Topic: Next Playstation Showcase/SOP

I just need to see some gameplay for the 2026 GOTY and I'll be happy.

Saros, by the way.

@Zazu I'm not calling them lazy developers, as such, if you notice how I worded it, but it just gives the impression of that because of this one element of recycling and putting out games more frequently, rather than spending more time on fewer releases to really take their games to another level and break away from their pretty usual peak sales numbers. Obviously each release will require a lot of work, but if their owners changed up the release schedule, maybe the devs could actually do some new things to advance the games, rather than just meet the regular expectations and move on once again. And it always surprises me more people aren't fed up with the formula, but then again, it's maybe because it's the same x number of people buying and playing the games, and any that don't gel with it simply continue to ignore the franchise as they know it will be the same.

@CaptD I do wonder how much of it was the Xbox backwards compatibility program. The program got big uptake from 3rd parties in 2015-2019 but then completely stopped after a one-off batch in 2021.

@Grumblevolcano
Possibly, however I do remember that for a number of Ubi and EA titles released around the start of the PS4 gen had a £10/$10 upgrade and Splinter Cell was strangely absent (obviously as it didn’t have a PS4 version). I took advantage of the programme for AC Black flag and I think Battlefield.
I just wonder what they were thinking.
I think Jade Raymond was in charge so perhaps she had left by then.

@Zazu @CaptD I could see something like the Splinter Cell Remake showing up during Sony's show, as the drop for its existence, and then Geoff's showing carrying a bit of gameplay along with a release window if it's ready for one.

I’ve kinda given up hope when thinking about Showcases/State of Plays after the last couple of years… but one thing I’d love to find out about would be Cory Barlog’s next project at Sony Santa Monica.

@Jimmer-jammer
I’m of the opinion that Intergalactic won’t be released until just before the new gen, it seems to be ND’s MO at this point so perhaps summer 2027.
What I’m hoping for this week (or at Game awards) is a look at the new Housemarque game as I reckon that is next up (after Ghost).

@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.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls looks legitimately incredible even as just a first reveal.

I'm not that much of a fighting game kinda gal (I play them as casual as casual can be for the story modes) and I honestly don't think much of Arc's Guilty Gear series to be frank. I like Marvel too but I'm not crazy about 'em.

But holy hell does that look SO freaking good.

Iron Man looking like a gundam with the pointy V thing on his head, Miss Marvel looking absolutely adorable, Storm was just... Wow, Ghost Rider with a freakin' muscle car for his super?!

The fact that you can play it as a 1v1 fighter with 3 assist characters or have it as a 4v4 and can tag in as any of them is crazy.

I have never been this hyped before for a fighting game! Like holy moly! That was a perfect trailer, not to mention the deeper dive development interview thing afterwards!

Digimon Story: Time Stranger coming out in October is pretty sweet. Getting that day one~!

Silent Hill f is personally a really weird to me as I've never actually played one. But I've seen a lot retrospectives about them and I just don't know what to think about the setting change? It looks amazing otherwise but... I dunno.

I can FINALLY try out Final Fantasy Tactics and see what all the hubub is about.

IoI 007 game looked... Fine? I guess? I dunno it didn't really interest me and... Bond himself looked kinda... Bland? If that's supposed to be an actor's likeness I'm sorry but you have one of the most generic faces I've seen.

Mortal Kombat legacy collection is pretty nice. I know people have wanted a retro collection for a while and I'd probably get it somewhere down the line.

A shame the new Thief game is PSVR2 exclusive as I've always wanted to try the series out.

Pragmata looked interesting. Glad it's finally releasing.

Bloodstained 2 looks great. A shame Miriam isn't there but I get it.

And yeah Astrobot getting 5 more challenge levels is neat too!

@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)