Since I own one of these odd PlayStation 4 console thingies for about a month now, I’ve had somewhat high hopes for this year’s Sony E3 conference. Will we get to see more from The Last of Us 2 this time? What has Sucker Punch Productions been up to the last 3 years? Or will we see a price drop on the PlayStation 4 Pro? Let’s see if all my hopes and dreams will be crushed or fulfilled after we jump in head first in all things Sony.

Gran Turismo Sport

I’ve played Gran Turismo 1 and 2 almost religiously as a kid back in the days of PSX, and seeing that GT Sport is coming this soon already (Fall 2017), I couldn’t be more stoked! Running the game with 1080p @ 60fps is no small feat for such a weak console either, which is nice. I’m not sure if the game will still feature its version of a Career Mode like in previous games, winning races to earn money so you can buy ever faster cars gave me a target to aim my sights on, which vastly improved my enjoyment of the previous titles. Even if it’s not really a Career Mode, but… you know, something similar would be all I would ask for.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Since now owning my very own PlayStation 4, I’ve come to love the Uncharted franchise more and more, and a prequel to the second game of the series seems like a perfect fit. The Lost Legacy is once again set in India, just like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but this time we follow the story of Nadine (from Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End) and Cloeh, your sidekick from the second game as well. It will be using the same engine as the latest game from the series, which is to be expected of course, which means we’re in for some great visuals to gawk at. They also seemed to have taken the character interactions more light-heartedly again, which is nice, but then again, it’s not like Uncharted ever was a very serious game to begin with.

Horizon Zero Dawn: Frozen Wilds (DLC)

I’m still in the middle of playing the vanilla game at this point in time, and I might be about 50% through the game so far. As such, seeing DLC for Horizon Zero Dawn so soon doesn’t bother me much, since I love the world that Guerrilla Games has created, the more the merrier. The Frozen Wilds expansion seems to feature an entirely new area for players to explore, filled with geysers, a vulcan… and plenty new robots to show for it. And best of all, it’s releasing this year on PlayStation 4 instead of sometime in 2018 like the majority of the games showcased during the live conference. 

Days Gone

What can I really say about Days Gone… you’re a dude on a motorcycle, you’re also somewhere in a forest with some other bad dudes… and of course, hoards of zombies all around. It’s like we never left 2008 or something, but hey, at least it’s 100 zombies at once on the screen, pretty amazing, isn’t it? The gameplay looks very familiar to The Last of Us‘ stealth sections, which is perfectly alright by me. Sending these giant swarms of undead people after a bunch of bad dudes seems like a whole lot of fun to me. Especially since I prefer to avoid combat as much as possible in games, and would rather stealth my way around when ever possible, and if I can do that and at the same time feed the local zombie population, then I call that a win in my book. 

Monster Hunter World

Here I was believing that Monster Hunter was a Nintendo owned IP, and here I stand completely mistaken. It’s obviously clear that I never looked into the series much in the past, simply due to the fact of never owning any of the many devices that this series was played on. Monster Hunter World sure does look better than all the other recent Monster Hunter games on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise. The best part about all of this? It’s not even a Sony PlayStation 4 exclusive because it’s heading to our beloved PC platform this time around, finally! People do seem to adore this franchise quite a bit, one can only assume its legion of fans will continue to grow with the addition to this series now coming to PC, the future is bright for Monster Hunter.

Shadow Of The Colossus (Remake)

Well deary me… I was unfortunate enough to have never played the original Shadow of the Colossus on PlayStation 2, and with seeing the amazing trailer showcasing the newly announced remake, I’ll make sure I don’t make that same mistake again. This remake doesn’t seem like a remaster that just simply increases the amount of pixels on screen with higher resolution textures. Instead we’re getting an entirely updated game with completely new assets built from the ground up… which is exactly how it should be, it is called a remake after all. A new and improved Shadow of the Colossus for a new generation of fans is one of the major highlights of today. I’m excited, aren’t you?

Call of Duty: WWII

It’s a Call of Duty from Sledgehammer Games, what else is there to say? Actually, quite a lot it seems, the multiplayer maps seem more dynamic with destructible environments, vehicles have also been added into the game this time, and the graphics were upgraded a notch or two over last years entry in this never ending franchise. But perhaps that’s just thanks to the totally different art style of the new setting, and let’s be honest here, who isn’t looking forward to some mindless popcorn shooting campaigning of a Call of Duty game? I’m sure a few of you aren’t… so nevermind, but I’ve always looked forward to the COD story segments vs. the mayhem of multiplayer, which are just perfect for the short attention span I have.

