Julius

Fantastic idea for a thread @Cube I'm sure I'll think of more, but the one that immediately comes to mind is the Zelda x Ghibli concept trailer. It came out some six months before Breath of the Wild and the Switch, which is funny to think about, considering just how much Ghibli influence your can feel in BotW, at least from a thematic and plot perspective. What I feel the best fan projects like this manage - which so many high budget adaptations of video games have missed the mark on time and time again - is matching the tone of the games they're trying to adapt. I think this does it extremely well, the colour palette and simple but bold lines of a Ghibli-inspired fan project pretty perfectly matching with the soundscape of Zelda's Lullaby and the myriad of deserted locales featured from across Hyrule. There's a melancholic quietness to it all that can be found in Zelda games, and which is found in plenty of Ghibli films. Seriously seems like a match made in heaven. And yeah, I know certain shots are pretty much lifted from actual Ghibli films (such as that shot of Link riding Epona matching with Ashitaka riding Yakul on his journey to the west in Princess Mononoke), but still, think it makes for a fantastic fan short! EDIT: Well, it didn't take long. Got Breath of the Wild on the mind now, and this is another one I'm sure others here will have comes across: Nintendo better not go and give a Zelda series or film to Illumination, or some other American animation studio, that's all I'm saying. I mean they have a manga for crying out loud, it's screaming out for a high quality anime! EDIT 2: Okay, I swear this is the last time I update this post, but I have Zelda on the mind now and it is what it is; Ember Labs having an awesome Majora's Mask fan animation really is something. Think the lesson I've reminded myself of in the last 10 minutes is: holy smokes does Zelda have some crazy talented and dedicated fans!

As someone who watched the anime all the way through for the first time just last month, man this kind of hurt to watch. I don't throw this phrase out a lot, because I think it's a lazy way of getting a point across a lot of the tone, but I've got to say it, and I don't say this lightly: this actually looks fan-made. Hilariously so. Like with the live-action adaptation of The Last Airbender that Netflix is doing, purely from a creative perspective: I don't get it. Cowboy Bebop is timeless, and a large part of its identity - and this goes for TLA too - is that it is animated. You can get away with a whole lot in animation in general that you simply can't in live-action, and there are few live-action projects like Avatar which, story aside, shows mastery over CG. Which takes money and a whole lot of time, which studios these days generally aren't willing to give (and especially those like Netflix) to get a faster turnaround time on projects. From a business perspective sure, it makes sense because they won't be having to constantly sort out deals for their own take (I would assume) like they would the original work. But it'll be outdated in five, maybe ten years maximum, whereas the anime has already stood strong for over two decades, and will no doubt outlive this live-action adaptation. It's a growing trend I'm really not a fan of. Sequels, prequels, expanded universes are one thing, but this just kind of ticks me off. It's different to, say, an anime adapting a manga, because the reach of anime is far greater than manga and so it can pull in a new audience meaning it makes business and creative sense, but I struggle to see why someone wouldn't just look up the original show on a streaming service - or even on YouTube, where there are plenty of playlists you can check out which show it for free - and instead watch this. Especially when the anime audience has grown exponentially over the last decade, it's not like it's a medium that was unheard of or actively avoided by the majority like it was a decade and a half/two decades back.

Got to imagine they're still looking back at their Virtual Console numbers when it comes to decisions like this, and I imagine those numbers justify not selling them separately (or adversely that running the expected number of players to subscribe with the Expansion Pack would be more profitable). Which, to be honest, I think it's a bit unfair to do at this point. I think if Virtual Console were to ever come back it would need a rebrand and a much more consistent release schedule than what we've seen for the Switch Online legacy console services, sure, but the Switch being a hybrid console just makes sense for retro gaming in the same way that it does for indie games. I do wonder if they've run the numbers and would be concerned about their games in the vault being outsold by indie titles on the eShop, but more importantly, I feel like the £5 - £10 price range is extremely competitive these days because of the indie scene, and I think they perhaps justifiably look at it as a tougher situation than it was originally back on the Wii when that price range was saved almost exclusively for Virtual Console titles. I'd gobble up Virtual Console on the Switch in a heartbeat, and like many here my preference is to own things (even if that means digitally, which is it's own potential black hole) rather than be in on some subscription, but I can understand why Nintendo probably aren't seriously looking at it right now. I mean, 3D All-Stars sold roughly 10 million units and they pulled it from the shelves after a bit over six months, I think that's all the justification they need to look at selling collections rather than going back to Virtual Console. Unfortunately it just means the older titles we want to play are spread over even more, older systems, which themselves only seem to be going up in price these days and could easily kick it in any day.

