My Much-Delayed Thoughts on the Summer of Keighley
Or, my impressions from State of Plate, Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Thing, and random other shows
Okay, so, like, I had originally intended to post this a couple of weeks ago, hot off the Summer Game Fest presses, but then I had to edit like four separate books and an assortment of other pieces of content, so I’m a little late.
Be that as it may, there was a time in my life when E3 (or the Electronic Entertainment Expo) was one of my favorite times of the year. Granted, I’ve never been a professional videogamesman, but just a passionate one. So, I never went to E3, just watched it religiously year after year—mostly Giant Bomb’s coverage, and loved almost every second of it.
From giant enemy crabs to Microsoft almost shooting themselves in the foot with the Xbox One (thanks, Don Mattrick), there were so many great moments over the years.
But like all good things in the world, E3 had to eventually die a slow death, thanks mostly to the online streaming age and each publisher just doing their own press conferences during E3 week, as well as the deathblow of COVID-19.
Enter Geoff Keighley and Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards
Now, the Game Awards have been around for a while—it just hit its 10-year anniversary, so Geoff Keighley has been gracing video games with his presence for some time, even before this lovely meme:
Look at those eyes; it’s no wonder he thought “The Game Awards” was legitimately a good name for an award show. We’ve got Golden Joysticks, and Oscars and Emmys and Grammies … and Gamies?
So yeah, Geoff’s got his corny little award show that publishers use as a vehicle for new announcements—which is all that most people care about.
With E3 in its death throes, Geoff “Mountain Due and Doritos” Keighley rose up to give us the lines of games we so ravenously snorted through our straws with Summer Game Fest.
And with as snarky as I’ve been thus far (cut me some slack, I’m old and crotchety), there was some good shit shown over the last week. A lot of it was at Summer Game Fest, while Sony and Microsoft also had their own streams of new shit.
So that’s why I’m here: to talk about all the new shit that excites me. To skip this from being 15,000 words long, I’ll skip games that have been previously announced elsewhere but which excite me greatly (lookin’ at you Ninja Gaiden 4 and Onimusha).
In no particular order, here’s a batch of games that might, just might, tickle my fancy.
Nioh 3
I guess Nioh 3 is the reason that Team Ninja isn’t the only one making Ninja Gaiden 4. (Platinum Games is also helping them out.)
And boy does Nioh 3 looks scrumptious—although much to my chagrin, the beta wasn’t available on PC, which would’ve been nice, because let’s just say that as great as the modern Team Ninja games are (yes, even Wo Long and Rise of the Ronin), their PC versions haven’t quite been up to par.
All that aside, Nioh 3 looks great, and so too did the demo. I really feel that Team Ninja has hit their stride with the Nioh games, making their own take on the souls-like genre, so I’m keen for more.
Romeo Is a Dead Man
Suda51 is a madman, and I mean that in the best possible way. When this trailer played, my first impression was “the fuck is this shit” with the pseudo-2D art, but once the gameplay started, I was like “Oh, I think I know who made this,” and I was right, and looks just the right amount of ridiculous.
I’m not really sure what to expect from it, but it looks like a mix between Dead Rising and Lollipop Chainsaw, so sign me the fuck up.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn
Between the Pathfinder games, Rogue Trader, and now Dark Heresy (another Warhammer game) and Osiris Reborn, Owlcat Games has been on a roll.
Granted, from the reveal trailer, it’s hard to tell exactly what this game is, although you can tell immediately that it’s set in the Expanse universe, thanks primarily to those accents. But the trailer was, at first, a little misleading, since it appeared at first that this might be some kind of 3rd person shooter, maybe Gears-esque.
But nope, evidently, Osiris Reborn is basically trying to emulate Mass Effect, which is maybe not only a great match for an Expanse game, but also a good fit for Owlcat. In many ways, the studio has become the modern BioWare. And I’m pretty confident Osiris Reborn will be great.
Resident Evil Requiem
Everyone knew a new RE game was on the horizon, but when June Takeuchi said, “Now, about the latest Resident Evil game you’ve all been waiting for, bear with us a little longer—just a blink of an eye more, and it’ll be ready,” he almost made everyone think that RE9 wouldn’t be at Game Fest.
Then the show ended with it.
Pretty good trolling on Capcom’s part. You couldn’t really glean much from the Trailer, just that it would involve Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft—a character I know nothing about because I don’t know shit about Resident Evil Outbreak. I’m sure that won’t be a problem, though.
It looks like Requiem will take the franchise in a new direction, so that’ll be neat, and revisiting Raccoon City (or what’s left of it) after all these years will be a delight. Capcom’s been at their best with the modern Resident Evil games, so I expect this to also be great.
