We start out with an orchestra. Impressive. Some weird noises but still better then the Ubisoft Clownstravoganza. My first guess at it being for God of War 4 was correct. And now we get to see the first actual in game footage of the game.
We start with a gruff voice in a barn telling a boy to grab his mothers knife as it’s the child’s time to hunt a deer. Though we quickly see it’s bearded Kratos with one Nordic looking axe. Of course, as they find the deer, that looks more like an elk, the child rushes while shooting. He misses and the deer runs off. As they proceed into the ruins, they are attacked by monsters. It seems that they normally don’t come this far out. They are dispatched rather handily by slashing and the throwing of Axes. Kratos’ Axe has some recall magical effect. Throw, hold out a hand and it boomerangs back. We progress up to a frozen lake and a much larger Fire Troll bursts out. Of course this proceeds to the troll throwing flame, Kratos breaking the horns off of the trolls head and brings it down. He tells the child to shoot an arrow to finish it, but as the troll looks at the child the hesitation causes a misfire when the ice gives and the troll is dispatched by Kratos. Now, they just go back to the hunt. The child shoots and takes out their target. It’s unusual, the horns are glowing with some kind of pulsing blue, the eyes look like that of a goat. It confuses me because I really can’t place if this is something mythological. Finally, Kratos tells what seems to be his son to finish the Deer. Again, the child hesitates and says he can’t use the knife to finish it. Kratos puts his hands over the boy’s and plunges in the knife. It pans out until a dragon flies overhead. An interesting trailer, to say the least.
Andrew House is back out on stage and extends his condolences to all those affected by the tragedy in Orlando Florida. He then goes on to telling us of the sheer history since the presentation is in the historic Shrine Auditorium. We move on to the next presentation.
We start with a motorcycle drifter reminiscing about days gone by, and how he has seemingly lost his loved one. Days Gone is announced as the name of this project with the main character looking down a hill to what looks like an abandoned town. The next trailer is segued into immediately. Of course it is a new look at Last Guardian. It is fairly short though it gives an impressive view of the world. It does give an actual date of October 25th. After so long I can accept this. It seems Sony isn’t doing as much exposition as the other conferences, but many of these trailers do stand by themselves.
Horizon Zero Dawn is shown again as other trailers has been around but here we see more of the actual gameplay displayed. The initial robots show an interesting shield defense while also having very specific weak points that scanning them provide. The weaknesses are both physical points, and particular substance weaknesses. Here, a shield needs to be circumvented by circling them and hitting them with a bow is the basic strategy. Fire seems to do fairly well later on with the arrows. Collecting resources is also shown. We know this will require strategy to play. We move on to the next area crossing a bridge. We find a man running from a creature which we destroy. Apparently this was originally non hostile, and had been corrupted to cause the attacks and something caused this which is reeking havoc in a nearby village. There is a comment we can’t make it fast enough to give any aid on foot, so we seek a mount. There is a mechanically built bull called a Broadhead that is stalked. There are numerous tethers released that restrict it from moving, and then a staff is used to pacify this creature and it is used as the mount. Travel is short to the nearby village, seeing some interesting mechanical fauna like techno giraffes but we see what causes the corruption as it sets the last uncorrupted robots out against the town. We are quickly brought into the fray. This machine is fast, can jump quite high and also lob large stones even through buildings. The tethers and copious amounts of fire finally bring it down. This wraps up this segment. We see the date of February 28th.
We move on to a more futuristic world. We see what appears to be a man walking down a hallway with a strange glowing mechanical circle on the right side of his head. He proceeds into a room with police and they confirm he is a negotiator as the woman who lives there is distraught. We see him step out onto the roof where another person with the circle on his head, partially shown in red is holding a gun and a girl. It quickly goes bad and he jumps taking the girl with him. We find more out about the gameplay through the scene repeating through multiple variations with multiple decision branches. There are more efficient choices, there are others which lead to catastrophic results and everything in between. The game is named Detroit, Become Human. We are told that these are robots, and they function in society just as normal people. The issue is, they have a complete lack of emotion, but there is a rising number of those who are seemingly becoming overwhelmed by just that leading to incidents such as these. It is an interesting take on decisions and how they play out, but the setting is referred to as Neo-Noir. As it’s Quantic Dream, the same team behind Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain I have no doubt they can handle this concept with expert skill as they have proven their expertise in the field.
