PlayStation Showcase (Wednesday 24th May @ 21:00 BST)

[Julius]

LET'S. FREAKING. GOOOOOOOOOOOO. The first PlayStation Showcase since September 2021 has just been announced! 

Quote

It's almost time to see what's next — PlayStation Showcase broadcasts live next Wednesday, May 24 at 1pm Pacific Time / 9pm British Time.

The show will run a bit over an hour, focusing on PS5 and PS VR2 games in development from top studios from around the world. Expect a glimpse at several new creations from PlayStation Studios, as well as spellbinding games from our third-party partners and indie creators.

Very excited for this, and it's been rumoured for a good few weeks now. The rumours also said that this had been planned for the backend of last year, but got bumped in favour of studios polishing everything they had for a bigger showing. And with the only SIE-developed games with trailers at the moment being Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine, I'd say all signs point to there being a lot cooking, and plenty for us to feast on. 

I think the biggest sign that this will be a big show is that PlayStation are going first this summer, because, when it comes to E3 season they pretty much never go first (in fact, they pretty much always go after their most direct competitor so they can one-up them). I think that speaks to the level of confidence they have.

Oh, and also, I guess they need a Spidey 2 trailer to stick in front of the new SpiderVerse film which releases the following week 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Julius

[Dcubed]

So this is their Not E3 show? I expect big things here then

I suspect that Spidey 2 will be their big gun here (probably will announce a November 2023 release date here), but I’m not sure if much else is going to be due in terms of big 1st party productions outside of TLOU Factions; since most of their studios have already put out releases throughout 2021-2022.  I guess Team Asobu could have something to show, as well as Bluepoint (Bloodborne remake?).  And their newly acquired studios could have some early announcement trailers for games due to arrive in 2024.  But otherwise? I can’t imagine that much else will be ready for release within the next 12 months.

Still, anything could come from 3rd parties; and there’s always a chance that Sony have been splashing the cash on exclusives… Speaking of which, KH4 and FF7 Rebirth ought to be ready for a first showing by now surely?

[Julius]

6 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

I suspect that Spidey 2 will be their big gun here (probably will announce a November 2023 release date here)

Yeah, it's definitely dropping somewhere in that autumn window.

The Venom VA who broke his NDA a little while back seemed to think it was coming out in September with marketing going nuts in August, which is the same month as when the first game released in 2018, so maybe then? But we did get Miles in November (albeit tied to the PS5 launch), so anywhere in that window I guess. 

Love swinging around in those games 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

TLOU Factions

Yeah, I feel like this needs to release within the next 12 months to strike while the iron is still relatively hot on the HBO series. 

With PlayStation's previously announced focus on delivering multiple live service games, which Factions is surely one of, and I'd say for love service games there's virtually no point in launching physical copies, or if they do, it could be an incredibly limited run. I'd say there's no chance this would happen, but I still want to throw it out there: can you imagine if the Factions trailer ended with 'T O M O R R O W'?

I mean, let's face it, when it comes to live service games especially, there's increasingly little reason to market it as much as single player games, as word of mouth and social media buzz are the main force pulling players in. We don't need impressions, we don't need reviews, live service games - for me, at least - are maybe some of the best games to shadow drop, because you immediately gauge demand and interest following a showing at an event like this.

So long as you have a runway to launch from and a map of where you're heading with your live service game (and there's also the benefit of not needing *everything* completed and ready to go at launch), I really think it's the way to go, and it would be especially potent with a series like TLOU, which would exponentially multiply the sort of hype a shadow drop can bring because of its existing fanbase. 

Again: don't think for a moment that it's happening. But I think it would be pretty stupid if one of the big players launch a live service game don't do it at some point. 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

I guess Team Asobu could have something to show

Yeah, Team Asobi could definitely have something to show. 

Astro's Playroom remains, for me, the most next-gen experience delivered, in terms of showcasing so much of what the PS5 and DualSense are capable of. I also got a little addicted to the speedrunning aspect, so that was fun 

I think a fully fledged game like that would be fantastic, I'm not sure if it would necessarily be selling at the upper mark on their RRPs of £70, but then again, I'd assume that their next game will have some optional/additional VR2 levels and integration thrown in too. I struggle to see their next title being VR2 exclusive, though, because that would have been a weird bet to make over the last few years with all of the things that slowed down PS5 sales for a while like the components shortage, not to mention that VR2 hasn't exactly come swinging out of the gates. 

