PlayStation Showcase Roundup September 2021

PlayStation were back on September 9th, and they meant some serious business. They had been missing in action from E3 in the summer, but they were going to make up for it in their latest showcase which featured some surprises, long awaited gameplay debuts, and plenty of big hitters. Today I’m going to go over all the latest from the Sony PlayStation.

There’s been plenty of debate as to whether it hurt Sony for not being there during the E3 summer season of game announcements, however, from the evidence here it doesn’t really matter at all. Sony have laid down a bold marker with big marque titles and have aldo laid out the roadmap well into 2023.

First up we had the announcement of a Knights of the Old Republic remake, which is being developed by Aspyr. It’s going to be a timed PlayStation 5 console exclusive, given that it’s no longer Bioware and EA making this one. It’s also coming to PC, but we didn’t have a release window. After the show the developer did say it’d be sometime before we’d see an update, and we didn’t see gameplay, it was merely a trailer announcement. This is going to be updated to live in the modern Starwars Universe, plus I imagine they are going to have to look at the gameplay too given the original was a very turn-based 2003 title. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with this one and it was a blockbuster announcement to kick off the show.

Project Eve was up next, which looked very much like a Bayonetta style game. Fast hack n slash action. This one is set in a near future earth against enemies of somekind. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was up next, which looks like a fantasy version of the hit series Borderlands from Gearbox.

Forspoken was up next which got an extended trailer, plus we got a release window for Spring 2022. To this point it was the best trailer shown off, with the main character zipping and darting about the environment. The combat looked very good. This feels like something a PS5 should be showing off, and we’re starting to get games now that really demonstrate the power of the PS5. Spring 2022 was mentioned, howevever, I imagine that means April or May given we have Horizon Forbidden West coming in February 2022, so Sony will want to give room for that title to breath a little.

Rainbow Six Extraction was upnext which is due in January 2022. Remedy then showed off their first look at the remake for Alan Wake, an excellent game and I’m looking forward to playing this one on up-to-date hardware.

Grand Theft Auto V was up next, in my personal low point for the showcase. I get it’s very popular still, mainly due to the Grand Theft Auto Online, but given it’s 2021 I don’t really want to be seeing Grand Theft Auto V in a showcase like this. Sorry Sony. Also, it’s been delayed to March 2022.

Ghostwire Tokyo was shown off in a better looking trailer this time round. This one doesn’t really look like my cup of tea to be honest, but it’s a first person hack n slash game. This one is coming out on PS5 and PC in Spring 2022. Guardians of the Galaxy was again shown off, in what felt like filler in the middle. This one is due to come out towards the end of October 2021.

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodhunt was then shown off, this is a free-to-play vampire battle royale coming to the PC, which is already out and available to play on PCs.

Deathloop was then given another trailer, and at this point I think trailer for this game are having the reverse effect for me, the more I see of it, the less I like the look of the game. I understand Sony would want to promote something that’s coming out very soon, but we’ve kind of beaten this hore to death with trailer upon trailer.

Next up we had a collaboration between Radiohead and Epic Games, with something called Kid A / Amnesiac virtual exhibition. This is coming out in November 2021 via PS5, Epic Games Store and by other means on PC. If you are a Radiohead fan, then I would imagine this is going to be good. It’s interesting to see Epic reaching out into other culture areas, rather than having Radiohead Fortnite skins (which I would definitely want by the way).

There was also a fresh look at Tchia, a game inspired by New Caledonian. This one is coming to PlayStation and PC in 2022.

Herman Hulst then came out and bigged up Sony PlayStation Studios before bringing out the big guns. Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy are being remastered for PS5 and PC, this is coming early 2022. Unchartered is coming to PC.

One of the biggest surprises of the showcase was up next with Insomniac announcing they are developing a Wolverine game. Everyone thought they were simply showing off Spiderman 2, but the scene was a dark, busted up bar, with a ragged man sitting on a stool with bloody knuckles. An attacker with a knife tried to get close, only for Logan to reveal his claws in classic Wolverine fashion. It was a fantastic reveal moment, and very surprising this info didn’t leak at all, given we’re in 2021 and literally everything leaks these days.

Gran Turismo 7 was up next with photo realistic cars. Not really my thing, but it did look very impressive!

Insomniac were back with the REAL reveal of Spiderman 2 this time. We had Peter Parker and Miles Morales fighting side-by-side as Spidermen, then a russian voice from the shadows followed by the Venom reveal. Very cool. This one is coming in 2023.

The final trailer of the show was reserved for God of War Ragnarok, the sequel to 2018’s game of the year God of War. This is Santa Monica Studio’s finale to the norse themed God of War and this is set one year after the first game. Atreus is asking questions about Loki, plus Kratos is in the thick of battle and it looks like cracks are starting to emerge in the father son relationship. Familiar characters are back and new ones are introduced, this looks absolutely stunning, plus we got plenty of gameplay. Thor looks like he’s going to be one of the main enemies in the game, which makes sense given we killed his children in the first game. Very excited for this one. No release date yet but I would imagine late 2022.

That’s it for the Sony PlayStation Showcase from September 2022. It was a very strong showing, E3 calibre for sure, however, Sony seem much happier doing thing on their own terms. Plus they have the production value and the games to back that up. Sony don’t have to go to E3, they can pretty much turn up and drop their games, and they demonstrate time and time again, they have some of the best games in the business. Thi sstrategy is working for now, but will it last? It’ll be interesting to see where we are mid generation as Microsoft are making a comeback.