As a veritable veteran of console launches and announcement events, I actually tend not to like them very much. I always get caught up in the hype, imagine everything I think will be announced, and then come away feeling disappointed. I never learn, and recently I have found most E3 style press conferences (or Nintendo Directs) ultimately disappointing. One cool announcement doesn’t make up for the half a dozen I was willing to happen.
Well, life is built upon exceptions – and boy was the PlayStation 5 reveal event an exception. After the much-panned Xbox “gameplay” last month, Sony was in prime position to truly be the first to show off the next generation. Well they did that and so much more. There may have been a few details missing, but generally Sony pulled off that event about as well as they could.
If there was one learning from the fallout from the Xbox event it’s that technical mumbo-jumbo is all very well, but people want to see games. And boy did we see games. By my count 26 (though at points I was struggling to keep up). Some were cutscenes, but the vast majority had extended gameplay to give us a real feel of what it will be like to play the PS5. I’m not going to do through each game in detail, and needless to say there was a bit of filler, but it was also very interesting to see Sony promoting a real mix. Old and new IP, remakes and indies, horror and platforming. If you watched that hour long demo and didn’t see one single game you were interested in, well then you have very specific tastes.
Events like these need headline grabbers, and this one had a few. The opening shot of Spider-Man: Miles Morales (well, after the weird GTA 5 promo) and the encore of Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West are veritable console sellers. Then you have a much sought-after remake of Demon Soul’s (a well-known game that many missed), as well as the heavily rumoured Resident Evil 8: Village. A new Ratchet and Clank appeared early on, while the slightly slower middle of the show was pepped up by Hitman 3. Oddworld got a new odyssey, and some of the usual sports and racing franchises got trotted out. If you were here for the big, familiar, AAA games then you got your fill.
But there was also new, large-scale, fresh IP to get excited about. Project Athia seems suitably epic, a mix of Skyrim and Final Fantasy, with a very impressive next-gen looking dragon. GhostWire: Tokyo – the darling of last year’s E3 – seems like a fascinating and incredibly trippy first-person horror. The fast-paced action-game Godfall appears suitably hectic, while Kenal: Bridge of Spirits looks like a charming action adventure game. There was some fear that the launch of the next generation would all be old IP, with no money thrown towards originality, and this presentation helped assuage that fear somewhat.
What perhaps excited me most, were the number of “smaller” games that got the spotlight. There were some incredibly unique looking concepts, from art-styles to gaming loops that perked my interest just as much as the Miles Morales reveal. Little Devil Inside was possibly my game of the show, an incredibly interesting looking action game (with shots of adventure interspersed with an old-man seemingly living his life). Solar Ash looked like a mix of Journey and Sayonara Wild Hearts, while Deathloop’s concept of playing the same 60s style shooter seemed like a mix of Outer Wilds and No One Lives Forever. I was kind of expecting a new Horizon or Spider-Man (though not both), I was expecting some AAA new IP, but I wasn’t expecting such an eclectic range of smaller games which I absolutely cannot wait to get stuck into.
Aside from the games (and the hour and fifteen minutes was mostly games) we also got a first glimpse of the console. There is the digital-only version, and one with a disc-drive, and they certainly look… different. From a brief glance at Twitter they seem to have divided opinion, but I genuinely like the look of them. Suitably futuristic, and the disc-drive version is at least not another box to sit under the TV. There is, once more, some effort at originality.
So, what was missing? Well two big things – a date, and a price. While I am eager to find out both, I can see why Sony didn’t want to dilute any of the other messaging coming from the show. The phrase “let the games do the talking” seemed to be the underlying theme – and that is certainly what they did. I’m sure another reveal video (with even more juicy gameplay) will be able to tell us when and how much in the next few months. (Also, to let myself be cynical briefly, they may be waiting for Microsoft to blink first).
So, a first look at the console? Check. A host of console-selling exclusives? Check. Some sequels to beloved games, remakes and original IP? Check. And a range of incredibly interesting smaller games? Triple Check. As events go, that went about as well as can be expected. The ball now is very much in Microsoft’s court – I’m excited and hopeful to see what they do with it. But boy do they have a tough act to follow.