Well, this didn't happen. I couldn't get to sleep, so stayed up and watched this instead Started out strong with diving straight into Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the "Massive Expansion" coming next year. Seriously weird phrasing, but anyways, it's awesome for those who play the game and were waiting for more to come. Mario Party Superstars continued to put the nail in the coffin for Super Mario Party with how much they talked about it having an online component, not one for me (right now, anyways), but seems like many are excited for it, and it's coming pretty soon. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars was so hilariously screaming Square Enix before their logo even turned up, what with the art style and the song in the background, that I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. I'm definitely intrigued by it, especially with Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito involved, so will hopefully remember to check the demo out. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut coming over is cool, doesn't really budge the needle for me on the game and I'd probably pick it up on a different platform if I did, but still cool to see, and it's only a few weeks away. The new DLC Wave for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity looked good too, I've yet to play the base game after finding out it wasn't quite what I hoped it was, but I'll hopefully get around to it at some point. Chocobo GP looks like a hilariously low effort kart racer to cash in on Final Fantasy's 35th anniversary, but I won't lie, hearing the little jingle of Melodies of Life at the end forced a smile out of me. Smart to announce the news about the final Smash Ultimate fighter well ahead of the final act of this Direct, look forward to seeing Sakurai one last time and learning who it is on the 5th. Kirby and the Forgotten Land looks like a whole lot of fun though, the first game in the Direct to really draw me in. Yeah, we've seen PlayStation tackle post-apocalyptic landscapes in recent years with The Last of Us and Horizon, but now we get to see Nintendo's take...with Kirby. Instantly interested. Just hope it doesn't get too preachy. Animal Crossing Direct next month for that free New Horizons update in November should be great for those still playing, hopefully it will have been worth the wait! A free update for Mario Golf: Super Rush too, fair play Ninty, and not only that but one of a few shadow drops today at that. I'm sure Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition will have its fans, but I know I won't be one of them. But what I will be a fan of. Finally getting the chance to play Knights of the Old Republic on a modern platform *that I own*. Hopefully that makes it way over to other platforms on the same date too, only got to wait until November 11th, but I'm more than ready to get stuck in. It's been a long time coming! Dying Light 2 getting a Cloud Version for Switch...meh. Free demo on the day of the release is a good idea at least. On the other hand, Triangle Strategy has grown up and dropped the "Project" mantle, and some of the changes they've made off the back of the demo feedback sound great, they've done such a good job with demos and feedback that team, more than any other team that comes to mind to be honest! Coming in March next year too, not too shabby a turnaround that. Nintendo continues to show too much of Metroid Dread, and that's all there is to say about that. The Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription is a weird one for me. On the one hand: FINALLY! The addition of N64 games, even if as part of a more expensive subscription, is long overdue, and I'm absolutely going to be getting one of those N64 controllers. Pleasant surprise that the Mega Drive is also in on this - odd that they didn't mention it was SEGA's anniversary year and perhaps say congratulations, but maybe that's just me - and there's a decent variety of games from there coming too. On the other hand, though, seems to be the original N64 versions of the games - which is no surprise, but let's be honest, it means these probably aren't the best ways to play some of these games. Ocarina of Time is the poster child of this launch lineup I'd say, what with Super Mario 64 being available in 3D All-Stars, and yet I guarantee that everyone here and elsewhere will point at the 3DS version as the one to be played if you haven't already, which honestly kind of sucks. I'm not the biggest fan of playing on the smaller screens we have for portable consoles as it is now that I personally don't use them as much as I used to. So this is basically just extra impetus for me to go back to Ocarina of Time 3D. I also don't think the launch lineup is particularly impressive, especially considering how long the wait has been for this update; though, that being said, what's coming down the road could further delay any incentive to pick up a Wii U, what with Banjo & Kazooie, Pokémon Snap, and Paper Mario coming over at some point on the future. Shadowrun Trilogy I don't care much about. Castlevania Advance Collection instantly wishlisted, got enough Castlevania to play as it is, but another shadow drop and yet another reason to delay picking up a Wii U I guess. Actraiser Renaissance kind of came out of nowhere, I'd read up on the original a few years ago when trying to come up with lists of games on each platform I wanted to check out, and hey, this seems a good excuse to finally get to it, especially after @Dcubed shared a few months ago a wonderful track from the game. £24.99 seems a little steep if I'm being perfectly honest, especially if it's only as long as the original (according to HLTB, probably a bit over 6 hours?), even if it's a remake and has the option of original or rearranged OST, I think £19.99 might have been the sweet point. Yet another shadow drop, but one that perhaps works against it in this case, as it's not a straight port and so I imagine many - myself included - will be waiting to hear how this stacks up from reviewers before taking the plunge. But I'll wishlist it for now I guess. Deltarune Chapter 2. Another shadow drop. Kudos, look forward to hearing the new music. Final montage time. Hot Wheels Unleashed - on my radar after the positive first impressions a month or so back, will likely wait for a sale on other platforms. Surviving the Aftermath - didn't sell me at all on the game, couldn't be less interested. SMT V - just a reminder it's coming, we've seen enough at this point anyways. Wreckfest - don't put two car games in the same montage, but if you have to, definitely don't put the one that already has positive buzz going for it first, because Wreckfest then pales somewhat in comparison. NAMCO / HAMSTER Arcade Archives - look like fun collections. Rune Factory 5 - happy for those fans to get a release date, fingers crossed things go smoothly and it's not delayed. Miyamoto coming out had me think for a second we were getting news on Super Nintendo World or maybe even Pikmin 4 or, you know, a game, but it was just the Mario movie stuff. Some castings look good - Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, and Key as Toad could be fun - but then others just...don't. I can hear Seth Rogen's "ehuh ehuh ehuh" chuckle and I don't need to see DK go through that. And Chris Pratt is basically an older Tom Holland in that he's in basically everything these days, a very low risk and kind of boring casting. Splatoon 3 looked as good as it did last time, don't think we really learned enough here to warrant showing it off again beyond reminding us that it's coming next year. Bayonetta 3 on the other hand looked decidedly PG for a change. Maybe it's just the costume? But it definitely didn't seem as risqué as her previous outfits, she kind of looks like an adult cosplaying as a China doll with that hair too. As soon as the trailer started a sign said "Platinum" and it was clearly going to be Bayonetta 3, but some evil part of me kind of wanted it to be a Switch exclusive Metal Gear Rising sequel, just to see the fallout. Nice to know that they're aiming for 2022 at least. Overall, a solid Direct. No major surprises, which in and of itself doesn't come as much of a surprise. A few games I'm interested in, some to add to the wishlist, and as always a fair few I just didn't really care about. My Totally Unofficial Score: 7.5/10