Pragmata*
Requiem wasn’t the only game Capcom showed off at Summer Game Fest, although technically Pragmata was announced years ago, but everyone, myself included, assumed the project was probably dead. So while I started this list by saying that I was only going to talk about new games, I’m making an exception for this one (and one other).
Even the trailer kinda took the piss, since from the first minute or so, it’s hard to tell what this game even is, but then it’s like, “Haha, it’s the game you probably thought was cancelled!” Good job, Capcom.
Pragmata seems promising, though. Who doesn’t want to embark upon an entire adventure with a little android girl? As an action/adventure game, though, it looks pretty neat—and I’m just happy it still exists. Next, Capcom is gonna have to resurrect Deep Down.
Mortal Shell 2
I played Mortal Shell 1. It was pretty mid; I didn’t finish it. But if the trailer for Mortal Shell 2 is anything to go off of, the sequel is gonna be totes lit fr fr (as the kids say). Before realizing what the game was, I commented in a friend’s Twitch chat who was streaming it at the time: “Looks like Mortaler Sheller.”
You could see the similarities, but honestly, the trailer made Mortal Shell 2 look like a very different game, complete with some pretty metal guns that look like they could be straight out of Doom: The Dark Ages.
The only downside is that when the first game came out, mid or not, there weren’t that many Souls-likes, but now, times have changed, and there are a lot of good ones out there. So competition is much fiercer.
Here’s hoping Mortal Shell 1 stumbled so the sequel could gallop.
Stranger Than Heaven*
I’m also sort of cheating with this one, because technically, Stranger Than Heaven was revealed earlier this year with just a brief glimpse and with a working title of Project Century. Then, it was just a short little teaser showing the game in 1915, but now we know it’s real name and that it’ll also take place in 1929 and 1943. So, that’s cool.
Judging from what little gameplay we’ve seen, it definitely looks like a Yakuza game, without being a Yakuza game. And I love the Yakuza games, especially the real-time brawly ones, and this one looks like more of that, but across a 30-year timespan.
The only downside is that it has the weird (bad) lighting/contrast from Pirate Yakuza, so hopefully they do something about that.
I’ll still play it regardless.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
The Plague Tale games are quite rad, if I do say so myself, and while the second game hinted at potentially a third game set in the present, or near future. So, I was a little surprised to see that the next game would actually be a spin-off starring the very rad Sophia, who appeared in Requiem.
The trailer didn’t show much in the way of gameplay, but I suppose the sequel has the opportunity to provide something a little different from the base games, which are definitely stealth games in which you play as kids.
Sophia is a swashbuckling pirate, so maybe this new one will provide something slightly different. I suppose time will tell. I’m definitely curious to see more.
Beast of Reincarnation
Game Freak, the developer behind this one, is known for basically one thing: Pokemon games. Though they’ve occasionally flexed their talents in other gdirections, they’ve almost always been “the Pokemon” studio.
Needless to say, Beast of Reincarnation is their first real AAA effort and looks nothing like Pokemon, or any of their other projects, so color me intrigued. It has hues of Nier: Automata and Black Myth: Wukong, and it’s set in 4026, which seems like exactly 2000 years after the game will come out—not that I think that will have any impact on anything.
But boy do I love sci-fi.
Aphelion
DON’T NOD has been sort of hit or miss. They always have interesting ideas, but they don’t always stick the landing. However, Aphelion still looks fuckin’ cool (pun intended).
I’m a sucker for good narratives, even if they have to eschew a bit of gameplay to really pull it off (walking simulator shouldn’t be a pejorative).
The adventure aspects of this, at least what’s in the trailer, seem great, too, so I’ll be curious to check this out, even if it’s just a short little narrative experience.
Out of Words
I fuckin’ love stop motion and puppetry, so Out of Words immediately struck me and at least looking fucking amazing. And much like Harold Halibut, a game I also adored, this one is also made by creating real-life puppets and objects and scanning them for the game. And it shows in hand-crafted beauty.
However, I’m not nearly as sold on the gameplay of Out of Words as I am on the aristry that went into making it. It looks like a decent take on something like Unravel—a side-scrolling adventure, or more specifically Unravel Two since it’s a 2-person co-op game. So, I guess if it nails that aspect, we might have our next Split Fiction or It Takes Two on our hands, or I guess Unravel 2.
Tip of the Ole ‘Berg
FUCKIN’ VIDEO GAMES, RIGHT? While this is only scratching the surface, plenty more got announced during the week formerly known as E3. There’s plenty else that looked cool I didn’t mention because they’d been shown off before. Clockwork Revolution, 007: First Light, Blood of Dawnwalker, Silent Hill Flatulence—the list goes on.
But if I talked bout each and every one of these, we’d be here all day, and since this thing is already going to be weeks late, THIS’LL HAVE TO DO.