Astro Bot’s new game took the deserved last bow as Sony unveiled a new State of Play presentation, which showcased upcoming PlayStation titles.
Seemingly a successor to the brilliant and utterly charming Astro’s Playroom, which came with every PlayStation 5, this promises to be the happiest game you’ll play until they release another sequel. The trailer showed off why: fun platforming with an utterly charming sense of humour and closing with it showed that Sony understands how much of a good product they have on their hands.
That wasn’t the only thing shown off and the other games were middling to great even if the presentation opened with its weakest hand.
Concord not as fast or flashy as its namesake
It opened with the online PVP shooter Concord, which just looked like a combination of a bunch of games I wasn’t interested enough to play in the first place. Jokes aside, if you’re a fan of the Hero Shooter type online experience, this will be for you.
It made for an awkward watch as quite frankly the genre is pretty crowded anyway and nothing displayed seemed particularly unique. It went on for a while and as much as you could tell the developer enthusiasm was there and sincere it didn’t look fun.
You’ll want to like it based on the interviews, but you’ll struggle.
Monster Hunter Wilds will keep the ship steady
If there’s a game franchise that has been quietly consistent for years, it’s Monster Hunter. If you were there in the PSP days you’ll feel a twinge of pride. A major games showcase and this is the title that you just do not need to worry about. It looks great, classic Monster Hunter but with a polish. This will be fun and given the other titles, it will not let you down.
Until Dawn Remastered… Wait, why?
This was the more bizarre entry. Until Dawn was offered to PS5 owners for free as part of the 20-game collection for upgrading to the new console. If this was your kind of game, you’ll likely have already played it. It’s not hard to buy or find anyway. It’s an interactive horror game, so gameplay isn’t likely to be mixed up all that much. I’m not sure why this exists, is the fresh coat of paint going to make that much of a difference when performance isn’t all that relevant?
The jury isn’t out on this one; the case hasn’t been picked up.
Silent Hill 2 Remake will horrify you – in a nice way!
In the era of Resident Evil remakes taking centre stage, it’s about time we saw more of this upcoming title. Silent Hill 2 is a legendary title, with arguably one of the best horror stories in gaming. It all looked great, graphically good, great voice acting and the gameplay looked fun.
This releases in October and deserves to be a hit.
Infinity Nikki will be a hit for the younger generation
This feels like the most child-orientated game of the State of Play presentation. An open-world dress-up game which had surprisingly good graphics. It looks very innocent, very wholesome and being a cynical nearly 30-year-old man I feel like it’s maybe not targeted at me.
This will be a great game for the younger crowd and might just have a touch of Astrobot on the feel-good front. This will be a good title to diversify Sony’s offering, so silence your doubts, this will be great fun for the younger crowd.
At least then those kids can stop killing me on Call Of Duty.
God of War Ragnorok is… coming to PC. Okay.
This was the most out-of-place entry. Sony doing free advertising for a title going to a non-Sony machine which is old news for the PlayStation? This was odd.
This should have been on a Microsoft presentation.
Dynasty Warriors makes an intriguing return
It wasn’t immediately clear what Dynasty Warriors Origins would entail. It looked similar enough but with distinct differences to be unsure of what it will be. It seems you’ll play as a new character through it with familiar ‘1 versus however many’ gameplay,
Bringing the Warriors formula to other franchises has worked wonders. Dynasty Warriors 9 was a flop, so bizarrely this is more reassuring than just seeing it called ’10’.
One to watch and simultaneously fear if it’s another dud.
So that was Sony’s latest State of Play presentation. Overall, not a bad showcase and, if you skip the Concord bit, pretty fun to watch. It isn’t enough to stop people from pining for E3, but much better than just a passing grade.
Nintendo have a Direct presentation coming within a month, so I’ll see you there for another bunch of rambling post-midnight.