I know it's long been rumoured, but surely this collection has a good chance of turning up here? Especially after the news this morning... It's got to be at this Direct rather than at TGS...right? Potentially even a shadow drop at this point.

I don't know if it's just me not following games as closely the last few weeks, but this kind of felt out of the blue, even if we have had September Directs before. Still, I'm not complaining That being said, my expectations - especially for new reveals - are really low. If we take "this winter" to mean "until the end of 2021", we already know a lot of what is coming anyways, and have done for a while; on the other hand, if we take it to mean "until the actual end of winter in March" maybe there's room for a surprise or two, but I don't expect any big updates on games that seem far off. We're two months away from the next Pokémon games in the Sinnoh remakes, and yet their marketing hasn't really kicked into gear, not helped by the fact that there a) doesn't seem to be much new to actually share, and b) is a much bigger and more important game on the horizon, at least from an investment perspective, which seems to unsurprisingly be getting the spotlight ahead of these games, in Legends: Arceus. If there's anything else new and exciting to confirm about the remakes (which doesn't seem to be the case), then it needs to be confirmed here. Especially, you'd hope, when it comes to nuances like what the deal is with the (lack of a) Battle Frontier and how the Dex is going to turn out. Metroid Dread will probably show more here than fans want to actually see, and its presence probably means we're still going to be left waiting for a Prime Trilogy port, which is a shame as they're very different games visually and mechanically, and if there was a time to push Metroid hard it would be right now. This totally isn't me tempting fate so that I'm wrong and we do see it. Advance Wars seems like a safe bet, and I'd expect a better look at the new Mario Party too, as it's not too far off. Throw in the other first-party titles like Brain Training too and you've probably got some 15-20 minutes of the show right there. Maybe a remaster/port or two that no-one is really asking for but would probably take, like Donkey Kong Country Returns. Heck, it's been a year since 3D All-Stars released now, let's see Galaxy 2 on Switch already. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess to be honest. I don't expect BOTW2 news here seeing as E3 was so light on it, and Bayonetta 3 and Prime 4 seem to get further and further away every time someone mentions them by name. And we already know not to hold out for further Zelda remasters. Throw the FE fans a bone and give them the Holy War remake already. And maybe whatever MonolithSoft have going on, with the team only getting bigger I feel like they might throw out a remaster of Chronicles X to buy some more time for their bigger project (Chronicles 3 or a new IP) and to assist with work on BOTW2. Overall, though, my expectations are low, even if I want to wish some things into existence for others here. Don't think I've played my Switch for more than a handful of hours in the last six months or so, probably spent more time going through the eShop than playing games on there to be honest, and there's just a lot going on elsewhere in gaming these days, to the point I honestly feel more attracted to the idea of going back to my 3DS than my Switch these days. So go on and surprise me, Nintendo (also going to be one of those skipping watching this live too, a surprisingly late one for us UK folk for a change)

Do Curry's PC World stock amiibo normally? Maybe it's just my local few, but I can't recall ever seeing any in there, or even on their site for that matter Which is to say, fingers crossed you guys who put an order in have it honoured for £27!

