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E3 time is upon us, although E3 has become a thing of the past with many different publishers and teams crafting their own showcases and Geoff Keighley hosting a big summer event for games. This article won’t talk about the news for every game announced, but rather my thoughts on the following showcases: Summer Game Fest, Day of the Devs, Devolver Direct, Future Games Show, and Xbox Showcase. There are even more shows to look out for, but I cannot keep track of all of them even if I wanted to. I’ll also wrap up my thoughts on everything so far and more things to come. So, let’s jump in!
Summer Game Fest – 5:00 pm EST (6/7/2024)
Opening the showcase, Geoff Keighley did something I never thought he would actually do. He talked about the layoffs and closures of studios and how it’s been disappointing to everyone. Then, he talked about how indie games have been killing it this year so far by showing the top 10 games on Steam and how eight of them are from either single developer teams to mid-size teams, and only two of them (Helldivers 2 and Dragon’s Dogma 2) were bigger AAA releases. He then goes on to say “It’s a reminder to big companies that they have to treat their developers right because there are many paths to sustainability and success, and that’s what makes their industry so, so great!” This will not be enough to appease everyone, but I thought it showed he cared more than he has ever before regarding some of the situations in the industry. But, what about the main showcase? Well, I left slightly disappointed overall with what was here for new stuff, but there was a lot of information in the show. Geoff did say to keep expectations in check, and I always keep low expectations, but still.
There were a lot of games that got important updates like release dates or new information that we already knew about. These include Metaphor: Refantazio, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, Monster Hunter Wilds, Neva, Sonic X Shadow Generations, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Unknown 9: Awakening, and many others that we have seen in years past or at other points in showcases. I think that isn’t a bad thing, but there were just so many of them that were previously announced that were here so it wasn’t as exciting to see them again for the X-number of times, minus maybe Neva. There were definitely new announcements, don’t get me wrong.
In terms of new game announcements, there were a few that were actually fantastic to see. Geoff added a lot more indies into this show than I have seen in past shows which I commend him for. Cairn, Project DOSA, Wanderstop, Deer & Boy, Killer Bean, Cuffbust, and Tears of Metal were some of the brand-new indies that were shown. Innersloth, who are known for Among Us came on stage to not only show a teaser for the animated show but also to announce Outersloth. That is a new publishing portion to support other indies. Based on how successful they have been, the team is giving back to help support other developers. I think this absolutely rules for teams to be able to create the games they want to with something like this! There were also new gaming announcements from AAA teams including Fatal Fury DLC for Street Fighter 6, Civilization VII, and more.
The biggest surprises for me from the show in terms of brand new announcements were Lego Horizon Adventures and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind. Unfortunately, Lego Horizons Adventures was leaked/rumored already, but the biggest shock for the game is it’s launching not just on PS5/PC, but also on Nintendo Switch. I thought that was absolutely terrific to see, and maybe this means other cross-platform releases are coming in the future. Or maybe it is because it is a Lego thing, who knows? The Power Rangers game though… yeah that came out of nowhere. I am happy to say that both of these titles are Day 1 for me! Not terrible, but semi-disappointing as a whole, to be honest.
Day of the Devs – 7:00 pm EST (6/7/2024)
From iam8bit and Double Fine Productions comes the wonderful Day of the Devs, a showcase and 501c3 organization that’s dedicated to indie games and showcasing more indies to the world. There were about 18 games that were showcased at the show, and out of those, six of them went into my wishlist. I think that is quite good for a show for about 1/3 of the games that were showcased. The titles that I put on my wishlist were Arranger, Tides of Tomorrow, Petal Runner, Koira, While Waiting, and Cairn. Other titles that were shown here included Tom the Postgirl, UFO50, Karma: The Dark World, Battle Vision Network, and even more but they weren’t especially my cups of tea which is why they didn’t go into my wishlist. If they are yours, wishlisting the games help the developers a lot! Quite a few new announcements, with only a few games already being announced prior which is a great thing in my book.
Devolver Direct – 8:00 pm EST (6/7/2024)
To be quite honest, I love the Devolver Digital shows with how wacky they are. Volvy was created in 2023 for their showcase, and once again they came back this year. Personally, I am getting slightly sick of the meme they repeated from last year; and I hope they do a bit of a different thing next year. Unfortunately, I felt that the show was a bit more chill and tame than in the past which was a disappointment since I loved watching Devolver’s show for the wackiness they did. In terms of the actual games that they showcased, I was kind of disappointed if I am being completely real. I normally keep my expectations low, but I was expecting a few more release dates for currently announced games, and I didn’t get them.
