This year’s E3 had a bunch of surprises and big moments, but there still wasn’t anything is fill the void of a missing conference. While Square Enix has shown off their big PlayStation titles of Final Fantasy 7 remake, and we got to see a huge showing from upcoming games for the PlayStation, but still, I am left wondering about the huge titles that Sony has yet to reveal much about. Death Stranding got what I guess qualifies as information about it in terms as information about Death Stranding goes, but we still have two big releases coming, and no information about any of them. Compared to Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, we ironically know more about Hideo Kojima’s fever dream project.
In retrospect, it is amazing how little we really know or have seen from any of these three games, and is mostly being carried by the Sony brand, but that is not enough, we need to see these games Sony.
While Sony exclusive games do have a very strong track record, they are not impervious. A recent example would be Days Gone, a decent game with some good ideas, but muddled with writing inconsistencies, technical issues, and odd pacing. And let us not forget Knack. So while I trust that Sony will make a good game, I will remain optimistically cautious. That is not to say that The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima don’t look amazing because they still are, but we need meat. The Last of Us Part 2 gets a pass since the plot is purposely being shrouded to preserve its surprises. We know what to expect from a Naughty Dog game, a linear, wonderfully crafted action-adventure game with set pieces. A simple formula but perfected. What we have yet to see what exactly we are getting for Ghost of Tsushima. It is open-world, has cinematic swordplay, and an Arkham Knight like transversal and takedown system. While it looks pretty, what was shown is pretty barebones for a triple-A game nowadays.
I had at least anticipated Microsoft to take this opportunity to really show off some more of their own titles, and maybe some gameplay of Halo: Infinite, but alas we were only given a cutscene. Despite this, they did announce their next-gen console that, while impressive, doesn’t mean much until we get to either see it in action or see what the competition is doing. Of course, Stadia is a big incentive for Microsoft to show off their new Scarlett machine, but I cannot really gauge how impressive it will be if there isn’t another “non-Cloud” hardware equivalent to compare it too. The Scarlett really only means something when we can compare it to the PS5 since the Stadia really is its own beast at the moment.
There we have it, a lot of loose ends by Sony and nothing to fill that gap from E3. Microsoft had a big opportunity to show off their big releases but we hardly got any gameplay out of them. I personally thought that Sony was going to launch a counter-attack during E3 on their own, but it currently been a week since and it has been radio silence. Maybe we will get a big State of Play, maybe a Twitch event similar to the Death Stranding release date reveal, whatever it will be, I am eagerly waiting.