Yet another announcement: the Midnight Black Pulse Headset is arriving next month. Just give us the black panels already

I've just tested it; you hear the shutter sound that you did before when taking screenshots, you just won't see the capture icon. However, even if you choose leave to the icon up (the default), it now doesn't show up in your screenshot capture like it did before. Every time you'd take a screenshot a screenshot capture icon would come up in the corner, and stick around for probably 5-10 seconds. Any follow-up captures you took while it was in the corner also captured the icon itself.

FINALLY. One of my biggest hangups with the PS5 since launch to be honest, especially after going back to Photo Mode in Ghost of Tsushima for its DLC.

The first price cut to the base Switch model has arrived, over four and a half years after release. Down to £259.99 / €299.99.

Yeah, it's a weird one. We're still seeing the impacts of COVID, yet here are two more games coming from a studio that has put out two quality titles in the last 10 months. Was anyone doubting that a Spider-Man 2 was coming? As for Wolverine, was this really the time to make that play? Arguably not. I wouldn't disagree, because while I'm excited for those games, they are a ways off. It's not exactly a move to push consoles, considering that they couldn't sell faster after getting back in stock. But speaking to my friends who don't yet own a PS5 the other day, it's clear that it's a play for mainly one thing, at least from a front-facing perspective: this is a move to buy mindshare. I mean, just the announcement of Wolverine gets the kind racing -- do PlayStation have a Marvel Games Universe in the works? What else could we see from them, either at Insomniac or some of their other studios? We spoke about it for over an hour, and while they're holding out from buying one for now, they're quickly running out of reasons not to be excited about the slate that PlayStation are building, be it first or third party, whether that be timed or indefinite. Unfortunately, I think the biggest reason from a behind-closed-doors perspective is that PlayStation in recent months have been missing out on making their own headlines and, more importantly to them, controlling the messaging. I've said before how I don't like how many leaks we've been seeing, especially after COVID became a massive factor in the delays we've seen, and I mean, Schreier alone has been getting out ahead of PlayStation, first with The Last of Us remake and then with the delay of Horizon Forbidden West. Personally, as someone who owns a PlayStation and watches these events, I would much rather see a CG teaser that says the game is 2+ years away so that the team working on the game gets the attention they deserve than have some journalist completely pull the rug from under their feet. Case in point, at least for me: the KOTOR Remake. As soon as we saw the Lucasfilm Games logo it was so obviously KOTOR, and it was all but confirmed a split second later with Aspyr's logo being thrown up on the screen. While I'm still excited, it felt like old news because it was something we'd all read about some 6+ months ago, and it was more disappointing because it was only a CG teaser, for a game that is 2+ years away. My expectations for what we saw were shot because we already knew what was coming. And if that's the case, I hope PlayStation sticks with this. I'd much rather have this news come from them with a CG teaser trailer to at least get me excited than reading about it somewhere else, especially when it amounts to individuals stealing other people's thunder. Especially more so when those same reporters cover the difficulties of working in the industry. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we don't see any real marketing (gameplay showcases, etc.) outside of these announcements for Star Wars titles until the 12 months following the conclusion of the EA deal. They want us to know it's on the way and give us confidence that there's a conveyor belt of stuff coming after the deal ends. I don't think it's crazy to think this will be out in 2024, of course assuming that there aren't any delays, which is a big assumption to make when it comes to games. They'll still have a lot of work to do, I'm sure, with new mechanics and modern gameplay, but I think the core narrative experience will hit the same broad strokes and so that, at least, is something we hopefully don't need to worry too much about during development, what with it being a remake and this surely not being a Final Fantasy VII Remake situation. What makes me most nervous is that Aspyr haven't had a project of this size before, but I hope that they can latch onto the opportunity and have things go as smoothly as one could expect for a AAA title. I'm much more concerned about Massive Entertainment's game. We've seen Ubisoft bottle the development schedules of so many high concept titles over the years by running too far with the possibilities and concepts (Avatar, Beyond Good and Evil 2, etc.), but hopefully that's where Lucasfilm Games are stepping in and making sure that they don't deviate. Fingers crossed!

Yeah I'm aware, to clarify I was talking about the differences in design for Thor from 2018's God of War to Ragnarök; I probably should have been more clear!