Very excited for whatever they have planned next, especially if it's something including Astro. I don't know why, but typing this, I just realised I'd love for them to make a kart racer at some point in the future! Astro Kart has a lovely ring to it  or Astro's Karting Adventure! 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

as well as Bluepoint (Bloodborne remake?)

I just checked something I posted in Jan and, yeah, I'd be shocked if Bluepoint aren't here in some way or another, because they've never gone more than 3 years between releases and we'll be at that 3 year mark sooner rather than later in November (to mark the 3 year anniversary of the Demon's Souls remake). 

I'm not sure if it will be Bloodborne, though I'd absolutely love for it to be having just played it for the first time earlier this year and I adored it (my new favourite From Soft game and in my opinion their best but some stretch of the ones I've played), but the biggest issue with that game is it's framerate, and while it could have higher fidelity assets, I don't think it would stand to gain quite as much as Demon's Souls did when it was remade. Not saying it's not happening, I'd be excited to go through it again already with a new set of polish (well, maybe not the Chalice Dungeons so much), I just feel like a remake almost comes with the expectation of a sequel at this point. 

It's also difficult to tell with Bluepoint because I believe they sized up and wanted to work on an original game. They could be working on a remake and an original game at the same time, but if the team were to be split like any of the other Sony teams do to manage multiple projects, that would probably mean not all being in on one project together but generally being split across two, and I do think a Bloodborne remake or something like a Metal Gear Solid remake would require a more focused approach. 

I think if they do have two separate projects being worked on at the same time it might be a case of it being a smaller remake (let's be honest, if they do Bloodborne or Metal Gear Solid next, where the heck do you even go from there if we're talking about taking things up a notch like they have been?) and their original game, and if that's the case, I could see the smaller game being an ICO remake. That game is rough around the edges, sure, but given the impact that game had on the industry - it always blows me away when I read developer interviews and how many times ICO crops up as a huge inspiration for devs - making it accessible and shiny for a new audience would be an interesting prospect, especially with news on Ueda's and GenDesign's game surely ~ SURELY ~ being on the horizon (by the end of the year?) at this point. 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

And their newly acquired studios could have some early announcement trailers for games due to arrive in 2024.  But otherwise? I can’t imagine that much else will be ready for release within the next 12 months.

Again, it's a really tricky one to gauge, because PlayStation have got a bit aggressive with upsizing the last few years, we just don't see much news on it because, well, they don't talk about it. 

But, for instance, Cory Barlog has been working on something new for Santa Monica Studio for a good while now, and there's a lot of reason to believe it's a new IP (and furthermore, I would guess a potential revival of the scrapped sci-fi project which was being thrown around in the early days of God of War 2018's development?). His involvement, as far as I'm aware, on Ragnarök - and from the interviews I've listened to with the game's director, Eric Williams - was kept to a minimum (he's listed as creative director and producer in the game's credits); he basically gave Eric beats to hit storywise which they would have discussed at length and was available for further discussion, but otherwise seemed to be hard at work on his own project. We also know that SMS sized up and I would guess that they have the potential to take on two projects at once after that. 

Personally I think it's too early for a Last of Us Part III announcement, but similar to Factions, I don't see any reason to not strike while the iron's hot, so if they have a trailer like the one for Part II to throw out there, now could be the time for it. If their next project even is Part III, I think I'd wait until after Factions and Part II's adaptation has been completed before going for Part III, and instead take a bit of a breather with a new IP or something, because they've been doing The Last of Us over there nonstop since, what, Lost Legacy in 2017? And that was small and initially DLC for Uncharted 4 which sized up to be its own game. 

Insomniac have already announced Wolverine, I don't think you show that here so we can focus on Spidey 2, but they showed the trailers together at the last Showcase, so they could do here, especially if the gameplay is going to be pretty different (which I imagine it will be). 

And then, yeah, bunch of other potential stuff on the down low, again it's hard to tell with how many studios they have now and the constant upsizing and closures (yes, Japan Studio still hurts). This is being talked about as being something of a Phase 2 unveiling for PS5, so I'd guess that there's going to be a couple of new first party studio announcements we've not got on our radars - if I'd have to guess: Asobi, Bluepoint, and maybe SMS's new IP - and obviously they've set a high bar for how many live service games they want out there, so maybe we see more of those, even beyond Factions. 

