With an impressive Xbox conference yesterday, PlayStation really had to come out strong to take home the E3 crown. Before the start, we already knew the company had an interesting line-up including The Last of Us Part II, Spider-Man, and more. Now that the conference came to an end, it’s time to ask ourselves if PlayStation had the best conference so far or if it was another letdown.
A different approach
This year, PlayStation tried a different approach to deliver their games to the public. Instead of hosting an event in a big conference room, they recreated certain environments from the games they showcased. The first one, being The Last of Us Part II, was hosted in a church illuminated with cozy lights, seconds later, we saw the start of the trailer/gameplay kick off in a virtual version of that same church.
After the impressive gameplay demo, the audience had to move to their new location. While the audience moved from one location to another, the public at home was forced to watch some commentary that looked more like a pre-show filler than actually something interesting to watch. They tried to keep it interesting with some new trailers while waiting but those included things we’ve seen before. The main problem with their new approach is the fact that they take away the pacing of a true conference. Instead of taking us on a crazy ride from game to game at a high pace, we had to wait for a new big reveal a bit too long. I guess it’s an amazing experience for those who are actually present in Los Angeles but for the gamers at home, it’s not the best solution for sure. Especially when they decided to include a small instrumental segment before the actual gameplay, talk about slow pacing! Luckily, the audience just had to move once so after Ghost of Tsushima got an extended demo, the pacing got picked back up and we saw some more new games coming to PlayStation 4 (Pro).
A lot of great games
Once the pacing went back up, we saw a lot of interesting new games and it really looked like PlayStation got their conference back on track. Reveals such as Resident Evil 2, a new Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer and a hilarious game from the creators of Rick and Morty showed us that there’s a lot of great things coming to Sony’s console. All games we’ve seen offer a lot of variation and I’m sure everybody will find something they’ll enjoy on PlayStation 4 (Pro) soon.
Besides that, the conference also offered some extended looks at recently announced games. Ghost of Tsushima, for example, looked like the perfect open world samurai game filled with epic battles, amazing graphics, and thrilling combat. The first gameplay of Death Stranding, on the other hand, didn’t look that great but that’s probably because we still don’t really get what’s going on. The actual gameplay showed us a lot of walking around in empty environments while the cut scenes hinted at an emotional ride. There’s a lot of mysterious things going on in this game but it’s good to finally see some extended gameplay. It’s hard to explain what Death Stranding will be but it’s interesting to see where it’s going and I can’t wait to finally understand what’s going on when we can finally play it for ourselves (hopefully pretty soon).
Of course, more big hitters appeared on the stage and all of them featured a lot more gameplay than we’ve ever seen before. It really looks like PlayStation wanted its fans to see their upcoming games in action, instead of announcing tons of games that wouldn’t be ready to release for years. That being said, the new Spider-Man game looks impressive and will most certainly attract a lot of Marvel fans to the console. I really liked this approach to showcase games that were already announced before. These in-depth gameplay demos really showed us what’s coming, instead of selling us dreams.
Missed the big surprise
Although the showcase was extremely satisfying and offered us a look at a lot of great upcoming games but I couldn’t help but feel that it was missing that one big surprise to really make it fantastic. PlayStation tried a different approach this year around but perhaps they played it a bit too safe. Maybe they should have saved Remedy’s new game ‘Control’ as the big surprise game instead of jamming it in between other games but of course, that’s not in our control to decide.
Conclusion:
All in all, PlayStation had a very decent showcase but they played it a little too safe. The games they showed are extremely strong and promising but we missed the usual big surprises. This was one of the best showcases of this E3 for sure but just one big surprise could have made the difference and could have resulted in the E3 crown for PlayStation. As for now, I think Xbox remains the ruler of E3.
