PlayStation State of Play (Wednesday 27th October 2021 @ 22:00 BST)

[Julius]

Quote

Hello again! Just a quick note to tell you that State of Play returns next Wednesday, October 27 at 2:00pm PT / 10:00pm BST. As usual, you can watch our broadcast live on Twitch and YouTube. Hooray!

This time out, we'll be focusing on announcements and updates for upcoming third-party releases headed to PS5 and PS4.

The show is looking to be ~20 minutes or so, and will share new looks at previously announced games, plus a few reveals from our partners around the world.

See you Wednesday!

20 minutes seems rather lean, so I hope it's paced well and filled with impactful announcements and updates. Worth noting that this is a pretty significant heads-up compared to what we normally see (5 days compared to the 2 days from a Tuesday announcement to a Thursday State of Play), so I hope that's for good reason. 

That new page was created for Final Fantasy XVI on PlayStation's website the other day...is it finally time? Then again, Endwalker is three weeks following this, so maybe not, but they did also say they originally thought of showing it at TGS, and it's been over a year since our last update on the game...

(It's probably not happening here, but I would love to be wrong)

Those Nvidia leaks included potential other smaller Square Enix projects that were in the works, though, so maybe we'll see something from those? Hopefully nothing from Forspoken this time around, we saw it last month in the Showcase and I think all of their showings of that game since the first have informed us less and less about what the game actually is. 

For similar reasons to XVI, what with Elden Ring coming in February, I can't see the long rumoured Bloodborne remaster showing up here, even if it just a few days before Halloween. 

Would love to see an update on Little Devil Inside, we haven't heard anything about that game in a good while at this point. 

Going to set my expectations firmly at 4 minutes of Call of Duty, a smaller Square Enix project, maybe a trailer for the Oddworld Soulstorm Enhanced Edition (urgh), a reminder of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions coming on the 11th, and last but not least: another trailer for Deathloop 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Julius

[Julius]

We're getting a better look at Little Devil Inside tomorrow!

Finally! 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Julius

[Happenstance]

Couple of games shown during that seemed interesting. I still don't know what to make of Little Devil Inside but I love the look of the zoomed in sections.

[Sheikah]

Couple of games shown during that seemed interesting. I still don't know what to make of Little Devil Inside but I love the look of the zoomed in sections.

I think it looks really good. I'm sure I'll be picking it up down the line.

[Ronnie]

Admittedly State of Plays are a pretty low bar, but this was by far the worst one. 

Glad to see Death's Door is coming to Switch/PS5 though at least. 

[Julius]

On 28/10/2021 at 10:57 PM, Ronnie said:

Admittedly State of Plays are a pretty low bar, but this was by far the worst one. 

Yeah, I got back from a party after it finished, figured I had a bit of energy so would sit down and watch it. I was exhausted by the end, made watching paint dry look like Splatoon. 

I actually came here to type my thoughts straight after but was that unenthused by it that I decided I'd leave it for the following day (yesterday), where a less tired me made the correct decision that it was too bad an event to really comment on. 

Little Devil Inside looks great...and that was kind of it, but we didn't even get a date for their show closer and the only game we were told would be present beforehand. The new Star Ocean has a Xenoblade vibe to it which could be okay...if it didn't have faces from 2002 and fewer frames than an emptied out art gallery. Happy for KOF fans that the beta isn't too far away, but they built up to it like it was this weekend. Oh, and that OFK trailer was terrible, they could cut the awkward preamble and terrible jokes (the first minute or so of the trailer?) and I feel I still wouldn't have a grasp on what it was until they outright said it was an episodic release with choices to make. 

Not the worst show of the year, I think Gearbox still lays claim to that honour, but it's very close. 

My score: I'd call this a 3.5/10. 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Julius

[Sheikah]

Admittedly State of Plays are a pretty low bar, but this was by far the worst one. Glad to see Death's Door is coming to Switch/PS5 though at least.

Given that it was mostly indies I thought it was decent. Two very good looking games and a few other somewhat interesting ones. For a 20-minute, mostly indie-focused presentation I struggle to see how people can be seriously disappointed.

[Ashley]

Didn't watch it but just caught the trailer for We Are OFK and not the best trailer (and I can see it could feel a bit 'off' amongst other things depending where it was placed) but I am intrigued by the game. The first song has been stuck in my head for weeks now.

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, Sheikah said:

Given that it was mostly indies I thought it was decent. Two very good looking games and a few other somewhat interesting ones. For a 20-minute, mostly indie-focused presentation I struggle to see how people can be seriously disappointed.

If only it was advertised as an ‘indie’ showcase instead of being talked about as a third party one maybe the internet would have reacted a bit better to it. They need to learn how to manage expectations. Anyway even as an indie reel I thought it was pretty terrible. 