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Still, anything could come from 3rd parties; and there’s always a chance that Sony have been splashing the cash on exclusives… Speaking of which, KH4 and FF7 Rebirth ought to be ready for a first showing by now surely?

Yeah, I'm sure a slew of third party exclusive stuff is probably on the way too, I mean we could see Rise of Ronin again, maybe something for Death Stranding 2 with how much Kojima loves his trailers. 

I could see KH4 cropping up again here - we only saw that at the KH anniversary event last year if I'm remembering right? - but Rebirth I'm not too sure, what with us being just over a month out from XVI and S-E seemingly making the (wise) choice to be mum about Rebirth until XVI is out there before winding that up. Maybe we get another trailer..? But I'd be shocked if we didn't get a final trailer for XVI here, too (we've had a lot of that game the last few months and I still don't feel like I have a full grasp on it, which is nice). I think you can do both but up to this point S-E haven't seemed too interested in marketing both side by side, and we've seen it a fair bit as of late that people seem to finally understand that (direct) sequels don't need nearly as much marketing, in games especially it's nice to keep some things under wraps, so could just be a case of them keeping things quiet there too. 

Personally, I have full confidence in Rebirth and don't feel like I need to see much more, I'm already in, so would take a final trailer for XVI and would take a trailer for whatever Yoko Taro has in store for NieR over Rebirth right now. Don't know where Dragon Quest XII would land, but unless S-E have their own event planned, Nintendo don't seem to be lining anything up for this summer in terms of a Direct as the Switch seems to be winding down, so I'd love to see DQXII here. 

Otherwise, maybe something from Atlus or RGG from SEGA? Feels like we're long overdue news about something from Persona which isn't a remaster, be it a remake or 6, and Yakuza loves to turn up to these things. 

Oh, and Capcom. Something Street Fighter 6, for sure. Something RE, for sure (ports of the PS1 classics, please, for crying out loud?! I want to play the OGs and remakes all on the same console). Maybe something Mega Man. 

And lastly, Konami news. I have no idea. Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania...could be any of them, could be all of them, could be none of them. What I do know is that it's May and we still have no idea when Suikoden I&II are landing, so just give me an update on those, I don't know if that's here or elsewhere but just get it done ya pachinko-pushing pariahs 

[Ashley]

Not watching but just seen this and that's unexpected

 

 

[Dcubed]

So... Sony made a Wii U Gamepad, huh?

[Ike]

Interested to see how that sells after they’ve just released that phone add on.

In for Alan Wake II and maybe Spidey 2.

[Happenstance]

 

[Dcubed]

I laughed.

[Julius]

Feel like I need to chime in...because that was a rough showing, and maybe one of the weakest PlayStation Showcases on the first party side of things. I tuned in with some friends in a party to share the hype and there was so little to get hyped about that one of my friends was saying he'll probably just pass on streaming the next Showcase after this and the last one were pretty poor (but at least the last one had more pertinent first party releases). 

Cool to start seeing stuff from PlayStation's acquired studios, but man, they weren't fantastic showings. I'm sorry Haven, but Fairgame$ (terrible name) looks destined to be dead within a year of its launch based on the CG trailer – it just looks so bland. Helldivers 2 looks like it could be dumb fun, nice to see some actual gameplay here, and fighting big Monster Hunter-style aliens with guns seems inherently like a good time, but that also just doesn't seem destined for long-term success. I'm already down and out on PlayStation's new objective of focusing on GaaS - as if I was ever onboard to begin with - but man, this is too much talent to waste on games seemingly destined to be buried in 12-18 months. To jump ahead, Concord, Firewalk's game, got a 45 second CG teaser which showed nothing but sci-fi and maybe inferred a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe...but is slated to be releasing next year? Seriously? Urgh. 

Immortals of Aveum was already announced, still looks pretty stupid. Ghostrunner II...eh. 

Phantom Blade Zero probably stole the show for me, I'm a bit nervous about having never heard of the devs before and the scale isn't so clear, but the combat looks fun as heck, as does the samurai steampunk vibe. Very, very into that. 

Sword of the Sea straight up stole the archway bridge from Shadow of the Colossus and one of the colossi designs and merged it with Abzu and Journey (same artist). Neat enough, piqued my interest. 