Context for anyone who hasn't seen what Thor will look like in this game: Weird not seeing him in his usual good shape that he's depicted in even outside of Marvel (I mean I guess this isn't too far from where he's at come the end of Endgame!), but I know he's not always depicted as being blonde so I'm cool with a slightly rounder, redheaded Thor. I rarely care how characters look - unless there's a legitimate reason to, such as over-the-top sexualisation - and care much more about how they're presented from a storytelling perspective. What I find interesting is that in the first game they were clearly going down the more traditional Thor design route we've seen many times before: Totally possible that there's a story reason for it, not that there needs to be one, but I don't know, I don't think it's too surprising he'd end up in that kind of shape after what goes down in God of War. He is wearing a lot of armour here, so it's tough, but he looks like he's carrying less weight in his face, and just generally overall. Having a voice actor who is most likely doing motion capture could be a part of the reason for the redesign, though. But those are boring takes, so tinfoil hat time: PlayStation have just announced Wolverine, and I imagine that's a hint of what's to come with potentially more Marvel games on the way. Maybe he's so (seemingly) different from what we saw before to keep the door open to making a game about/including Marvel's Thor in the future?

Right, might as well chime in and give my thoughts... ...it started weirdly with their advertisement to be honest. IRL chess is such a weird advertising strategy, but I guess that PlayStation doesn't really need to run ads at this point anyway, so yeah. Then we got Jim Ryan's spiel about showing new content and having significant updates...and what do you know, he was telling the truth! Show started strong with the announcement of the KOTOR Remake. It being a timed exclusive for PlayStation probably gives us some insight into what the deal is going to be for MachineGames' Indiana Jones game, which is to say that I imagine that'll be timed exclusive to Xbox, but we'll have to wait and see. I've got question marks over Aspyr being the team behind it seeing as everything we've heard beforehand overshadows their usual budgets to an insane degree, but will hold out until they have something to show. Which, as they said in the post-show, will be a while; we probably won't see anything more until whenever EA's deal is up in 2023, unless it covers the entire year, in which case it'll probably be 2024. Think it's fantastic that we have confidence of multiple projects confirmed as in the works now for post-EA, and I doubt we'll be waiting around too long once that deal expires. KOTOR is an odd game for me, I've talked before on here about how I haven't played the game (too young when it released; didn't own an Xbox for the longest time; didn't have a PC that could feasibly run it growing up; and it wasn't exactly something that was on my radar anyways with limited internet access). What really put KOTOR on my radar were the awesome CG trailer for The Old Republic, and I ended up wading through page after page on Wookieepedia learning all I could about that era, Revan, and beyond. The Galactic Timeline Records for TOR were also a massive help and beautifully done, so it's one of those games where I haven't played it...but I know exactly how it plays out, I've listened to the soundtrack umpteenth times, and Revan is one of my favourite Star Wars characters, so we'll see how it pans out, but it's safe to say I'm soundly hyped. Think we've heard in the rumours/leaks that it won't be 1:1, which probably means it'll be more action-based than the original and I imagine potentially have things slightly tweaked to bring it into the Disney canon. Bit of a shame (as always) that it was ruined by leaks, because otherwise I think it was a solid teaser trailer. That shot of Revan is gorgeous and screaming to be a wallpaper. Anyways, next up was Project Eve, which looks like a Square Enix game but apparently isn't. Seriously, was waiting for some NieR reveal the whole time, because it looks like NieR but somehow...weirder, like NieR X Devil May Cry (with the monster designs and such). Looks fun, from a Korean studio, seems like there's slowly a lot more coming from Korea to the West which is always great to see. It was followed by Tiny Tina's Wonderland...and I think that's the least I've cringed at one of the trailers for this game, so kudos to Gearbox for that; it definitely told me a lot more about it than the trailers we saw previously. It's not a game I was interested in before, and I'm still not, but it's the best showing I think it's had. But what the heck was up with that song that sounded like it belonged in an anime opening? Forspoken followed this, and I've got to say, the more I see of this game...the less interested I am. I don't feel like we've seen anything truly new or exciting about this from a gameplay perspective since it's first trailer, where I think we actually saw more meaningful gameplay aspects than we did here (combat, unique and varied enemy designs, etc.); when I think of this game at the moment, all that comes to mind is Frey jumping across rocks or leaping from building to building with an admittedly cool dash in a virtually empty space. It looks like a tech demo. And no I'm not just salty that we saw this and got a release date for it before XVI, I swear. Rainbow Six Extraction was a snore fest for me. I'm sure it'll find its audience, but I won't be one of them, I think a really poor E3 gameplay demo has given me more than I needed to see of this game as it is. Alan Wake Remastered looks cool, feel like it would have been a more exciting announcement if it hadn't already been officially announced, but I feel like Remedy's hands got forced after it leaked, because I otherwise struggle to understand why you wouldn't save it for a show like this. Also when it opened and we saw that it was a game that Epic was publishing my mind immediately went to Fumito Ueda's and genDESIGN's game...but no dice. Maybe at TGA's? Next-gen GTA V looks solid, one of those games I play with my friends every week as it's an easy game to just mess around in and have stupid fun. Surprised that it's not coming until March 2022, and I really am not looking forward to finding out that this will be a full priced game. Just kind of hoping it can be played with others playing the PS4 version as some in my group don't plan to pick up a PS5 for a while. Lightning round. Ghostwire: Tokyo still looks good, nice to have a release window at long last. Not a great trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy. Struggle to care about Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt when their other game in the works seems to be tripping over itself and into development trouble constantly to the point of being delayed indefinitely, and a vague "2021" window here for this doesn't exactly invoke confidence we'll see it this year as it's already September -- the developers know that, right? They say pictures are worth a thousand words, meaning a GIF is probably worth a million...so here's my life's work epic saga of novels on how I felt seeing Deathloop again: Kid A Mnesia Exhibition: no idea what it's going to turn out like, but it's something to do with Radiohead and their anniversary reissue album, so I'm listening. Heh. Then we saw Tchia, which I thought looked cosy as all heck, kind of reminded me of Wild and the guitar plucking a bit of TLOU2...but I just can't find it in me to appreciate the art style. Those noses in that art style have me not wanting to check this game out. Seriously. Also probably the weirdest edits around this in the entire thing? Bizarrely had a transition animation following Kid A Mnesia and then had one ending it and going into the PlayStation Studios stuff. Weird. