Sony Reveals Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, PlayStation TV At E3
We close out E3 2014’s “Day 0” with Sony’s press conference. Last year, this was the conference that helped propel the PS4 ahead of the Xbox One in terms of consumer excitement. With Cross-Buy, the ability to buy a game on one platform and get any other version for free (like buying on PS4 and getting the PS3 and Vita versions for free), Sony gives gamers a big incentive to play on all their systems. And this press conference was filled with a ton of game footage — nothing too in-depth, which allowed them to fit in even more game coverage and reveals.
Activision and Bungie’s Destiny may not be exclusive to Sony, but it has a lot of exclusive content on PS3 and PS4. So the show started off with an overview of Destiny’s concept — an alien Traveler who makes contact with Earth, but is pursued by a “darkness” that ends up wrecking most of the planet. The game looks like an absolutely massive FPS MMO, riffing on Halo and class-based shooters. There will be a PS4 beta on July 17, but you can enter here for a chance to play the early alpha this very weekend, June 12-15. There will be an exclusive Destiny PS4 bundle that includes a white PS4 & controller, the game, and 30 days of PS+. It will be available with the game on September 9, 2014.
Next up was PS4-exclusive The Order: 1886. A man with a lantern explores an underground area and finds a man feasting on something before changing into a werewolf and attacking. Most of the action played out in quick-time events. I think that while it’s pretty and has an interesting steampunk setting, we really need a demo to figure out whether this has any actual gameplay or if it’s just a long cutscene with quick-time events.
Next was a game of two artistic birds made out of geometric shapes flying around. It’s called Entwined, a story about two souls destined to be together. Each bird is played with its own analog stick, and your goal is to bring them together in each lifetime, transforming them into a dragon. The gameplay looks like an action game in a trippy’ tunnel. The PS4 version is already available on PSN for $9.99! The PS3 and Vita versions are following with cross-buy in the future.
Sucker Punch is developing a new piece of standalone DLC for Infamous: Second Son. It doesn’t require the main game, but if you do, it will unlock some content. It’s called Infamous: First Light, it has a female protagonist, and it’s out this August on PS4.
LittleBigPlanet 3 was announced, offering more multi-level depth in the 2D gameplay. Sackboy has new friends. The first is Oddsock, who crawls around and can use its speed to get to new areas. Meanwhile, Toggle is the biggest and can push heavier blocks, while also changing to a tiny mode that can fit in small places. Swoop is the final new character, and it has the ability to fly and carry other players. As expected, the level/game creation and sharing features are returning, with even more options — and the ability to play all the user levels from LBP1 and 2!
From Software, makers of uber-difficult games like Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, aired a trailer of their next game: Bloodborne. Long rumored as Project Beast, this PS4 exclusive apparently is not a new Souls game, though I’d imagine it could be somewhat similar. Though it was only cinematics, it looked like it’s keeping the dark, macabre horror from the Souls games. A gothic city is filled with shambling, infected people, zombie dogs, and people with twisted weapons. A later scene in the catacombs features a giant monster hiding in the dark. I’d have to see gameplay first, but despite Dark Souls II playing it safe, From Software has been continuing to impress as of late.
At this point, it’s no longer news, but Ubisoft showed a gameplay trailer of Far Cry 4, so watch it if you’re not tired of the game yet. This demo showed a player riding in a car through a mountain pass until he accidentally drives off the cliff, activating his wing suit. He lands near a fortress and teams up with a player in a cobbled-together helicopter to take out the enemies. An elephant finishes the mission by getting angry and smashing an enemy truck so hard it explodes. In a move that’s sure to excite people, you’ll be able to invite those who don’t own Far Cry 4 to play with you on PS3 and PS4, something that is only available on Sony platforms.
A new zombie game with a prerendered trailer was showed off. It showed a preppy guy hiding a bite on his arm and starting to run along the beach. Behind him, zombies attacked random passerbys. As he continues running, he starts rotting until he’s a zombie, still running and now joined by others until he is killed by humans in an SUV, who steal his shoes. This is Dead Island 2! There will also be an exclusive beta on PS4, as well as an exclusive character class. The trailer was amusing, but let’s wait to see what actual gameplay looks like, because the first game was notorious for having a very well-made, emotional trailer that was completely unrelated to the game.