The Talos Principle II got a decent trailer, but honestly, I'm hard out on most first-person games unless they're shooters, because they seem to want to give me headaches, so...yeah, probably pass on this  also first-person laser puzzles, nah I'm good

Neva, by the creators of Gris, looks lovely...if a little on the depressing side, if this trailer is anything to go by. Also the wolf hilariously just takes all it can from Princess Mononoke, it's basically the designs of Moro and the Forest Spirit fused 

Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean piqued my interest as someone who knows of but hasn't played the earlier Cat Quest games, might need to look into doing so as I didn't realise they were so charming! 

Foamstars - Splatoon by Square Enix with the traditionally generic F2P character designs - looks like it'll be another GaaS dead within a year. 

Alright, The Plucky Squire still looks delightful. 

Teardown on PS5? Cool. Seen plenty of talk about it back when it release on PC. Not really for me. 

MGS Delta: Snake Eater was probably the most hyped I got the entire show, I joked that it was a first-person ant game but as soon as the bird picked up that dead frog and flew away, then landed on that mangrove-looking plant, I was going to my friends "oh there about to be a snake up in here and it's going to eat that bird, this is 1000% Snake Eater!", and surely enough, it was the much leaked and talked about Snake Eater remake. What a damn flat as hell trailer that was, especially for a remake of a game of this calibre, and made even worse by the fact that we all knew it was coming! Nice to hear the song again but I genuinely think a remake of the Snake Eater intro would have been better than this, it just didn't do anything to convince those of us who already love the original by now showing anything, and did absolutely nothing to sell new players on the game either...so who the heck was that for? I now face an uphill battle in convincing my friends to be excited for a game I genuinely think they'd enjoy, but how can I say that with confidence when I know nothing about the remake? 

The MGS: Master Collection Vol. 1 with MGS, MGS2 and MGS3 is awesome, coming in Autumn and I'll pick that up like the Suikoden collection to show my support. Should've shown some footage imo, but I felt that way about most of the games in the Showcase. 

Towers of Aghasba...eh. 

Final launch trailer for Final Fantasy XVI was cool. Super unnecessary because I feel like we've still somehow seen too much and too little of that game, but less than a month to go, so that was hype, and one of my friends told me he's downloaded Final Fantasy VII Remake after I recommended it for the insane anime BS and music while watching this and half-convinced my other friend to check it out, so that was cool. 

Alan Wake II getting Keanu Reeves was pretty funny, especially with how much they seemingly wanted to throw him into cyberpunk-looking shots. 

Assassin's Creed Mirage looks more like old AC than it does new AC, so that's good I guess. 

Revenant Hill looks charming, still need to check out Night in the Woods but this might be a prequel or something I'm guessing? 

Granblue Fantasy Relink finally got a release window (Winter) for this year! Been waiting a loooooooong time for this, so I'm excited, but also half expecting a delay to early 2024! 

Street Fighter 6 I checked out on a bit, always super curious about fighting games but they just never seem to keep me as interested as the first trailer manages to. 

Ultros has a neat art style, not really interested. Tower of Fantasy is clearly an answer to Genshin that I'm sure will be hot for a minute, find it's gacha crowd, and then go dead quiet.

We finally got to see Dragon's Dogma II in action, which was pretty cool! I am actually half interested in this, so let's see how it turns out. 

Fully checked out for VR2 stuff, nothing super interesting there, but just want to acknowledge how cool RE4 looks in VR. 

Marathon looks like a GaaS that isn't destined to flop immediately but does have an absolutely atrocious name. 

Project Q could be cool if you could download games to it and transfer saves between console and handheld, but with it being streaming-only, eh, I can do that on my Steam Deck, so unless we hear that it's somehow flawless, I'll probably pass. Think this will be a flop if it comes in at any more than £200 with how the Switch and Series S are priced. The earbuds though? I'm fully in for those, the Pulse headset gets way too warm after a couple of hours and I love my XM4 earbuds, so give me that level of comfort in the foam tips, decent enough battery life for a long gaming session, and a half decent mic, and I'll be over the moon that my ears aren't burning - hoping this isn't crazy expensive and comes in at no more than £150, hopefully closer to £100 tbh. 