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection looks good, wish we would have had more details on what exactly it entails and whether or not it's worth checking out if you already own the games (I have Lost Legacy sitting on my shelf). Thought it was really odd this wasn't in the PlayStation Studios section? And while A Thief's End and Lost Legacy are good to see coming to PC...what about the rest of the Uncharted games? Anyways, then it was onto Hermen Hulst sharing that we were about to dive into the PlayStation Studios stuff...and just as well, because I think this was around the time everyone was scrambling to see how much time was left. Honestly, I liked the format of doing it this way and saving PlayStation Studios titles until the end, and hope it's something they consider continuing in the future in instances where there isn't a true third party bombshell to show off (not that KOTOR Remake isn't massive, it's just been a known quantity for a while. Thanks Schreier). In cases where there is (for example, a Persona 6 or a Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2) then it might be worth shuffling stuff around to potentially end the show on those titles. Only thing I wish they did differently here is if Jim Ryan told us the plan at the start, so rather than a vague "we have updates and we have new stuff" it probably should have been "and stick around until the end, where we'll be giving you a look at what is on the way from PlayStation Studios". Just nitpicking here, but that's what you need to do to get people to stick around until the end, because although I thought the rest of the show was pretty well paced and had some good reveals or updates, I don't think that would have been the case for everyone. With that out of the way though, onto the (other) PlayStation Studios games. Insomniac's Wolverine is a thing. Holy cow, I don't think anyone saw that coming; how many of us were there and saw Insomniac followed by the Marvel logo, and assumed it was Spider-Man 2, before you see this completely wrecked bar and start thinking it looks like something a little too violent went down in here for it to have been Spidey? Great way to play on expectations, and not the only time Insomniac managed that in this show, which is incredible. But let's not put the cart before the horse, because next up they showed off Gran Turismo 7...and I thought it was a really good showing! The throwbacks to the older games, the church organs (guuuuuuuys the organs!), crazy levels of customisation, a better look at a more traditional campaign screen, and a really good looking photo mode. Seriously hope this gets a demo before it releases, because the only thing in the way of me not wanting this game so badly right now is not knowing how the game feels, especially with the DualSense. Got to say though, another stupidly weird cut at the end where it kind of just...stops the music. Then it was over to...Insomniac again?! And this is where I think the importance of how you present a game at one of these showcases comes in: showmanship and knowing your audience. Okay, they've already duped us on Wolverine not being Spider-Man 2, which they had us thinking it was for a moment thanks to the Marvel logo immediately following the Insomniac logo...but there's no logo at all here. Okay, so this is probably something completely new. We see some electricity buzzing around a traffic lights pole, we hear a gravelly voice...and even I, someone who hasn't played any of those games, is questioning if this is inFAMOUS. And then...*chest logos are revealed*...wait, it is Spider-Man 2?! Insomniac are out here working for a living, good lord. I was just saying to a friend yesterday how at best Spider-Man 2 is probably a tease and is years off (to be fair that's what happened) as Insomniac have only just come off Rift Apart, but here we get this tease and they have a WHOLE OTHER GAME in the works too with Wolverine. Crazy bunch. It's genius how they managed their audience's expectations throughout this trailer, and it's stuff like that - a clear willingness to misdirect - which makes PlayStation showcases so worth watching. You might think I'm a little nuts saying all this, or going a bit far with it, but if you want evidence of this being a conscious choice: go and watch the trailer uploaded individually to their channel, and note how the Marvel logo is there right after the Insomniac one. They also did a great job of keeping you guessing when it came to the villain with how they handled his voice (maybe the first voice was Kraven?). Shame it's not coming until 2023, but you can be sure that'll be next-gen exclusive and worth the wait. And then, finally, it was onto God of War: Ragnarök...which is actually keeping that as a title, which is nice to finally know, as they've been so coy about it until now. Seeing (and hearing) an older Atreus was cool, game looks great, that town looks cosy as all heck, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on some of the cooler reveals in the first game (Atreus' identity and Thor turning up). And finally seeing Tyr in the flesh after the first game did so much to hype him up was great! There's not much else for me to add - it does look like God of War, but that's very hard to complain about - other than some stuff we see here which will tie in with Norse mythology in a way that is probably worth sticking in a spoiler tag... Anyways, no release date, but the girl at the end gave a wink and a nod, so I doubt it'll be too long before we find out. If I remember correctly we didn't get a release date for God of War until late January 2018, and it released in April 2018, so @Ronnie that's probably why they're keeping it close to their chest for now, to give us a short lead time from when find out the actual release date to the release (and to be fair, it's always a good idea in these tumultuous times to announce that stuff as late as you can anyways). The window for it's release before the delay was only ever "2021", and seeing as we've now got the whole of 2022 to work with, especially with a pretty busy first half of the year now, this could be a September/October 2022 title to take firm aim at GOTY season. That's pretty much if for my thoughts...other than the super weird 10 second countdown we got with the promise of "more updates" following the countdown, only to then be shown a montage before getting to the Q&A stuff at the end. Again, a few really bizarre decisions like that dotted around the show. But that being said...this show delivered and then some. Yes it had some pacing issues and poor editing/creative decisions, and yes some will probably see everything from the KOTOR Remake reveal up until Hermen Hulst showing off more PlayStation Studios games for the last 10 minutes as being pretty moot...but let's not let that take away from the fact that those were 10 minutes of awesome reveals and updates. The fact that I can tell you now that I am, for a fact, going to be buying Wolverine, Spider-Man 2, and God of War: Ragnarök on their day of release - three of the four games - AT A MINIMUM speaks volumes to the strength of Sony's current slate of IP's and the quality of their studios. It was missing a crazy announcement to be up there with the best game showcases of all time, and yes it hurts that XVI wasn't there (again) and as @Cookyman pointed out The Last of Us Factions is still MIA, but for me those last 10 minutes are going to be 10 minutes I watch over and over again. Would watch again despite some of my issues with it. My Totally Unofficial Score: 9.0/10 EDIT: also I completely forgot to mention, where the heck was Kena? Isn't that out in a week and a half? Now that being a no-show is a tad bit concerning.

