Topic: Next Playstation Showcase/SOP

@Jimmer-jammer Only a 2026 release window for Saros on the Playsation website.

@Jimmer-jammer yeah, it is a little bit worrying not gonna lie. Hopefully it’s as simple as Sony saying, look we had/have Astro and Helldivers 2 (& Concord 😂) in 2024, 2025 will have Death Stranding 2, Lost Soul Aside and Ghost of Yotei, 2026 will presumably have Phantom Blade Zero, Saros and maybe Woverine/Intergalactic… so Cory take your time and be ready for 2027 🤞

@Herculean I think you're right, the announcement would be better positioned in something like a Summer Games Fest. Sony don't have a particularly close relationship with Ubisoft, at least nothing like with Capcom and FromSoftware. I just think that if a State Of Play was happening this week, it would have to be before SGF, and so it wouldn't surprise me if Ubisoft wanted to magnify the Splinter Cell remake by presenting between two showcases.

So: State of Play. Will it be a Marathon show, or will they kind of avoid making it too Bungie focused to avoid any potential Internet backlash.

Kind of hope we get a Cerny PSSR update just to see how it's coming along

@Ravix
I don’t really have too much idea of what will be shown and as for Bungie, hmm I think it won’t be mentioned and my own opinion is that it might even be quietly delayed.
I have my fingers crossed for a sprinkling of some VR titles (no first party ones because Hermen says no) and a couple of big gameplay reveals, Judas and the new Housemarque game perhaps.
Anyway 40 minutes sounds a chunky show, just wish they would present it with a big more flair....get the flute guy back for a Ghost intro for example.

I'd love for God of War 2D to be closer in style to the originals. I preferred the high action beat-em-up style gameplay over the more cinematic open world stuff personally and while I know we will never get back to that with a AAA 3D game, it'd be great to have the same flavour in 2D

I would love to see a return to Uncharted, InFamous or Killzone

Lol, I might be even more confused after that show than when I was finished with the February show. Sony really have an interesting way of flowing through titles in the SoPs now. A little too spread out on the variety...

That said, quite a few games I'm interested in:

-First Light 007
-Lumines Arise
-Nioh 3
-Thief VR
-FF Tactics Remaster
-Sword of the Sea
-Silent Hill f
-Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection

I'm most baffled that RE9 didn't appear here, in spite of the fact that SGF is a couple days down, was the brightest spot on my bingo card. Was good to see Pragmata though, it's intriguing, but it's too far off for me to get hyped.

Otherwise, I think this show needed one more First Party announcement. The Marvel fighting game is huge for the scene, I'm just not a part of that scene, and I suspect many like me wanted something akin to Cory's game. I guess we're waiting until September, hopefully there's a nice blowout then.

Overall, not a bad show, and we'll see more at Geoff's presentation soon. Not to mention we'll see great stuff at the Xbox show on the weekend, and some multiplat games at Nintendo's next show along with some of their own first party projects. Good times

Enjoyed this SoP - the first half really spoke to me.

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, Silent Hill f and Lumines Arise for this year. Romeo is Dead, Pragmata and Bloodstained for next year.

The Nioh 3 trailer caught my eye too. Might need to finally play Nioh 1 and 2. I'm pretty sure they're in my library.

I'm surprised by the lack of anything to do with Saros. I wonder if this is it for Sony, or if they're keeping some cards for SGF.

@HallowMoonshadow
Agree on some of your thoughts, namely that the Marvel fighting game looked much better than it had any right to be. The IP has been flogged into triviality but yet this game has such an amazing look to it. I don’t do fighting games and will probably never play it but I can see the appeal. The one red flag is that there’s just a limited roster in the reveal and it’s certainly going to follow the battle pass roadmap of gradually adding more Marvel heroes and villains for a microtransaction fee gradually over several years. It’s basically how all these fighters work, and the community loves that model but I don’t really jive with that. But that’s a ‘me’ problem.

The Bloodstained game also might tempt me as the first game was one of the few 2D Metroidvanias that I actually liked and completed.

Pragmata looks quite good, although I can also easily see it flop as well as be a hit. It all depends on the execution.