Battlefield: Hardline took the stage, but it was just a new gameplay trailer, mostly based on the demo shown earlier today at EA’s press conference. The trailer is above, but it’s nothing that new.
Apparently, the only place you can play as Hulk in Disney Infinity is on PS4, with an exclusive collector’s edition bundle featuring all six Avengers. I think that’s a bit of hyperbole, because there’s no way those figures aren’t coming out on other platforms. But perhaps this bundle is exclusive to PS4.
Paradox Interactive is working on multiple PS4-exclusive games. The game shown, Magicka 2, is an action-adventure game. The humorous trailer shows some unemployed warlock, being unemployed and doing stuff around his house before accidentally killing his cat. It looks like you can team up with friends and fight together.
Tim Schafer apparently made a fake letter from the point-of-view of a little girl, asking for some of Tim Schafer’s old games to be playable. This is Grim Fandango, a Double Fine remastering of the classic adventure game, made possible by a partnership with Disney, who owns the license to old LucasArts games. It’s coming exclusively to PS4 and PS Vita. Considering this is one of the best adventure games ever made, we have every reason to be very excited!
Devolver Digital is bringing multiple indie games to the PS4. Here’s a quick list: Broforce, Titan Souls, Not a Hero, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, and The Talos Principle, the later of which is a new game from Croteam, the makers of Serious Sam. More indie games is always good!
Suda 51’s next game is exclusive to PS4: Let It Die. It’s some sort of very violent game that has you brutally murdering other players in various ways. There was actually no gameplay, as everything was live-action, but I can’t deny that the game could be entertaining based on gory shock value alone.
The art director and composer who worked on Journey are now working at Giant Squid, and they’ve got a new, underwater adventure called ABZÛ. There is some sort of humanoid exploring the depths of an ocean, swimming past fish, whales, and shark, and finding hidden caverns. It seems very artsy and calming, the kind of game you’d play to relax.
Making its console debut on PS4 is No Man’s Sky, an ambitious indie game that lets you travel from planet to planet and explore space with no loading. There’s a plane on a planet with red grass and green water, filled with antelopes and dinosaurs. There’s some danger, which causes the pilot to hop into his spaceship and fly immediately into space, where a giant starship battle is occurring. After shooting a bit, the ship reenters the atmosphere of another alien world. For a procedurally-generated universe, the environments look stunning in a colorful way. Everyone starts on a different planet, so there are no identical experiences, and the developers aren’t even sure of all the stuff out there.
Sony started discussing the PlayStation Camera, which they stressed was an optional accessory (unlike Microsoft’s Kinect). This camera is working in concert with Project Morpheus, Sony’s experiment with VR headset technology. It won’t help us, but apparently the VR headset is at Sony’s E3 booth with two new demos, so it sounds like development is still progressing nicely.
PlayStation president Shawn Layden took the stage to talk about the PlayStation Network. He tossed out some stats about how popular the PSN is, with 95% of PS4s connected to the internet. YouTube is coming to PS4 later this year, with users able to finally share videos to the video service with the Share button. Meanwhile, Twitch and Ustream are getting updated, allowing you to help or harm the people you’re watching, though details weren’t given. Play Room broadcasts will be updated with new content. There are 25 free-to-play games coming to PSN, including Kingdom Under Fire 2, Planetside 2, and Gunza.
We finally got more details on PlayStation Now, which will allow users to stream PS3 games. There is an open beta starting on PS4 in the US and Canada on July 31, with the ability to access it coming soon after on PS3 and PS4. Furthermore, if you buy a DualShock 3 controller, you’ll be able to use PlayStation Now on recent Sony TVs. There will be 100 games in the beta, including Dead Space 3, God of War: Ascension, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Ultra Street Fighter IV. Some of those are games just coming out this year, so that’s pretty cool, though it’s a shame that the streaming version of Ground Zeroes is likely the PS3 version, which has slightly worse graphics than the PS4 version.