Well you're missing out

I feel like it's one of those unconfirmed truths we've known for a while, I think it was around the start of the year when there was that bit of news floating around that McCreary was following the Forspoken account, and if I'm remembering right Ella Balinska (Frey) also let it slip in a tweet at one point. Still, awesome to have that confirmation, he's a great composer and he'll be working alongside Garry Schyman (Bioshock) on the soundtrack, so that's exciting. Amy Henning here writing this too and getting Janina Gavankar in for Tanta Sila means it's got a pretty stacked staff at this point, Square Enix clearly really didn't want to cut their losses on Luminous. How the hell we got a release year - let alone a window - for this before Final Fantasy XVI is beyond me. (I blame XIV )

Ragnarök title confirmed. Cory Barlog stepping back, teasing he's working on something else, and Eric Williams stepping into the director's chair. Ryan Hurst voicing Thor.

So...this was unexpected

There it is!

Pretty big update from Jim Ryan on this game's PS4 to PS5 upgrade and the future of upgrades on the system: Forbidden West will be getting a free upgrade, and new cross-gen first-party exclusives will offer an upgrade from PS4 to PS5 at $10 USD. Pretty big news that, nice to hear something after the uproar we've rightly seen the last couple of weeks. Wouldn't be such a bad idea for them to reiterate this during Thursday's Showcase.

Some minor but noteworthy updates today. First up, Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Nickelodeon and chief content officer of kids and family for Paramount+, gave a bit of an update on how Avatar Studios is doing. Not sure if he's talking out of turn, but given his position it seems unlikely so...new series confirmed I guess? That's not too much of a surprise, but I think that's the first time anyone's mentioned CG in relation to Avatar Studios, and specifically the films (also the wording about the films...does he mean a number of films, or a series, as in, an ongoing story in the films?). Makes me a little nervous considering how rarely CG animation is done well in the style you'd expect to see from Avatar, I'd have to imagine they'd be going for that 2D-looking cel-shaded look (a good example would be Beastars). I'm hoping that it's not an entirely CG series or perhaps that he was speaking out of turn about their production process, as I think CG is best used sparingly in most cases in animation where you aren't going for a fully 3D look or for action-heavy sequences (it's limited use in Ghibli movies, Attack on Titan, and the big battles in the Berserk movies come to mind). Anyways, Joan Hilty has also today been announced as Executive Editor for Avatar Studios. She's been serving as an editor at Nickelodeon recently and before that at DC, first working as an editor in 1995, so it sounds like we're in capable hands. Honestly, feels like we've had more frequent news updates on Avatar Studios so far this year than I was anticipating. Fingers crossed that we see something - even if it's just concept or a title card - by the turn of the year.

