The summer of video games continues after a June with no presentations, with PlayStation making a sudden announcement that they would host a State of Play event. It was a bit of a surprise because it felt like Sony’s plan for the summer was not to have an E3-style presentation, but that event came and went on Thursday.
Now that the event is finished it makes more sense why they decided to hold this off until after E3 and Summer Game Fest. The presentation itself was pretty lowkey, with a handful of indie trailers, not major heavy hitters, and a significant amount of time spent on the upcoming Bethesda title, Deathloop, at the end. While some fans may be disappointed with a lack of true news, there was plenty to be satisfied with as the company adds to its catalog on the next-gen PlayStation 5 and beyond. If you missed it, here’s what State of Play covered.
Deathloop
The biggest highlight of the presentation was definitely Deathloop. This isn’t the first time PlayStation has shown this game off, but after multiple delays, and a lot of questions, they really needed something to prove to everyone why they should still be interested in Deathloop. They didn’t disappoint. This finally gave everyone a chance to really understand what this game is about, how it plays, and how the time loop hook is going to work.
Before the presentation, the only information we really knew about the game was the main character was going to be trapped on an island where everyone was trying to kill him for sport. When he dies the world loops back and he has to start from square one. We now know that the purpose of the protagonist is to assassinate eight targets, and once that has been accomplished the loop supposedly ends. What makes the loop fun is that the player will earn special powers as they play through the game. They’ll be constantly learning new information they can use on repeat playthroughs. Almost a rogue-like but not quite. More like Hitman.
What really sold the presentation of the game was how everything moved. Combat looked smooth and the powers that you will have access to seem really cool. Every combat scenario is like a puzzle where there will be multiple ways to solve it, bringing in replayability, but they made the very cool decision to add in a power to “rewind” time. Essentially the player can die once or twice and get another shot at the scenario before the loop fully restarts.
The fun of Deathloop is going to depend entirely on how the loop mechanic works and how long a single playthrough takes. The presentation itself was very cinematic in nature, so the scenario was played out slowly, but eight enemies that need to be assassinated can be time-consuming. Considering the game is called Deathloop, however, there’s an expectation that you will die. A lot. And with an intriguing multiplayer mode and some versatility to gameplay, there’s certainly a lot to look forward to come September.
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
We already knew that Death Stranding: Director’s Cut was on the way, from the announcement during Summer Game Fest, but this recent trailer gave us a little more information about what is going to be coming from the follow-up title. For starters, they appear to have listened to how many people felt the first game was too focused on the walking gameplay and not enough on exciting set pieces. As a result, they’re teasing ways to make deliveries easier and providing more combat options. This may satiate the players that felt the combat itself was boring, but what this means for the story? That part is going to be a little harder to win people over on.
JETT
What if No Man’s Sky had released with less hype? That is the feeling that JETT gives off when you see the gameplay in action. It’s not about getting into combat scenarios, but instead exploration and survival while traveling the world. However, the biggest difference between the original release of No Man’s Sky and JETT is that there is a purpose for that exploration. JETT has an intriguing story of survival that may create more of an initial interest in the game. How deep that story goes we’ll need to find out after we play it.
F.I.S.T
There is something extremely comedic about watching a rabbit in with a mech pack going through and pounding the bolts out of what we assume are evil robots. It also looks like a pretty fun platformer! F.I.S.T easily had the most ridiculous premise of any game shown during the presentation, but it seemed to know exactly what it is. As long as it doesn’t take itself too seriously and the gameplay is fun, this could be a surprise hit once it releases.
Moss: Book II
This was a PlayStation VR game so the amount of people who can play it is limited, but those who can are going to be very lucky. Moss looks delightful and the exact kind of game that is going to be improved with a VR experience. As someone that loved this trailer in every way but doesn’t have a VR headset, however, please port this to consoles so all of us can experience such a fun-looking game.
Arcadegeddon
The latest Fortnite clone is here. Arcadegeddon is a colorful multiplayer shooter with wacky looking characters and the inspirations for it are very clear. Just because it has a clear inspiration, however, does not make it a bad game. It was hard to gauge too much on the gameplay from the trailer, but anyone that thinks it looks fun can give it a try on PlayStation 5 right now. It’s in an early access period right now with a planned launch for 2022.