New Game + May 6 - May 12

On Monday on the PlayStation blog Sony announced that they would be having another State of Play on Thursday. My first big takeaway from the event was how it felt like Sony learned from the feedback they received from the first State of Play. Before the event, Sony explained what we should expect to see, what we shouldn’t and approximately how long the event would be. They said it will be featuring the upcoming MediEvil, a brand new game, information on games we know about already and it would be appoximately 10 minutes. They also said that it would not feature anything from the next generation console. These were all great to temper the expectations of fans as they can quickly escalate and reach a fever pitch. Even though they tried to manage expectation there were still rumors floating around from people hoping for very far fetched things that wouldn’t be featured. The conference opened up with an all new expansion for Monster Hunter. That game never struck a chord with me but it felt like that part of the conference went on just a little too long for my preference. It also featured a deep dive into gameplay on MediEvil and a release date for the game which came as no surprise that it would be coming to us in October. I played the originally when it came out but didn’t overly connect with it like I did other PS titles including Tomb Raider, Crash or Spyro but I am still a little confused as to who this is for. It also didnt help that I didnt think that the gameplay actually looked good like the remakes of Spyro and Crash. It will be interesting to see how this game fares in the fall. The announced a brand new Predator game that will be an asymmetrical multiplayer game similar to how Evolve worked or Friday the 13th. The interesting thing to note is that it is being developed by some of the people that worked on the Friday the 13th game. It will be interesting to see what lessons they can learn from that game and apply to this one. I thought Friday had potential to be a good game but felt that the price to entry was too high when it first released based on the bugs, jankiness, and depth the game had. As a kid who grew up on those 80’s and 90’s action movies I am excited to see what comes of this but cautious based on how Friday turned out but it sounds like there might have been some external circumstances at play on that game working against it. Finally, State of Play learned something from Nintendo Directs by choosing to end this Direct with a banger. After 25 years in development, Final Fantasy 7 Remake gameplay was shown and although it looks a lot different from the last time we saw it, it was still good to know that it was still alive. It ended by saying that we can expect to see more information about it in June which we can assume will be at the Square Enix press conference that we talked about last week. I think this was a much better State of Play from all angles, including the reveals, the timing and the managing of the expectations. It will be interesting to see when the next State of Play is considering we have E3 in about a month and Sony has previously said they wouldn’t be there or around it.

The next installment in the Ghost Recon series was announced on Thursday. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint will be released later on this year on October 4th. It seems like companies are learning the proper window between announcing a game and releasing it as that gives us 5 months before we are playing it. It will be a sequel of sorts to Wildlands and it will feature the main villain from the latest expansion Cole D Walker or Cold Walker if said fast, who is played by Jon Berenthal of Punisher and Walking Dead Fame. He is a Ghost turned Wolf, a mercenary group of sorts on a fictional island of Auroa located in the South Pacific. There are a few takeaways from the event. One is that the game will feature raids, which you can assume will be 4 player raids based on the trailer. This is the part of the reveal that excited me the most. You can assume that the raid will be at least a few months after launch if The Division 2 has taught us anything. Something to note is that the game is looking to focus more of stealth this time around instead of the destruction of Wildlands. I am not sure if this is in reaction to how most people felt that the series was getting away from its roots or if the they found that people would prefer to play the game alone. They already have The Division, which is intended to be a co op shooter, so making Wildlands different as possible bodes well for its success when released in the same year as The Division 2. The last thing to note is that the game is set in a fictional place this time around which is slightly weird because there is some story and characters carried over from Wildlands, which took place in Bolivia. Setting the game in Bolivia didn’t sit well with the government of Bolivia as they went to the French Embassy to argue that this game not be released due to the way it portrayed the country. This fictional setting does save them money for location scouting, it eliminates any negative press the game might get and it allows for future flexibility to add almost whatever content the designer would like. The game will feature 11 different biomes according to the site, including a volcano that was shown off in the trailer. Similar to the first game, it can be played solo or you can play using drop in, drop out co-op. The game features a new injury system, which can slow you down and reduce your combat effectiveness. The terrain will play a part in this game as the steep slopes will make you slip and fall, and snow will affect your speed and possibly health if they are planning on using the whole Breath of the Wild system. They are trying to emphasize realism and stealth this time around with the aforementioned injury system and a new adaptive cover mode where you can blend in with the forest when possible or cover your self in mud to let enemies sneak right past you. We will see how it all pans out and hopefully it has some decent realism instead of just saying the buzz words that people are looking for.

Last week Nintendo announced their plans for E3. Its all pretty standard stuff as usual. They will be having their direct on Tuesday at 9am PT. They said they are focusing on software for this E3 to quickly eliminate any speclation that we will see the rumored Switch iterations. The show is supposed to only be focusing on the games that are going to be released in 2019 but its more than likely we will see a few teases for farther games. It will be interesting to see what game Nintendo chooses to focus on this year as in the past they have main focus of their E3 has been Breath of The Wild, Super Mario Odyssey and Super Smash in the past three years. It will most likely be Animal Crossing, Pokemon or Mario Maker 2 with an outside chance at Links Awakening. They will also be hosting a Super Smash and Splatoon 2 competition as well as doing their treehouse livestream where they will usually have some gameplay, some interviews and some smaller reveals. I am currently working on our E3 predictions so we are hoping to hear something in regards to Metroid. It will also be nice to get a release date and more gameplay for Luigis Mansion 3 but based on the spooky nature of the game it can be assumed that we will see that released sometime in October.

Starting this July, EA Access will finally be making it way to the Playstation. The cost for the service will be 4.99/29.99 starting in July. This is a change of tune from a few years ago when Sony released a press release basically saying that they didnt consider it a good value for PlayStation customers. It could either be a good value now that there is a lot more games available on the service as well as the inclusion of the early access you receive to the new release game where you can basically demo the first 10 hours of the game. This is valuable in this day and age of gaming where three dollars a month will help you learn that a game is broken or isn’t your cup of tea. The other way to look at this move by EA and PS is that Sony is just trying to make sure it has as many bases covered for the next generation of consoles. When the next generation of consoles launch it will be the usual stack them up and compare them and if Microsoft has Game Pass, EA Access and other good services it will be a win for Xbox. Sony is most likely just trying to get ahead of race here. The major issue I have with this service is that you should just be able to pay your money to EA and be able to access the service across all platforms. Unfortunately, at this point in time the service is segregated on each platform which means that you would have to purchase it three times if you wanted to have the service on PS, Xbox and PC. I hope they are trying to figure out a way that you can access it anywhere because it certainly looks like thats where the future of gaming could be headed with the minimal information we have on Google Stadia.

The final story of the week is more of a PSA. There is a very in-depth documentary regarding Sony Santa Monica and the making of last years God of War. The documentary is called Raising Kratos and you can find it on YouTube on the Playstation or PlayStation Europe Channel. This is a very rare opportunity that we can get a chance to look behind the curtain to see how a game is made. This is a very well put together piece that was started well before God of War began development. It takes the viewer on a journey from the conception of the idea and the hardships that gaming studios go though during game development. You realize how many humans are actually involved in the game and how it all comes together. It shows you the level of stress for finding the right characters to play, the right vibe and even how much work and pressure it put upon the studio to deliver an amazing E3 reveal. If you haven’t played the God of War game you should pick it up for sure as it was easily one of the best games of 2018. If you haven’t played the game yet then I think watching the documentary will convince to give it a try. I don’t want to spoil some of the documentary, so I suggest that if you are a huge fan of gaming or a God of War fan then I highly suggest you check it out.