years ago which was cancelled due to technical limitations. Mario Party Superstars a collection of boards and minigames from the N64 era was announced along with a remake of Advance Wars 1 and 2 titled Re-Boot Camp. Wario is back with WarioWare: Get it Together a new take on the microgames format with a focus on 2 player games. We got a closer look at Shin Megami Tensei V’s hellish version of demonic otherworld Tokyo which will see release in November. The Nintendo show closed with a look at some Zelda announcements. DLC for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the remaster of Skyward Sword which releases in July and a new Game & Watch device that includes the original versions of The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventures of Link and Link’s Awakening along with an altered version of Vermin that includes Link. We finally got a glimpse at Breath of the Wild 2 which will see Link adventuring into the sky above    Hyrule and utilise a multitude of new powers and tools.

Now that the show is over you can check out many of the games on both Steam and Xbox live. The Steam Next fest will run until June 22^nd and included hundreds of demos of unreleased games while Microsoft has released 40 game demos from its ID@Xbox lineup.

The Week in game releases

June 22 – Dark Alliance (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (Switch, PC), Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, Stadia, PC)

June 24 – Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC), Legend of Mana (PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), The Eternal Castle Remastered (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4)