We saw Neva earlier at the Summer Game Fest presented by Geoff, but there was no release date even though it still says 2024. We didn’t get to see any more gameplay or trailers for Stick it to the Stickman, The Plucky Squire, Skate Story, or Baby Steps, and they are all still slated to be coming in 2024 according to the Steam pages. I am getting apprehensive because they have been fairly quiet overall, but do understand that developers and publishers should showcase the games when they feel it is best. We did get new DLC announcements for both The Talos Principle 2 and Cult of the Lamb. There were also release dates for both Anger Foot and The Crush House games which were cool. There were also two brand new game announcements; Possessor(s) from Heart Machine coming in 2025, and Tenjutsu from Sébastien Benard, the designer of Dead Cells coming sometime in the future. Both of the new games immediately went on my Steam wishlist. Not a super terrible showing, but I was hoping for more news on previously announced titles so I felt a tad disappointed.
Future Games Show – 3:00 pm EST (6/8/2024)
By far, it was very close to being my absolute favorite showcase out of these five that is on the list. There were a lot of games in this show that I never knew I needed and wanted to grab immediately after seeing them at the event. It was definitely better than all three on 6/7/2024, but maybe not as good as Xbox’s event. They had a few bigger AAA titles like Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2, The Casting of Frank Stone, and Nobody Wants to Die, but most of them from this show were indies and AA titles.
Some of the highlights from this show include the upcoming Kickstarter date for Deliver Us Home from KeokeN Interactive which is the third entry in the Deliver Us franchise. Other reveals include new looks at previously announced titles like SCHiM, Antonblast, Dustborn, Big Boy Boxing, Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection, and a mobile announcement for Duck Detective: The Secret Salami which was released earlier in 2024 for PC and Switch. There is even more than that, but that is a lot that has got me excited. There were also tons of great indie announcements that are new titles such as Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream, Goat Simulator 3 – Multiverse of Nonsense, Bogdan’s Cross, Run From Mummies, and possibly my favorite announcement for the show was Nikoderiko: The Magical World. Indie games are terrific and the Future Games Show focused on them mostly, and I am elated there’s a stage for them to be shown. Roger Clark and Britt Baron did a terrific job being hosts for these games!
Xbox/Bethesda/Activision Showcase – 1:00 pm EST (6/9/2024)
After the very lackluster State of Play a few weeks ago from Sony, I knew that Xbox was going to be better. Although the bar wasn’t extremely high to make that happen, and I was blown away by the showing from Xbox today. I expected very little and was completely floored with many of the announcements that they had for new games and also previously announced stuff. This was probably my favorite show thus far in the summer of gaming!
I am not a fan of FPS games, but for those that are can look forward to Call Of Duty Black Ops 6, Doom: The Dark Ages, Perfect Dark, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Stalker 2, Avowed, and even more. All of which is part of Gamepass, which I think is getting a price hike after today’s showcase showing lots of titles that are coming. There was DLC and season content announced coming to Starfield, Fallout 76, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, and more. There were also lots of other games that weren’t first person including new looks at Assassin’s Creed Shadows coming November 12th, Fable which is coming in 2025, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn coming July 18th (which is Day 1 on Gamepass), Age of Mythology Retold coming September 4th, Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta Snake Eater coming out in the future, and more that I am looking forward to. On top of this, there were also a bunch of new announcements as well.
South of Midnight was revealed last year with a CGI trailer, but for the first time we actually got to see gameplay and now it has skyrocketed on my list to play immediately when it releases next year. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was a new game that was announced that looks phenomenal and fun to play next year, which is also day 1 on GamePass. Mixtape, from the creators of The Artful Escape, looks fun and I am excited to play it when it releases next year on GamePass day 1. Life is Strange Double Exposure from Square Enix and Deck Nine was announced as coming out at the end of October 2024 and it looked cool. There were also other new indies and reveals of games like Winter Burrow, Flight Simulator 2024, Mecha Break, Dragon Age, and more. They ended the show with a CG trailer for a brand new Gears of War game, Gear of War E-DAY, and man, after playing all five titles earlier this year, it was a cool thing to see Marcus and Dom younger and it being an origin story. Hopefully, it isn’t like three years off and it is close to release.
So far, there have been a lot of games shown and while there have been some updates for previously announced games, there are also plenty of new game announcements that look really cool! I think there are pluses and minuses to each of the shows, but overall they all have a lot of great games coming out in the future. We still have the Ubisoft Forward event tomorrow (6/10/2024), Nintendo Direct sometime in June, THQ Showcase in August, and a lot more coming up to show more games coming to PC and consoles. Indies are terrific and are the lifeblood of the industry right now, but the AAA market isn’t void of some creativity or big surprises that shocked me at the Xbox showcase. The only complaint I have so far is that there really hasn’t been much for Japanese games but hopefully that will change soon!
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