Sony is launching PlayStation TV (previously the PS Vita TV in Japan), which allows you to stream your PS4 games (and PS3 games through PlayStation Now) to other TVs, as well as stream most Vita games and digital PS1 and PSP games. Naturally, you can stream some other streaming services as well. The PlayStation TV is launching at $99 in the US, Canada, and Europe this fall. Or, you can get a bundle with the device, a DualShock 3 controller, 8GB memory card, HDMI cable and The Lego Movie Videogame for $139.
After some sort of fake-out where Shawn Layden was talking about PS1 Japan-only cult classic Vib Ribbon, we instead got the first gameplay footage of Mortal Kombat X. The fighters seemed to be interacting with the environment a bit like Injustice: Gods Among Us. X-ray moves are back, and there are some characters I’ve never seen before. The fatality moves are even more over-the-top than past games.
Sony Television is creating exclusive content for PlayStation such as Powers, a TV show based on a comic co-created by Brian Michael Bendis, who is an executive producer on this new adaptation. Two homicide detectives work on cases involving people with superpowers. It will be available in the US this December, with the first episode available for free. All PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to watch the entire series for free.
Next was a trailer for the Ratchet & Clank movie, coming to theaters in 2015. Insomniac Games is involved, but they’re also working on remaking the original Rachet & Clank game for PS4, available with the movie. (That’s pretty cool! But if you want to play the original right now, you can get an HD version on PS3.)
The Last of Us is being remastered for PS4, and there was a new trailer to show off the new graphical enhancements. Fair warning before you watch: there are spoilers. The original game already looked good on PS3, so this new version looks even better, though not too different. The Last of Us: Remastered is out on July 29, so it’s right around the corner. On a related note, there will be a crossover in Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition. The infected clickers from The Last of Us will be DLC for Diablo, which is interesting.
Next was a new trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, that had actually leaked the night before. Still, if you didn’t catch it originally, here it is. It can’t be denied that it looks beautiful, and there’s lots of longtime fans to suss out and speculate over. But it does look rather dark for a series that has always had some self-awareness and poked fun at itself and its game mechanics. I don’t get any of that in the trailer, not even in the tag at the end of the trailer. Maybe it will be balanced out, but for now, I’m hesitant.
As expected, Grand Theft Auto V is being remastered on PS4. Not only that, but PS3 AND Xbox 360 players will be able to transfer their online characters to PS4 when the game releases in fall 2014. This is kind of a no-brainer, because the game we got last fall didn’t quite hit the graphical heights of the trailers, so it was obvious that Rockstar had some much higher quality assets they would likely use for a remastered version.
Next up was an entire trailer of gameplay for Batman: Arkham Knight. Batman flies down from a giant building and summons the Batmobile to drive around the city before converting the vehicle into a very maneuverable tank. Batman can now take out enemies with a “fear takedown,” which seems very effective and goes into slow-motion. The game started glitching out as Batman found the Penguin, and then all the lights in the room started freaking out. Then, a very creepy Scarecrow took control of the room and talked ominously. Apparently, there will be Scarecrow nightmare missions only available on PS4. The game is looking really fun to play.
Sony decided to close out their press conference with the first look at Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Coming 2015, the trailer features dialogue between Nathan Drake and Sully that seems to imply this might be their last mission together, especially considering the game’s ominous subtitle. Naturally, the game looks beautiful, though no gameplay was shown.
While it might not have the impact of Sony’s press conference last year, there was still a lot to like in this very solid event. We got to see several exclusives, some interesting indie games, and a bunch of multi-platform games. However, there could have been some more focus on brand-new games for the Vita, not just promising that games for other systems will be streamable to Vita. And while there are plenty of exclusives coming next year, Sony really doesn’t have any giant game that’s coming out this fall. Instead, they seem to be touting lots of exclusive content for third-party games, so if you’re going to buy them, you’d like want to do so for Sony systems. Whether that will succeed when Microsoft has such unique games like Sunset Overdrive remains to be seen.
Still, pretty much everything Sony showed is looking great, tying Microsoft in terms of excitement. Like its rival, Sony seemed to play it somewhat safe, with few unexpected reveals. But that seems to be how E3 is these days, so at least what they had was exciting.