Lastly, Spider-Man 2 started off by trying to look like Wolverine (bad move imo) before having us worry that we were only getting a Kraven intro (another bad move imo) before then finally getting to some gameplay which, well...looked like more Spider-Man, but somehow a bit worse? Idk if it was the UI but it just didn't feel like a great showing, obviously there's a lot of compression with the stream but the symbiote suit didn't look great, and unlike the gameplay reveal we got for Miles which gave us a whole new vibe and showed us awesome new abilities...this just felt like more Spider-Man, and did a bad job for me of trying to justify being PS5 exclusive? I'm not quite seeing it. Do hope the symbiote suit adds extra attacks to your chain that you don't input as Peter loses sense of things, though, that'd be neat. Still expect to love the game, but yeah, just didn't feel like it sold me on anything new, and I was already in anyways. No release date though? That hurt. I know they've done it before where they've given a window and then just put out a date in the PS Blog, but not giving a date - not even a month? - when it's coming out sometime between the start of September and end of November this year is really odd, especially with it surely being attached to the SpiderVerse ads next week. 

So let's count this out. 

I'm in Day 1 for Snake Eater, MGS Collection, Final Fantasy XVI, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Spider-Man 2, and the earbuds. All of which I knew about to some extent - 3 of these were already announced and the other 3 were heavily rumoured in the last few months - going into this, so, I mean, no surprises there. 

I'm super interested in Phantom Blade Zero and it would be Day 1, but I just don't know enough a about the studio to have that level of confidence that it'll turn out great – but if it's even a 7/10, I'm there, because it's my vibe. 

I'm half interested in Helldivers 2 - that depends almost entirely on its model, is it F2P, premium, mid-priced? No idea - because it looks like it could be some fun with friends, but I otherwise have ZERO interest in PlayStation's games from their other acquired studios making their own big announcements. Also half interested in Neva, The Plucky Squire, Sword of the Sea, Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean and Dragon's Dogma II, but that just really depends on how busy I am with other games when they release, the state of their release, and how well they show off in future showings prior to release. 

Again: big letdown for me this showing, and I'm already seeing people talking about a Showcase in September. Yes, there are games I'm interested in, but I knew about most of them going in already, so Phantom Blade Zero was the big surprise for me here. Look, I'm seeing people disappointed by a lack of GTA VI and Bloodborne anything - to which I say, well, you did that to yourself - but I'm really disappointed by the first party showing here.

I don't even think I was expecting anything too crazy. We got told to expect TLOU Factions news this year, so why not here, one last chance at striking while the metaphorical TLOU is dead hot? We haven't seen anything from Asobi or Bluepoint since the PS5 launched, and we're now over 2½ years removed from that and have no idea what they're up to. There are plenty of other studios with other things in the works, sure, but that first party was limited to Spider-Man 2, THREE GaaS announcements by acquired studios, and, I'm going to be honest, a complete waste of time 45 second CGI announcement trailer for Firewalk's new game? I'm interested in 1½ of the 5 games the showed (I'm going to do them a kindness and not quite count Destiny in this, otherwise it'd be 6).

Urgh, I haven't even mentioned that they brought a trailer for the Gran Turismo trailer to this thing...

I wasn't going to score this, because I'm watching fewer game events these days (there are too many and, outside of Nintendo, too varied in quality) so it feels a bit redundant, but I feel it needs to be done for how poor a showing it was: 3.5/10. PlayStation have clearly forgotten how to put on a show. 

Yeah, said it when it was announced, said it in this post already, but I'll say it again: hoo boy is PlayStation's GaaS-focused approach already looking to hurt so much of the goodwill built with the PS4's single player catalog. We're coming up on 3 years of the PS5 and it doesn't seem like anyone has really got going over there outside of what was originally announced with the console back in 2020, and I'm not saying that's the case, but that's what they make it seem like. 

They could come back in September or some other time and blow it out of the water - we already know that there's a bunch being worked on, so it's not crazy to think that there's stuff to show, even if it's a while out - but, for now, I'm scratching my head and asking myself why on earth they chose to go first?

With no Nintendo Direct seemingly planned for this Not-E3 season, in terms of the big events (so not a smaller Square Enix thing like we had last year), it's looking like a battle of mediocrity between Xbox and Summer Game Fest for who "wins" (spoiler: with a bad PlayStation showing and seemingly no Nintendo showing coming up, we've already lost) this summer, and Xbox surely wins by default anyways purely because they aren't going to be filling their show with a stupid number of ads like SGF will. I guess the trade-off is that at least SGF has the potential to end on a banger of a reveal, whereas Xbox is pretty backed up in terms of announcements, so... 

