Sony goes big at E3 with Kojima, Crash Bandicoot, and more!

Sony's E3 pressence was huge this year with dozens of new big-name titles slated for release in the upcoming year
Sony's E3 pressence was huge this year with dozens of new big-name titles slated for release in the upcoming year

The show started off on a high note with the crashing of drums and chanting. God of War opened the Sony E3 conference with a live demo showing off some of the images of what’s to come. In it we have Kratos in unfamiliar territory – the Germanic lands of the Vikings.

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God of War goes Viking

That’s right! The next God of War — which has been a long time coming — will take place in a western European setting. There, Kratos has settled down with a boy who will act as his bow-wielding partner. Gameplay has been drastically changed from the series’ roots. No longer is the game a beat-’em-up, but instead is a third-person action game.

The footage demoed at E3 shows Kratos in a snowy mountainous forest area hunting with a boy that appears to be his son. Whether the son is directly related to Kratos by blood or not is an entirely different question. What we do know, however, is that Kratos has dropped the Blades of  Chaos and has instead opted for a new ice-infused axe. The boy is seen using a lightning-charged bow at various points in the demo.

Enemies are as big as ever as well, with this troll appearing halfway through the demonstration to pick a fight with Kratos. Interestingly, Kratos’s new “hypermode” is called Spartan Rage instead of anything pertaining to gods or otherwise. Whether this will carry on throughout the game or not has yet to be seen.

The new gameplay perspective is certainly interesting, and how it will actually play out in the final product is worth watching out for.

Bikers and Zombies

While The Walking Dead continues to fail on delivering a biker zombie-fuelled apocalypse, Days Gone has appeared from out of the blue to fill the void. There’s very little to know about the game so far, only that it has some fast-paced action gameplay, and a similar appearance to The Last of Us in terms of art direction.

We had all been hoping for a The Last of Us 2, but it seems like this will be the closest we’ll be getting for the time being.

In Days Gone the zombies are fast, powerful, and deadly. You’ll have to pull all the stops you can to prevent becoming biker-flavored zombie chow…

The Last Guardian has a release date!

Unless it gets another delay, that is. The game that has been haunting us as vaporware for the longest time will finally grace the screens of PlayStation 4 users on October 25th, 2016. Not too bad for a game that has been in development for almost 10 years. Hopefully The Last Guardian can live up to the hype.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is a mechanical adventure

E3 is the time to show off exciting new gameplay, and Horizon: Zero Dawn didn’t hold back in the least. In the gameplay demo we got to see the protagonist wrangle a robotic ox, create items using a system similar to The Last of Us (noticing a pattern here), and immerse us in a world where it’s robot-eat-robot.

This game looked to be the most next-gen out of the bunch, sporting impressively destructible environments, and near cinematic gameplay. If the footage shown is even remotely close to the final product it seems like this will be a game hardcore single player fans won’t want to miss.

Androids are the police in Detroit: Become Human

Ever wondered what would happen if you mixed L.A. Noire with Heavy Rain, a cyberpunk theme, and a touch of Bioware-style choices? Look no further than Detroit: Become Human. This game promises to give the player multiple outcomes for various scenes throughout the game, and the most subtle actions can lead to grand consequences.

Everything in this game is a life-or-death choice. Do you pick up the gun used at the crime scene to shoot the culprit, risking tampering with the evidence? Or do you drop the gun before the aggressor and have a sniper risk the shot? All these decisions will be up to the player alone in a game that asks the hard questions.

Resident Evil VII makes a return to horror

A cryptic phone call telling you that someone’s out to kill you. Random unexplained occurrences happening all around you. A first-person psycho thriller vibe that drags you to the end of your seat. It’s not P.T., it’s Resident Evil VII

The Resident Evil franchise is returning to the slow and spooky roots in the latest teaser. While we don’t get much in terms of what’s actually going on, the game is already looking millions of times more promising than the past two Resident Evil games. Better yet, Resident Evil VII has a currently available playable demo on the PlayStation Store. I definitely recommend checking it out.

PlayStation VR shows us what it’s made of!

The PlayStation VR headset was also given a lengthy segment highlighting some of the upcoming compatible games. Among them was Farpoint, what looks to be a survival-action game where players are stuck on an unknown planet alongside strange alien machines and giant monsters. Fun times all around for sure, but nothing impressive so far in terms of raw footage.

The same could be said for the Batman Arkham VR teaser since it basically just showed us Batman’s cowl for about 50 seconds without showing us how it will function in-game.

What really won the crowd over was the image below:

That’s right. Star Wars: Battlefront will be getting an X-Wing VR mission. We don’t know much about it yet, other than the fact that we’ll be piloting an X-Wing through some serious space dogfighting action, but hopefully it’ll be as promising as it looks.

Final Fantasy XV also showcased some VR footage, as well as its release date of September 30th, 2016. While the actual gameplay footage of the game looked amazing, the VR use seems a like a last-minute addition. It looks clunky, slow, and not really enjoyable in battle scenes.

The VR battle gameplay looked impractical and boring, but Square Enix made sure to balance it out with some virtual reality breasts. I’m sure that’ll  get no negative feedback right? (Heavy sarcasm…)

On the reverse side of things, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare also made an appearance during this segment. The footage highlighted space gameplay, and at first it appeared to be a different game entirely. While Infinite Warfare has received heavy criticism by fans so far, the latest footage could have easily been mistaken for a different game entirely. Maybe things will finally be different in a CoD game this year…

Honestly, this doesn’t look like Call of Duty! Hopefully the actual multiplayer aspect will feature space battles like this, otherwise it will surely deserve the negative response fans have been giving it…

Crash… crashes onto the scene!

Here’s a face you probably weren’t expecting to see. Crash Bandicoot will be remastered, as well as two other sequels. They will be remade from the ground up – much like Nintendo has been doing with its 3DS Legend of Zelda games. He will also be making an appearance in Skylanders.

Kojima makes a return alongside Norman Reedus

Guillermo del Toro may not be involved anymore, but Norman Reedus and Hideo Kojima are making a return with Death Standing. It’s hard to tell what exactly this game will be about, but judging from the heavy oil and foot/handprint symbology littered throughout the trailer it’s likely we’re still along the path of psychological mind-benders.

Will it be a true successor to the game that P.T. never became? I’m sure we all hope so.

Oh yeah, and Spiderman is here too…

I am a simple man. I see Spider-Man and I press like. Unfortunately, Sony’s conference at E3 showed us nothing about what Spider-Man PS4 is like. We got some web slinging, some cinematic-looking action scenes, and some other cool stuff. Gameplay, we got no hint of.

Maybe the whole game is quick time events? If so, it’ll never beat Spider-Man on the N64.

What was your favorite part of Sony’s E3 presentation? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Author
David Fisher
Author, GameSkinny columnist, and part-time childhood destroyer. David W. Fisher (otherwise known as RR-sama) is a no B.S. reviewer and journalist who will ensure that you get as close to the facts as humanly possible!