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Alright, I am going to talk about my favorite parts of Summer Games Fest and also discuss the Day of the Devs that were shown today on this day, June 8th 2023. There were lots of different titles, but personally I only had a dozen or so really good game announcements/reveals that I was interested in.
Summer Games Fest:
There was quite a few games that were shown from Geoff Keighley today. If you missed the show, I will link it later on for you to see all of the announcements. I am not going to talk about every single one, but rather focus on ones that I loved to see in the event.
Prince of Persia: The Last Crown
This one came out of no where. I knew that Ubisoft supported Geoff’s shows in the past, but I thought they might have shown something that was already announced. Instead this game that started out the show was a brand new 2.5D Prince of Persia game that seems to me like it will be an extremely good time when it comes out on January 18th, 2024. If you want to see more, they said they will show more information at the Ubisoft Forward event on Monday, June 12th. Now, are we going to be seeing Sands of Time soon, or is this a title that will hold people over until that remake is ready?
Sonic Superstars
This one was a left field shock. The game is a 2D sonic game that is releasing in Fall 2023 and has a beautiful stylistic look to it. Now, the last good 2D sonic game is Sonic Mania, and the other ones in the past have been very hit or miss, with a lot more being of the latter of the two. Will this one be any good, well visually it appeals and the fact that there appears to be co-op involved, it looks like it will be a fun time with others. Excited to see this one later this year.
Sand Land
Bandai Namco has been on a consistent roll of making some incredible games come to life in gorgeous art styles recently and Sand Land looks to be just as good as a lot of other recent titles that they have produced. From the creative mind of the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama, comes an adaptation of a classic Manga called Sand Land. Now, I have no clue about the Manga to be honest, but I think it looks absolutely incredible. I think the game is going to be an awesome RPG game in the making.
Annapurna Interactive Showcase Announced
This one I will keep short. Last year, I saw so many fantastic games at the showcase and I am seriously hoping to see some amazing ones from what they teased this year… plus did I see what I think I saw at the end of that tease??? It will be revealed on June 29th at 3pm EST.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Welp, I personally kind of saw this one coming for when they didn’t say any date at the showcase a couple weeks ago. The game is finally coming to PS5 on October 20th, 2023. They showed more art screenshots of Kraven and also Venom, along with the box art. They also put a post on PS Blog about digital deluxe edition and a physical collectors edition that I will probably be grabbing if I can. I am so excited to get back to the world of Insomniac’s Spider-Man. I wish I could go back to the first game or Miles, but after having the Platinum trophy in both plus all the trophies in the DLC episodes, it is kind of hard to do so.
Banishers: Ghost of New Eden
I have been anticipating this game for quite some time and the new trailer that Focus and DON’T NOD announced today looked absolutely terrific. The game was shown first in Game Awards 2022 and we still have a window of “End of 2023” so maybe this will be a December title? It definitely looks like this will be a fun game to play, and I am excited to learn more about it.
Under the Waves:
Back at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, which is also hosted by Geoff Keighley, showed one of my favorite announcements from that show and it resurfaced here, pun intended. The game is releasing on August 29th of this year and I am excited to get a hold of it. The game looked absolutely breathtaking today and the imagery that was showcased made me keep wanting to see more. Excited for August with this one as it looks like it will be an adventure one won’t forget.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
To close the show, Geoff revealed a brand new look, along with real gameplay, from the second part of the remake of the original FF7. I completed the INTERmission chapter with Yuffie this year and the main game a while ago and I loved everything I saw in this gameplay showing that happened today. The game was announced today with an “Early 2024” launch, and it will launch for PS5 on 2 DISKS. That is a crazy thing that this game will be a 2 Disc game as currently, I am unsure if there are any other 2 Disc PS5 specific games at this time.
Day of the Devs:
As soon as the main showcased finished, the wonderful folks at iam8bit and Double Fine came out and showed us a massive amount of awesome looking indie games. Not everything was my cup of tea, but there were a bunch that I loved to see. Below are the titles that I liked from this show.
Simpler Times
iam8bit presents first showcased Escape Academy as their first title in their publishing line and while that personally was not my style of game, this one does. Simpler Times is, at least from what they showed here, it feels like a reverse of Unpacking, where in this one you actually are telling a story by interacting with items while you are packing. I am excited to see more when this game launches in the future on both PC and “other consoles”.
Viewfinder
Viewfinder had a release date announced this morning for July 18th and I was waiting for this one to be revealed as I have been eyeing it since the announcement of the game. I am glad that we got to see more information for this first person puzzle adventure. Thunderful games is publishing the title with Sad Owl Studios making the game and everything that I have seen so far is making me want to play this title.
Hauntii
This one was a very spooky but incredibly interesting looking game. This one has you controlling a ghost that has the power to possess and change things over the course of the adventure that you go on. Areas will change or different paths appear to become available depending on what you possess. The game was both extremely intriguing and also had a creepy vibe to it which I think works great with the cool art the game showed off today. The game comes out next year to Steam and consoles.
Cocoon
Annapurna Interactive has so many fantastic games that they are publishing and Cocoon is shaping up to be no exception. From the wonderful team that is developing this title, including one of the puzzle designers of Limbo and Inside, this game looks to be so fantastic with all the intricacies that they showed today including hoping through different areas and worlds, boss battles, and more. I am so excited to get my hands on this one later this year, and I hope to see a date for this one soon.
Eternights
This game is one that I have been waiting to play for the longest time. I am excited that the release window was announced today as September 2023. The game was shown off in a State of Play a while ago and I am finally happy to see a window for this game to come out. Persona inspired this developer to basically make this game and quit their normal job and it seriously looks like this game will be a fantastic game that is a dating sim with also action adventure exploration scenes. This one will be very good.
In conclusion, there was a lot of gaming news today with these two showcases. There was also the Devolver Digital which had some great humor and comedy like normal, just I kind of hoped to see a couple more things than what we did; but hey, there is always going to be more showcases down the line. After these, there was also something that leaked via the Atlus West Instagram account which appears to have announcements coming on Sunday through the Xbox Showcase, and I am SUPER excited to see these games coming. Exciting time for the world of gaming from massive AAA titles to the smallest indie teams of single digit developers. Being a gamer is great, but always remember for any showcase for gaming: KEEP EXPECTATIONS IN CHECK and it will be a good show for you. If you want to check out the whole showcase, here is the link. Happy gaming to all.
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