Yeah, pretty much this. It's one thing to be enticed by the prospect of a Switch Pro and be drawn into the hype when everyone in the industry and their mother is saying it's on the way, but when Eurogamer are using their own sources, it's hard to not be doubtful. Still waiting on those GameCube games to come to Switch! Yeah, agree with this too it's just far too valuable an IP to be sold as part of a service, like with the 3D Mario and Zelda games. We saw it with the legacy Pokémon titles being released on the 3DS and how they spread them out, felt like it got much more of a push than the usual Virtual Console releases too. Which makes sense, as they must have sold a few million copies with those releases. (plus it needs to be FireRed and LeafGreen if we're seeing any of them come to Switch first, damn it!) Needs that power bump to run those N64 titles I think the main thing which makes me doubt it (other than Eurogamer) is that the slate for Online has been a mess. NES titles, a year later SNES titles, they drop randomly, and we haven't had a new console added to the service for nearly three years now, right? If there were ever a time to add more consoles to the service you feel it would have been last year when everyone was stuck at home, craving nostalgia, and money was tight. That we didn't see that speaks volumes to me, the service probably isn't seeing the use they had hoped, and I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted an overhaul of the entire service (maybe even a bit of a rebrand after seeing the success of Game Pass?) before the Switch 2 comes. Or at least, that's what you'd hope. What will really happen is GB and GBC games are added in 2027 to the original Switch halfway through the life of the Switch 2

The new limited series, Pokémon Evolutions, will be airing from September 9th in celebration of the franchise's 25th anniversary, and can be watched either in the Pokémon TV app or on the official YouTube channel. Looks visually fantastic, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise, considering just how great their other limited series up to this point (Origins, Generations, Twilight Wings, and PokéToon ) have all looked, but this might be the best animated, judging from this trailer at least! Going backwards through the regions should be a nice change of pace, look forward to seeing how it pans out, and fingers crossed for some good music! And in case you missed it, as I feel like it's the one that's gone the most under the radar, PokéToon is well worth tracking down. It's currently at five episodes, with another three on the way, which can be found on their kids YouTube channel. The first episode, Scraggy and Mimikyu, is basically just Pokémon in a Looney Tunes style...and it works so well. Whoever decided to have Scraggy in this old Looney Tunes style is a genius, it's like it was secretly designed just for this purpose, it works that well.

Expectations for this are probably through the roof, as it's been a while since we've had something...but my expectations are pretty low. For third parties, wouldn't be surprised if we saw Call of Duty here, or more on the next-gen version of GTA V...dare I suggest we even see FIFA thrown here? (audibly groans) Based on the last time we heard about FFXVI, it seemed unlikely it would have something ready to show by TGS at the end of the month, so that showing up seems doubtful, even if we were told an update was coming in 2021. They have Endwalker on the way in November, wouldn't surprise me at all if they wait until something like The Game Awards at this point. Maybe we'll see something from Forspoken instead. In terms of first party stuff, feels like a ton of updates on already announced games is on the way. I wouldn't be surprised by a bit more of a tease for Ragnarök. Would love to see what Asobi is working on, but it may be too soon. We've been waiting what feels like forever for an update on the standalone The Last of Us: Factions, another look at Horizon wouldn't be much of a surprise (as good as it looked last time, following scripted scenarios in a small area of an open world game didn't really give a great feel for what the moment-to-moment gameplay will be like), and they'll probably want to show Kena off here as it releases later this month (and probably some of the other indies we saw last time, though I know they aren't strictly speaking PlayStation Studios titles). Maybe a Gran Turismo update? I also think we'll get a final trailer for the Director's Cut of Death Stranding, that seems a safe bet. Oh, and maybe or a tease for Sony Bend's next project? And maybe an update for quick saving/auto-saving for Returnal? As for the "one more thing", feel like that could be either Ragnarök, Factions, or - if it's going to be something we haven't had announced previously - either a quick tease of Spider-Man 2 or Bluepoint's next project, maybe even have it tied to an acquisition announcement seeing as that seemed to slip out a few months ago during the Housemarque acquisition if it is something from them. So yeah, my expectations are pretty grounded. How's everyone else feeling about this showcase? Funny how something as simple as dropping the State of Play name seems to make this feel much more important, like how other companies treat their E3 showcases.