From the future to a dilapidated house, we shift to what is visually a horror title. We wake up in a dark room with a small light, and we immediately receive a phone call where we are told they are coming to kill us. There are mannequins everywhere in this room. There is a flight of stairs that are descended. A quick turn leads into a very broken down kitchen, with insects crawling. With the removal of a pot top, there are maggots and rot evident showing the complete abandonment that has taken place. With a turn, a person proceeds up the stairs and out of view. The character moves next to the stairwell and down the hall going into a room. It is unusual, there is a tape on the table, and when picking it up it pops up as an item in the middle of the screen. It isn’t something like Silent Hill, it’s Resident Evil. The tape is put into a tv in the corner that is on with static. We rapidly switch through a series of scenes involving creeping corruption and decay. Then it finishes as VII, Resident Evil VII. We will see it January 24th, and it will be Playstation VR compatible. It runs in the new RE engine.
PSVR is brought up next, being released October 13th for $399. We are show Farpoint. It’s a game focused on exploring an alien world which seems like plenty of canyons and desert. It seems lifeless until a dragonfly looking device skims overhead with what looks like a scanning beam. We are shown several combat sequences with the Dragonflies, a giant Spider and it concludes showing what looks like a space station crashed into the sand. From this, we move onto orchestral Star Wars score and we know some fun is coming. We are treated to Star Wars Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission. It’s not exactly X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, but it certainly shows promise. The last big VR teaser is mostly teaser. We see light cascading over a dark costume, with what is so obviously the Joker’s voice narrating how a mask is a way to become something different. Creepy, and fitting. It’s Rocksteady’s Arkham VR and I’d love to see what direction they will take.
We see Final Fantasy XV, which has been seeing through various venues and channels is shown again. We also see a weird headset on a characters head which in many ways segues into the fact that it is PSVR compatible.
Now we see a trailer with what looks to be a space marine aboard a ship. He enters the bridge and proceeds with a new mission to board an enemy vessel. He proceeds to the flight deck, which was giving me plenty of Battlestar Galactica vibes. There is fighter combat, and then a squad ejects to enter the other ship. Inside we get several segments of combat showing off antigravity bombs, and a strange tether weapon that reminds me of Just Cause 2. If by now you haven\’t seen it or figured it out, it is Call of Duty Infinite. It\’s set for release 11/4/16. Now we see the remastered version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare. It looks much better, and with the specs behind it and new support, the game could really flourish again.
nWe are followed up by visuals of Crash Bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot 1 and 2 plus Warped are all being remastered for the Playstation 4. This is a quick mention and they move onto Skylanders Imaginators which features a Crash cameo. The game will be out in October with the new draw being full customization of personal Skylander characters. We proceed to a trailer of the new Lego Star Wars game based on the new movie The Force Awakens. It showcases the traditional Lego humor and will likely follow a long tradition of quality fun. We are shown the demo is available for download the moment the presentation is over.
Here is the shock of the conference. Hideo Kojima strides out onto the stage. He says since forming his company last year he has been hard at work. This leads to the most headscratching trailer of the year.We start with a beach covered in dead crabs. It\’s hard to tell what is going on until they start to pan out. We see handprints leading from the crabs in the sand. We see a person lying there in the sand with a glowing handcuff affixed to one wrist. We quickly see the person is an amazing likeness to Norman Reedus and as we see this we see a baby with what looks like an umbilical cord. Norman brings the baby to his chest, but when it pans away the baby is gone. All we see are baby handprints left in what looks like oil and this leads down to the beach covered in a wide variety of dead animals and a bleak ocean. I’m not sure what I just watched, whatsoever. All we know is it is to be called Death Standing.
This leads to another surprise. Insomniac has been working on a currently untitled Spider Man game for the PS4. What immediately stands out is the white spider emblem on the front of the costume, and we are assured that this game exists in it\’s own separate universe allowing a great deal of storytelling freedom. It’s been in production for some time, and they have strived to capture the essence of the franchise in their own way. Open world Spider Man games have been great in the past and with the developer I hope it stands up to them or surpasses them.
Now, we wrap up with an actual show of gameplay to Days Gone. We pick up where the trailer leaves off by going into the town below. We begin to search the town for someone and we find a corpse being fed upon by wolves. It’s mentioned by the character that nope, this isn’t the guy we were looking for. As we move into the town we come across a small imp like monster. Assuming that it is some kind of zombie will not be a stretch since the initial trailer did show people in bio-hazard suits tending to bodies. The next room shows the guy we were looking for killing one of the creatures as well. He starts to run when we arrive and he scrambles for the roof. When we get up there, we notice the entire town is swarmed by creatures, and of course the other guy spears us off of the roof. Luckily he broke his leg and gets devoured while we run. There is an extended segment of trying to barricade doors, blow up exploding barrels and climb to the roof. Now, stranded on a roof being surrounded and swarmed by climbing monsters, they leave it there.
We saw a lot here. It didn’t go through and completely explain everything like in the Microsoft Conference. But the gameplay itself was the strength here. The conference was amazing, but I’ll admit that it will be some time before they can top last years line up again. That wraps up our Sony coverage for today, so we will see you tomorrow for Nintendo.
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