I have to give Sony the award for most oddly paced press conference of E3 2014. Sony had a strong showing in the first half, then a lull with a bump in the form of Mortal Kombat X gameplay, then a huge dip again with a strong finish. The most confused I’ve been all day. With that said, there were a lot of cool announcements that I’m very excited for going forward.
Sony kicked off the show with a new gameplay and story trailer for Destiny,the first person sci-fi shooter from Bungie. The company announced several exclusive content offerings throughout the night, including the beta which will be available on July 17. However, I think it’s only a timed exclusive, so both consoles will get into the beta.
The press conference went right into a gameplay demo of The Order 1886, which looked great. It was a little different than some of the gameplay footage shown earlier this year. Instead of the cover based shooter this game is known to be, there was some creepier, survival horror vibes coming from the latest demo. I’m very interested to see more from this title over the coming year leading up to its release.
Sony did have a great showing of indie titles, which is again a theme of E3 this year, much like last year. One of the titles announced was Entwined, which according to its developers, will explore two souls in love but can’t be together. Sony announced that the game will be available tonight, for $9.99, a nice surprise for indie game lovers. Sony also announced Abzu, a game from Giant Squid Studios, made by Journey’s artist and composer, Matt Nava and Austin Wintory. The game is set underwater but not much is known outside of that. I instantly fell in love with the game as it was clear that Journey developers were producing Abzu.
Another indie game that stole the show was No Man’s Sky, from Hello Games. It’s a space exploration title with a procedurally generated universe. The gameplay trailer showcased smooth transitions between planets and space. I was immediately attracted to its sense of exploration, so hopefully Hello Games can dive in soon to what players will be doing in terms of gameplay.
There were a few surprise announcements coming from Sony tonight, something I think was missing from press conferences earlier today. The first one was the announcement of Little Big Planet 3. Although for me, the even bigger announcement was that the game is coming out in November. It’s nice to see a new game announcement slated for a 2014 release as most titles at this year’s E3 are set for 2015. Some of the new features shown was class based gameplay, which will more than likely open up the user generated content in some very cool ways. There was also the announcement of Dead Island 2 from Deep Silver, and developer Yager, which produced Spec Ops: The Line. Nothing was shown of the game other than a teaser trailer.
We also saw the announcement of a remastered version of Grim Fandango, a beloved adventure game from Tim Schafer. I was anxious all night to hear what Double Fine was doing at the Sony Press Conference. Happy to see this announcement since I never played Grim Fandango back in 1998.
While not a surprise, the new From Software project was announced. Originally known as Project Beast, the much anticipated game was announced as Bloodborne. It was disappointing not to see any gameplay though, as this game was already known to be in development. Right now, it seems like it is a spiritual successor to Demon Souls. We will surely hear more over the next few months, especially at Tokyo Game Show at the end of summer.
All of that sounds great, right? Well Sony decided to slow down the pace with boring statistic talk, and the announcement of a TV show based on the comic book, Powers. Now, I’m sure the comic book is great, and the show will probably be solid, but it really ruined the pace of the show. I mean damn, that first hour was great but I can’t figure out why Sony thought it was good idea to slow it down. Then there was the trailer for the Ratchet & Clank movie, which is cool and all but right now, I don’t think a whole lot of people wanted to see that.
Mortal Kombat X saved the day, however, and I was very thankful for it. I already love the series, but the gameplay demo got me excited for the future of Mortal Kombat. It was pretty gross though, even for Mortal Kombat standards which is notoriously known as one of the most violent gaming franchises around.
We got the announcement that GTA V is heading over to PS4, Xbox One and PC tonight. Pretty cool, especially since players can transfer their online characters to new versions of the game, as announced during the Sony press conference. The game looked great in the PS4 trailer, which is saying a lot considering how great it looked on the PS3 and Xbox 360. That game is due out this Fall.
Rocksteady showed gameplay footage of Batman Arkham Knight. It looked great, which I think everyone can expect from Rocksteady. The demo was a great way of pulling us out of the lull, but Sony had one more game to announce.
Well, it wasn’t much of announcement, since we already knew it existed, but a teaser trailer was shown for Uncharted 4. This time, we got the full title: Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End. What does that mean? Is this the end for Nathan Drake? sully? The series? I guess we will find out in 2015.
Some extra bullet points from the show:
- Sucker Punch announced stand-alone story DLC for InFamous Second Son.
- We finally saw gameplay of Far Cry 4. The demo revealed co-op gameplay for the story. Sony also announced that players that own the game can invite their friends to play Far Cry 4 even if they don’t own it themselves. Adam Boyes, who made the announcement didn’t really dive into what that means, so hopefully we learn more about that soon.
- Suda 51 is working on an exclusive title for PS4. From the looks of the teaser, it will be a violent multiplayer game.
- Sony talked about Project Morpheus, their own VR headset. Hard to demonstrate that thing on stage. Expect hands on impressions of the headset later this week.
- Youtube is coming to PS4 later this year.
- PlayStation TV coming to the United States and Canada this fall. It will run for $99 in the states.
- PlayStation Now will go live with a open public beta on July 31, with 100 PS3 games available.
- Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain english trailer was shown.
- Sony said The Last of Us for PS4 is coming July 29.
Overall the show was solid. A lot of games were shown off, and for the most part, that made up for the mid-show lull. I’m very excited about everything Sony showed off during their press conference.