Baby Steps is like, whatever. It’s obviously going for the quirky goofy angle and I’m not sure I’m up for that, despite respecting the effort to do something unique. It’s just the bathroom humor is likely to grate.

I also have looked at FF Tactics with some curiosity over the years. Not sure this looks like enough to make me take it for a spin, but we’ll see. I think the ship has sailed already for me on trying the classic styled strategy RPGs.

But I’m with you on the Bond game. It looks good but… there’s something a little stale about it. If you took out the iconic Bond music playing in the background and just watched the trailer with some other generic soundtrack in the background it could have been mistaken for any garden variety action game. I’m not counting it out though.

Nioh 3 was hard to get excited about because, well… I haven’t played the first two, and also, when you’re the last in a dozen samurai themed dark fantasy RPGs, it’s hard to stand out. Again, if you didn’t see the “Nioh 3” title and saw the trailer in a vacuum it would be hard to distinguish it from several other recent and upcoming games. I don’t think I’m going to invest in Nioh or any of these until I check Sekiro off my list.

Finally, that Tides of Tomorrow game is probably the biggest wild card for me. The concept is exactly what I’ve been wanting for a long time — asynchronous online MP which has a little more depth to it. I love seeing soapstone messages in the Souls games and building and using other players structures in Death Stranding, and I think there’s a real need for these experiences for those of us who’d like to connect to other players online but don’t want to be doing PvP or co-op shooting with a bunch of sweaty numbskulls on their headsets saying slurs or talking about the other player’s mother. Also, some of us being on the busier side of life now don’t have time to commit to long play sessions with others. A way to either co-op or compete asynchronously at my own pace but also feeling connected to the community it what I would like. The problem I’m feeling with Tides of tomorrow is I’m not sure the art style is exactly up my alley and I’ve never been a fan of water based gameplay and oceanic settings.

None of the other games really caught my eye as anything I’d have interest in.

So overall, it was all mid for me, but I can see why some people are hyped. For me it was enough to satiate some curiosity about projects we knew about (Bond, Pragmata, FF Tactics) and also get some small and large reveals, but it didn’t knock my socks off or anything.

I thought it was pretty good actually… some really nice surprises involving returning series’, a re-emergence and just out-and-out new ip.

For me personally, the Nioh 3 reveal was the killer… but I loved the look of Romeo is a Dead Man and I think that Pragmata may actually turn out to be my kinda game too. I also though Metal Gear Solid Delta looked… umm… solid.

That Marvel fighting game looked sick too. I ain’t a fighting game guy… and this won’t ultimately convince me otherwise… but for those that are, I’d imagine that this looked the absolute ****!

@HallowMoonshadow @Th3solution

I also thought it was the most bland looking person I've ever seen. That kind of catalogue model quality where they are serviceably good looking enough but instantly ignorable and forgettable so you focus on the clothing/accessories.

Which leads me to my next clothing based observation. I noticed Bond had the Tactical Turtleneck

I also think they really overdid (or underdid) the scar design which made the character model stand out as too gamey compared to all the other character models. It looked like the kind of generic scar that kids add to their custom rpg characters in 2005, and it kind of makes Bond look like he's made of plasticine rather than flesh and bone 🤷‍♂️ I think they have maybe taken too much of the real actor out of the final design and it's left it looking like an AI Tom Cruise x Nathan Drake

For reference here is the real actor:

Still bland-ish, but maybe all few more of the real blemishes and a bit of stubble would help the game version to look less like action man with a plastic face 🤷‍♂️ I do think people will get used to it eventually, but maybe they could still make a few tweaks to make James look as real as the other character models.

But I thought the game looked pretty good on second watch. And the level of detail everywhere else looked pretty nice, even if I thought the colour pallette could do with a bit of tweaking in places.

I'd say the Iceland Fire and Ice parts, the fireworks and the Aligator scenes were all really good looking for a bond game and there was a bit of the Roger Deakins style from Skyfall. But some of the scenes looked a bit too bright and colourful and a bit false.

Hard to know what the gameplay will be like, as it was just flashes. But I'm down for a spy thriller, especially one with disguises, which is an IOI trademark.