[Sheikah]

If only it was advertised as an ‘indie’ showcase instead of being talked about as a third party one maybe the internet would have reacted a bit better to it. They need to learn how to manage expectations. Anyway even as an indie reel I thought it was pretty terrible. 

Expectations were managed when they said it would be 20 minutes. I mean, you shouldn't expect much at all in 20 minutes.

Last I checked indies were third party games...so not sure how it was false advertising? It wasn't totally indies either, with Star Ocean announced. Even if you don't care for Star Ocean that's a big deal for quite a lot of people.

[Ronnie]

4 hours ago, Sheikah said:

Expectations were managed when they said it would be 20 minutes. I mean, you shouldn't expect much at all in 20 minutes.

Last I checked indies were third party games...so not sure how it was false advertising? It wasn't totally indies either, with Star Ocean announced. Even if you don't care for Star Ocean that's a big deal for quite a lot of people.

I'm not going to get into a back and forth thing. Spend two minutes looking online and you'll see the vast majority of the internet call it a terrible showing.

And what a strange thing to say that we shouldn't expect much in twenty minutes, that's plenty of time to show great games. Nintendo do it all the time. A company that know how to manage expectations when it comes to their presentations.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Ronnie

[Sheikah]

I'm not going to get into a back and forth thing. Spend two minutes looking online and you'll see the vast majority of the internet call it a terrible showing.
Spoiler
What a strange thing to say that we shouldn't expect much in twenty minutes, that's plenty of time to show great games. Nintendo do it all the time. A company that know how to manage expectations when it comes to their presentations.

This is such a strange thing to argue, something I see you do often. It doesn't matter if other people say something, or how many. And it doesn't provide a productive discussion. It's basically just a means of silencing a particular opinion by saying "well yeah, more people thought this, therefore your opinion doesn't matter".

If we're going to use popularity to determine "correctness" then the Daily Mail must be a quality newspaper and Justin Bieber the voice of our times.

What I'm saying to you is that 20 minutes is absolutely not going to be a jam-packed presentation because that amount of time is not enough to cover much at all. If lots of people went into that expecting lots more then that's on them. And if you're expecting Sony to tell people not to be excited or expect much, that is perhaps the most ridiculous expectation I've heard in a while. What company is going to say that.

[Ronnie]

8 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

This is such a strange thing to argue, something I see you do often. It doesn't matter if other people say something, or how many. And it doesn't provide a productive discussion. It's basically just a means of silencing a particular opinion by saying "well yeah, more people thought this, therefore your opinion doesn't matter".

If we're going to use popularity to determine "correctness" then the Daily Mail must be a quality newspaper and Justin Bieber the voice of our times.

What I'm saying to you is that 20 minutes is absolutely not going to be a jam-packed presentation because that amount of time is not enough to cover much at all. If lots of people went into that expecting lots more then that's on them. And if you're expecting Sony to tell people not to be excited or expect much, that is perhaps the most ridiculous expectation I've heard in a while. What company is going to say that.

The entire point of these things is to appeal to the masses. They failed. 

Just now, Ronnie said:

And if you're expecting Sony to tell people not to be excited or expect much, that is perhaps the most ridiculous expectation I've heard in a while. What company is going to say that.

I'm expecting them to manage expectations, simple. Call it an Indie showcase, or mention independent developers in their tweet. Had they done that, the reaction wouldn't be so negative.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Ronnie

[Sheikah]

The entire point of these things is to appeal to the masses. They failed. 

Failure is measured by sales, and I'm sure these games will do just fine. I'll be sure to remind you of this post when any sales figures get posted for them.

[Ronnie]

1 minute ago, Sheikah said:

Failure is measured by sales, and I'm sure these games will do just fine. I'll be sure to remind you of this post when any sales figures get posted for them.

Shifting goal posts and making ludicrous straw man arguments for the sole purpose of point scoring, as usual.

I'm sure Little Devil Inside will sell well enough. That doesn't mean it was a good State of Play.

The fact that it took 12 hours for a grand total of 2 reaction posts on here says it all.

[drahkon]

I enjoyed the State of Play.

[Sheikah]

4 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Shifting goal posts and making ludicrous straw man arguments for the sole purpose of point scoring, as usual.

Shifting the goal posts. You know there were no goalposts, right? You literally just decided what the point of these presentations was ("to appeal to the masses"), which is what I disagree with. Not every game has mass appeal. Star Ocean is never going to appeal to more than 50% of viewers, nor will most of those games. I believe the purpose of these presentations is to advertise new games, so that people who are interested in them become aware of them and might go on to buy them.

If they failed as you say, and the games didn't look good, we wouldn't expect the games to go on to do well. I'm sorry if it didn't contain the sorts of games that you and many others are interested in, but for people like me who are interested in some of these games, I'm more likely to go on to buy them than I was before.

[bob]

I don't think they care about managing expectations or negative reactions, they just want people to watch it.

They'll get more people watching it by leaving out the 'indie' part.