Playstation VR Games

Bethesda is back with their never ending game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but this time, it’s in virtual reality! Skyrim’s many re-releases almost seem like a meme at this point, are they that afraid of making a new game? How long will they beat money out of this dead horse? Also seen was “The Inpatient”, which is another horror VR experience set in a stereotypical sanatorium (yay…), we also get yet another military VR game called “Bravo Team” (woot…). Games like “Moss” or “Starlight” that were shown seem to work much better as a virtual reality game, which is more then I can say about the abomination that is Final Fantasy XV: Monster of the Deep. Please don’t get me started on that… just… don’t.

God of War

A dad’s gotta do what a dad gotta do, even if that dad is a God, and as the God that you are, you need to teach your son how to survive the world that’s filled with giant monsters and all sorts of things that want to kill you dead. As a God of War game, this new entry in the series is going a somewhat different route. Gone are the days where you had to fight waves of enemies with a fixed camera, now it’s a modern third person brawler game like you’ve seen many, many times before, however, this new entry looks a lot better than most games you’ve seen.

While it certainly peaked my interest, I would’ve liked for them to have announced the entire God of War series being ported to the PlayStation 4 a tiny bit more. So far, it’s only been God of War 3 that has received a remastered face-lift, which makes it difficult for someone like me who missed them the first time around to catch up to everybody.

Detroit: Become Human

Androids have feelings too, m’key? Look at them, they’re just like us, don’t you see people? David Cage, the “mastermind” behind such games as Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy for you silly Westerners), is responsible for another weird interactive movie that’ll make you question the life choices that have led you to this point in time. I’m just kidding of course, these games sure have a certain kind of appeal to many people, and it can’t be denied that his games played a huge role in the ever increasing catalog of story-driven interactive video games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. So let’s see where Detroit: Become Human takes us… probably to Detroit if I was to venture a guess.

Destiny 2

It’s the game so many people wanted to be on PC, and it’s finally here, well…  not yet of course, and also not when it’s released on consoles first later this year… but it will be eventually, I promise! We gotta wait a few more months, and even then, we only get a Beta to play, we also will need to download yet another launcher to play a multiplayer game that has no dedicated servers… sounds like Bungie and Activision “really care” about the PC community. Although, I could argue that a delay on PC is probably for the best because no one wants a buggy online multiplayer game that doesn’t work, but I can’t defend the non-dedicated server solution those geniuses thought would be a good idea. It would be a shame to have the series finally land on PC only to be left to rot because of laziness and/or bad decisions.

Spider-Man

Cue the music and sing along… “Here comes the friendly neighborhood Spidermenk” (that’s how it goes… right?). He does whatever a spider can, as long as you follow the quick-time events on the screen in glorious 4K (wow!). I shouldn’t be too harsh on a game that isn’t even out yet of course, but the very scripted “gameplay” we’ve been shown sure didn’t convince me that it was anything but “Quick-time: The Game” featuring a guest appearance by Spider-Man! What gameplay that was there however, reminded me somewhat of the Batman: Arkham series more silent encounters, where you had to take out the goons with the tools at your disposal instead of chain-linking your boot to their skull for a 47 hit combo. We’ll see.. it might not be a QT monster that it seems after all, it certainly looked quite impressive visually, that’s something isn’t it?

Final Thoughts

Did Sony’s E3 2017 press conference live up to my high hopes? Yeah, I guess it kind of did. They mostly showed us some cinematic and gameplay trailers from games that we were aware of since many were announced in previous years, but Sony did sprinkle a few surprises here and there. Truthfully, I did expect a bit more out of Sony’s camp, but in the end, overall, I honestly wasn’t left disappointed, the things we seen were quite entertaining and exciting, and would easily refuel even the most thirsty of hype engines.

If I was forced to rate Sony’s E3 conference as a whole, it would probably be about 4 out of 5 schmeckles, which ain’t bad at all. And so, this wraps up today’s latest E3 offerings, with more to come in a day filled with plenty more delicious gaming goodness. Stay tuned for more upcoming news here at Pixel judge.