One recurring comment I've seen is people being surprised at the OHMSS remix, and I'm half hoping they are most inspired by this film, and thus create a more human Bond with their game/series, as I'm selfish and I think this is the right type of Bond to use in a modern game, and that film always stood out to me, personally, for having the more emotional themes (which they later recreated with Daniel Craig's Bond)

Sony did the Ghost of Tsushima State of Play on May 14th 2020 which was a bit over 2 months before the game released (July 17th 2020) so I think the Ghost of Yotei State of Play may be the last week of July to follow a similar pattern. It could also act as a midpoint between the early June State of Play and the annual September event.

@Grumblevolcano I’d say the third week. Fourth works too, every day counts in marketing, so the closer the SoP precedes the game launch the better. By proxy it would also allow the September show to close in a bit more quickly, which I suspect will possess a final trailer for the game before launch (after building from the July demonstration). All of that would give more oomph to the game’s details before its release.

@Enriesto Both of us were wrong, it's July 10th:

https://blog.playstation.com/2025/07/08/watch-the-ghost-of-yo...

@Grumblevolcano Yup, wasn’t expecting that. I was actually thinking the Nintendo Direct would be announced today/tomorrow, and the Yotei presentation would be later. I can’t figure out the timing on this one.

Oh well. Looking forward to both 🤷🏼‍♂️

How is everyone feeling about the next show, near imminent if the rumors are true about one taking place this month?

I found it interesting that they'd kick off with a marketing push for 007, as it's not in their playbook for September protocols. They clearly want to have their hand in major IPs with dedicated SoPs like that (I did enjoy it too).

But, can we expect anything major in the next show? Wolverine was mentioned by Henderson as a possibility... are we in for a massive show finally? Business as usual? I'd really love to see the first party (and third party) content that we've been waiting for, and this may be the time.

@Enriesto TGS week is already really packed with events so I think the previous week (week beginning September 15th) will be the PS event. Wolverine sounds believable considering they announced Ghost of Yotei in late September 2024 and it releases in early October 2025 so Wolverine could be the big Fall 2026 release.

A big showcase though, not sure. Guess it comes down to whether Sony plans to announce PS6 next year (they announced PS5 in April 2019 so a 2027 release for PS6 could mean an announcement in Spring 2026).

Ah, there it is again. So aside from Wolverine, what can we expect?

I have to say that personally I'm less excited about Sony's first party games than I've ever been. There are only 4 studios left that I can say I'm excited for.

Naughty Dog
I recently played The Last of Us Part II for the first time. We can all have different opinions on that game, either based on the game's subject matter or the choices the studio made with regards to the plot. You do you.
However, playing this game I was just amazed (like I have been with every game Naughty Dog has ever made) how incredibly talented that studio is. The Last of Us Part II is gameplay wise such an amazing game, it is incredibly cinematic, but it never feels like a cookie cutter game. I love Cowboy Bebop too, by the way.

I think Schreier said something along the lines of this game not releasing until 2027. I don't see why they would show anything at a State of Play for a game that's two years off.

Santa Monica
Cory Barlog is working on a game that is not a new IP 'but feels like a new IP'. Color me interested. However, he recently stated something along the lines of 'if all goes well, we'll reveal it later this year'. That screams The Game Awards to me.

Team Asobi
Astro Bot has only been out for a year. The team has been working on updates for the released games until Spring this year, which sounds to me like full development on a new game either hasn't started yet or isn't far along. No rumors either, so I don't expect to see anything by them soon.

So, what is there to look out for? Well, there is one studio left.

Housemarque
Saros has got to be one of the bigger single player projects Sony has lined up for 2026. We haven't seen a gameplay reveal yet, so I think that's what we're going to see!

@Herculean in regards to Barlog’s not new IP that will feel like a new IP… the more I read/watch leads me to conclude it will be God of Mischief… which if true I’ll have mixed feelings about. I mean, I’ll no doubt love it as Barlog is up there with the elite directors imho and I’m a huge fan of the series that will have spawned it… but I was so hoping it’d be The New Order: 1887.