With 2017’s end rapidly approaching, gamers are now starting to wistfully yearn for the awesome titles awaiting them in 2018. Thankfully, it looks like Sony is all too eager to feed our insatiable hunger.
At its 2017 Paris Games Week press conference, the Japanese publisher took to a packed auditorium in to unveil its future plans for PlayStation. While this media showcase may have lacked the show stopping announcements of an E3 conference, this hour-long event still packed its fair share of punches.
With the buzz of the conference still ringing in our ears, here were the five biggest reveals from PlayStation’s Parisian presser.
1.The Last Of Us Part II
Like most PlayStation fans, there was one game that we wanted to see more than any other – and thankfully, Sony graciously delivered. After a show-stealing announcement tease at the 2016 , the PGW conference finally gave us our first proper glimpse of The Last Of Us Part II. Initially at least, this mysterious trailer gave nothing away. Opening with a badly beaten woman being dragged through a dark, dingy forest, this unknown woman soon finds her day getting even worse. Some deranged cultists held a knife to her stomach and fastened a noose around her neck, but thankfully, the last minute arrival of another captive saves her guts from making an involuntary escape.
Yet if you were looking for a respite from all the harrowing violence, you’re watching the wrong trailer. In a wince-inducing moment of brutally, the terrified new captive has one of her arms repeatedly bludgeoned by a hammer. Before her assailants can cripple her good arm, however, a flurry of arrows fly through the heads of her twisted attackers. In a pulse-pounding finale, a bloody struggle sees our captives eventually manage to overcome their attackers. Unfortunately though, an army of clickers has other ideas.
With Joel and Ellie nowhere to be seen, the whole trailer was a brilliant fake out. But who are these mysterious new protagonists? And where did this deranged new cult come from? With the 2017 PlayStation Experience just a little over a month away, and this tailer raising more questions than it answers, we’re hoping that Sony will give gamers another taste of Naughty Dog’s epic before the year is out.
2. Ghost Of Tsushima
Since the launch of Infamous: Second Son and its Last Light expansion, things have been suspiciously quiet over at Sucker Punch Productions. With three years passing without a single peep from the developer, Sony finally revealed what they’ve been secretly working on.
Swapping the neon-soaked world of super heroes for the solemn samurai of feudal Japan, Ghost of Tsushima is a gloriously unexpected departure for Sucker Punch. With this surprisingly dark debut trailer revealing a lone warrior surviving in a land run by merciless war lords, Tsushima’s unique setting and forbidding atmosphere certainly had us intrigued.
Still, aside from where and when this game is set, its still pretty unclear exactly what kind of form Ghost Of Tsushima’s mechanics will take. With its sullen protagonist pictured on horseback throughout the brief trailer, our money’s on this bold new IP being an action-heavy open world adventure.
3. Not One, But TWO New Games From Sony’s London Studio
If you’re a PS4 owner, the chances are you’ll probably know your Naughty Dogs and your Santa Monica Studios. Yet, despite Sony’s A team regularly getting their share of fanfare, today’s conference saw one of its smaller studios get its turn in the spotlight. Known for its work on experiences as varied as Harry Potter tie-in Wonderbook, mobster classic The Getaway: Black Monday, and last year’s PlayStation VR Worlds, this talented studio is now stepping it up a notch.
Picking up where it left off with VR Worlds’ London Heist, the terribly named Blood and Truth sees gamers painting London’s criminal underworld blood red. With the trailer hinting at an immersive-looking and brilliantly bonkers FPS, PSVR owners will be relived to see Sony getting behind another first party VR game.
London Studio’s second announcement of the show, however, couldn’t be any more different to Blood and Truth. With the studio embracing another new Sony technology — Playlink — this Until Dawn-esque thriller, called simply Erica, sees players tasked with making some tough decisions. Playing as the titular Erica, this thriller further blurs the lines between movies and games.
As you’d expect with PlayLink powered games, Erica will naturally use the touchscreen input of your phone, letting you choose from different branching options and interact with parts of the environments by swiping and tapping. It all looks brilliantly spooky, and we can’t wait to see more of both of these unexpected games.
4. Destiny 2‘s Curse Of Osiris DLC
While this was very much Sony’s show, Activision refused to let the Japanese giant have all the fun. Revealing Destiny 2‘s first expansion, the new story-led Curse of Osiris DLC tells the story of banished Guardian Osiris. With the eponymous new guardian the man behind the once mysterious Trials Of Osiris, Destiny addicts will be chomping at the bit to find out more about this interesting new character.
With the Vex invading Mercury, players will travel to the new planet and encounter the strange new NPC. Promising a bunch of new story missions, additional loot and activities, and hopefully a boost to the level cap, December 5 can’t come quickly enough.
5. New Detroit and Shadow Of The Colossus Trailers
While seeing more footage of games we already know about might not sound particularly exciting, today’s conference showed some tantalizing new glimpses of both Detroit: Become Human and the Shadow Of The Colossus remake. Sandwiched between new looks at Spider-man and God Of War 4, Quantic Dream’s Blade-Runner-esque adventure looked just as captivating as it was harrowing.
Playing on the themes of sentience and man vs machine, this atmospheric trailer continued to carry the same surprisingly bleak tone as much of the rest of the games shown in the conference. We won’t spoil it for you, but it looks like players will be able to make some pretty drastically different choices in the Heavy Rain creator’s latest creation.
Remakes: it’s easy to roll your eyes and yearn for something new, yet, when a developer manages to make one of the medium’s magnum opuses look this good, all our professionally honed cynicism is quickly washed away. While Shadow Of The Colossus has already been given an HD remaster, this new trailer shows just how considerable this reimagining of the game really is. This majestic masterpiece has never looked better, and after gawping at this trailer, we can’t wait to experience Fumito Ueda’s classic all over again.
