After two very strong years in terms of conferences, sales, reveals and so on, everybody had high expectations for PlayStation.

From an industry fellow point of view, I’m surprised by the format, I feel that a “Nintendo Direct” approach would have been better. The fact that they didn’t focus on VR was understandable, as VR isn’t the best to be shown during a conference.

From a pure gamer point of view, the conference still delivered… Despite not showing any of TLOU2. But I get why.

It seems that press and fans alike gave the show a rather lukewarm-ish to good reception. This is probably due to the fact that expectations were sky high, especially after their past conferences, and the fact that Ubisoft had shown their prowess hours before. In theory, Ubisoft’s stellar performance shouldn’t alter the inherent value of other conferences, but here we are anyway.  Let’s take a look at what had an impact on me:

 

Dad of War is back! After an impressive reveal one year ago, Kratos is back with new gameplay. This new video shows God of War in all its greatness and glory. We see new sceneries, new enemies, new powers from our favourite forsaken man. We also discover a bit of background regarding his new role as a father (I never thought I’d say this about Kratos…). The final scene got me very curious and impatient.

Release Date: Early 2018 (aka “before the FY finishes“)

 

The second impactful announcement was Shadow of Colossus Remake. While Fumito Ueda delivered a rather solid game with The Last Guardian (ok, it took a LOT of time, but hey!), it seems that SIE will keep on riding the Ueda wave and bring another one of his stellar and unique works to PS4. For those of you not familiar with it, Shadow of Colossus was released on PlayStation 2, and was already awesome back then, despite the “weak” specs/platform (compared to what we have today); the adventure was still epic thanks to the thrilling fights against humongous creatures and of course; the music was in a category of its own and deserves to be mentioned as it contributed massively to the game aura.

 

Spidey is here! As one of the most iconic super-heroes, but also one who is often featured in games, I feel that Spider-Man never got a solid single player game. With this one, it seems that the guys at Insomniac Games (Ratchet & Clank, Spyro series, Sunset Overdrive) are killing it. Here are the 8mins of gameplay we saw,  where Marvel’s Spider-Man looks very promising:

Release Date: 2018

 

Despite not being a fan of the next two games/brands, I have to mention them as they generated a decent amount of coverage: Monster Hunter World and Days Gone.

Monster Hunter World coming to PlayStation is a big deal since they successfully released their Gen 3 & 4 games almost exclusively on Big N consoles. Having their next big title coming on PS4 (and XB1/PC) is pretty interesting. Moreover, they seem to treat it as their next flagship title.

Release Date: 2018

Days Gone got a decent amount of exposure during the conference too.  I feel that the game is walking in The Last of Us path without the atmosphere and strengths that made TLOU. In any case, the press seems to be rather happy with it. On my side, I’ll wait and see  as I’m fairly certain that the game will end up as a good one.

Release Date: TBA

Next up in the note-worthy block: Uncharted – The Lost Legacy. While Naughty Dog seems busy with The Last of Us 2, they didn’t forget their other major IP: Uncharted. With the 4th episode released in 2016 and shattering many records and gathering plenty of awards, Naughty Dog has shown their strength once more (in case someone was doubting it, you know...). The Lost Legacy follows Chloé & Nadine during their adventure in the Western Ghats mountains (god bless fact sheets):

Release Date: 22 August, 2017

Last but not least: Horizon Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds. Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the best games of the year, critically and commercially. Guerilla Games and SIE have done a tremendous job with it, especially the former. While I still have to play it (Blame Nintendo & Switch, the re-runs and my backlog...), I’m pretty excited to see that they are bringing more content to its already huge world.

Some other games that might interest you to conclude:

Knack 2

Release Date: 5 September 2017

 

Detroit: Become Human

Release Date: TBA

 

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite

Release Date: 19 September 2017

 

Some data, courtesy of Thomas Bidaux (ICO Partners)