Like I said: we've already lost, and the worst part is, I think we all know it. Now to start counting down to next year, I guess, because at least Nintendo might have a new console and a slew of new games to throw our way, and maybe PlayStation can do us all a favour and sack Jim Ryan? Please? I miss Shawn and the boys 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Julius

[Dcubed]

Makes sense that Sony’s first party lineup would be thin on the ground this year.  Most of their internal studios have only just put out a major title within the last couple of years, so of course they aren’t gonna be ready to show anything yet.

Nintendo is going to have a very similar problem over the next year or so as well.  Outside of EPD Tokyo and Retro Studios, everyone else is kind of spent, so they won’t be ready to put out big titles for a while now.

[Sheikah]

Can we get a hell yes for Dragon's Dogma 2? What a game the first one was.

[Jimbob]

Yeah, that was a weak(ish) show.  Seeing how fluid Spider-Man 2's transitions from Spidy to Miles though, that was impressive.  Can see why Insomniac said it's only for PS5.

Nice to see that Snake Eater remake is real, and a nice surprise to see a MGS Collection coming in Autumn.

The Project Q device, yeah that's not for me.

Nice cheeky tweet from Xbox there.

Outside of that though, that was about it for what i was interested in games-wise.  Few games i'll be interested in seeing more of as time goes on, but the whole thing felt a little flat.  Fair enough, Sony have come out the PS5 gate strong in the 2 1/2 years or so it's been out, so expected some slowdown here.  Showcase felt more of a Indie+ showcase, which overall isn't a bad thing.

[bob]

I've only watched the Spider-Man 2 bit because that's all i'm interested in. Yeah, it was a weird way to start off a big reveal. You'd think they'd have a flashy trailer or something to start it off, rather than the Kraven bit at the beginning. 

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Jimbob said:

Fair enough, Sony have come out the PS5 gate strong in the 2 1/2 years or so it's been out, so expected some slowdown here. 

I didn't expect them to blow their complete proverbial load here, but I feel like I'm on the complete opposite end of this. 

To explain, the games we've got from PlayStation Studios since the launch of PS5, I think have been consistently high quality – but the quantity in terms of volume of first party releases has, for me, been a bit of a letdown. Part of that might be joining last gen two years in and using the five years that followed as a comparison point may not be entirely fair, especially with COVID as a factor, which I think is more than enough of a reason for major first party releases being quite sparse. 

So, if anything, I expected things to pick up here, not slow down - as I feel they should be nearly 3 years into the PS5's life, but maybe bolstered by projects that might be further along potentially being impacted by COVID (again, always willing to give benefit of the doubt when it comes to an unprecedented global pandemic). 

Again, I don't think my expectations were too wild going in - Spidey 2 was already slated for Fall 2023, we were told to expect Factions news sometime this year (so far we have, what, a piece or two of concept art? Hard to think anything but that the game's dev wasn't entirely rebooted following Part II's release at this point), Asobi and Bluepoint have been quiet since the launch of the PS5 so they seemed like fair game too. Maybe one additional surprise to really get us on top of that could've really brought this thing home. 

The thing is, we know those teams are working on things, as well as other studios under the PlayStation Studios roof, so at this point, the scary thing is that it seemed like a determined choice, not a lack of games being deep in dev, that meant more wasn't shown. I mean, they closed the show on a game we've known about for 1½ years already with no date (despite it being slated for release in the next 6 months...again), that's a huuuuuuuuuge letdown in terms of what these presentations aimed at fans are about (generating hype and grabbing mindshare). So getting a bunch of CGI trailers for GaaS games on top of that, besides Helldivers 2 (the only other first party game I think had a decent showing), for me it felt like a letdown. 

Obviously don't mean to take away from your enjoyment of it if you came away with plenty you're excited for, though, but I guess I'd agree with you saying it felt more like an Indie+ Showcase, which is fairly rough going after a year and a half without a Showcase! 

24 minutes ago, bob said:

I've only watched the Spider-Man 2 bit because that's all i'm interested in. Yeah, it was a weird way to start off a big reveal. You'd think they'd have a flashy trailer or something to start it off, rather than the Kraven bit at the beginning. 

Yeah, it was...bizarre. Especially seeing that, in this take on Spider-Man, it's the first time we've seen a place in the world outside of NYC, I think? It feels less expansive and, to me at least, just made me imagine Kraven and his group being on a tropical island that's turned up off the coast of NY more than making the world feel bigger