Sony E3 2018 PS4 Games Preview
Sony's E3 showcase probably won't have any big surprises this year, but we can dream, right?
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In the week leading up to E3, Sony's wasting no breath with big announcements. Just over the past couple days, a new Tetsuya Mizuguchi game and an official release date for Days Gone have been revealed. Sony's already said upfront that this year's showcase will be focused on just a few known games, but even then, there's bound to be some surprises. It's E3 after all!
But since Sony also has big stakes at Tokyo Game Show, Paris Games Week, and its annual convention PlayStation Experience, I'm not expecting the surprises to be too huge. Monday's big line-up consists of a lot of games we're already familiar with, but are curious to learn more about. Will get get some release dates? Live demos? Only time will tell.
You can tune into Sony's show late on Monday night, rounding out a very busy day of press conferences. (The entire day is Square Enix, Ubisoft, PC Gaming Show, and then Sony. Phew!) You can tune into Sony's E3 2018 presentation on June 11, 6 p.m. PDT, or 9 p.m. EDT and 2 a.m. BST. During the week, Sony will have a few panels at the E3 Colosseum, including a The Last of Us: Part 2 panel on June 12, 11 a.m. PDT, and a Ghost of Tsushima panel on June 13 at 1 p.m. PDT. Our guide to Sony at E3 2018 has everything you need to know about the when, where, and how of watching the show too.
What a Successful Sony E3 Would Look Like
As much as Sony's "winning" the current console generation, I don't remember the last time a Sony E3 showing blew my socks off. Given all that we know about this year's, I don't think we're due for anything crazy this year either. That's not necessarily a bad thing though.
Even though we don't anticipate many surprises this year—I mean, come on, it's too soon for a Horizon Zero Dawn 2 or God of War 2—the line-up Sony's already confirmed is pretty stellar. We'll see something from Death Stranding that will spark a lot of conversation, plus more information on The Last of Us: Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, two other high-profile triple-A releases.
In recent E3s, Sony has kind of lost sight beyond its huge triple-A releases though. I hope that in 2018, Sony can highlight some indies—maybe even some cool exclusives—coming to the platform in 2018 and beyond. After all, a console is nothing without the smaller games that surprise and take the medium in new directions, rather than Super Grim Expensive Game With Particle Effects Number 378. Last year Microsoft highlighted a bunch of cool indie games, and with a line-up of rad console exclusives like Ooblets, I hope Sony can bring out the big guns. That's right: show off Donut County on the big stage. (And new things too, please.)
The One Thing We Hope to See
It'd be great to see whatever the heck FromSoftware's working on. I mean, duh. I still wish that FromSoftware didn't even share that five second teaser back at the Game Awards last year. It was so short, so fleeting, so nothing that it just made me feel frustrated above all else. And still, it inspired lots of fan theories as to what the game could be. Most pointed towards Bloodborne 2, others to a new property within the SoulsBorne-y canon.
Given Bloodborne's PlayStation 4-exclusivity, a Bloodborne 2 would generate quite a bit of good will among the FromSoftware and Sony communities. Regardless of what it ends up being—Armored Core reboot or bust—another game from everyone's favorite goth RPG developer would be the cherry on top of a solid E3 for Sony. And after the recent remaster of Dark Souls, I am prepared to die.
What We Can Expect to See
Death Stranding
Can we please get some gameplay, Kojima Productions? There's only so much cinematics of babies and mpreg that I can take. Though with the recent Twitter tease of Kojima "working" on a Death Stranding-related thing for E3 from behind a keyboard, it will probably be yet another flashy cinematic trailer. Maybe Kojima's new friend Grimes will be doing a Joy Division cover for it or something. (I'm solely assuming this from Kojima's tweet of meeting her and later teasing Death Stranding at E3 while wearing a Joy Division shirt and noting Ian Curtis' death anniversary.)
Love will tear us apart, and so will you Kojima if you don't cut it out with these movie-length trailers.
Cyberpunk 2077
It's pretty obvious that we'll see something from CD Projekt Red's follow-up to The Witcher 3. The only question is where: on Sony's stage or Microsoft's? Honestly, I'm counting more on the latter since it'd give a big bump to Microsoft's prowess, but wouldn't be surprised if Sony's able to get a trailer or something too.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Sony still has that hot Call of Duty sorta-exclusivity, so we will definitely see more of the series' latest on the big stage. Maybe we'll get a better look at its battle royale mode, and some details on how many players it sustains? Here's to hoping it's actually 100 players; though with how cagey the developers have been, I'm betting it's not.
The Last of Us: Part 2
The last time we saw The Last of Us: Part 2, it was pretty brutal. We did get a look at some new characters beyond Joel and Ellie though. For this year's E3 2018 showing, it'd be great to see some gameplay and get more details on its story. Are there multiple characters this time? Is that other woman really Ellie's mom like the fan theories suggest? Let's hope all those questions, and more look at the game itself, awaits us. Hey, maybe even a release window of 2019 would be appreciated.
Ghost of Tsushima
Sometimes I feel like the lone fan of the long-defunct Sly Cooper series, which began under Sucker Punch's stewardship. When Ghost of Tsushima was first revealed late last year, I got pretty excited about it. Blending the stealth of Sly Cooper with an open world environment akin to the playgrounds of Infamous, it's shaping up to bring together the best of Sucker Punch's game design sensibilities.
Dreams
I wasn't quite a believer in Dreams until I saw it at GDC this year. Every day I passed by its small demo area at the Day of the Devs section, some new project was underway. One day people were building a platformer, another day a full music studio suite. Dreams is less of a video game—though it will have pre-built things like games—and more of a creation tool. From LittleBigPlanet developers Media Molecule, it's easily the most ambitious project under Sony right now. I hope at this year's E3, Sony does it justice in showing it off to the big crowd.
Spider-Man
I'm still holding tight to my Miles Morales ends up taking over for Peter Parker after Peter gets touched by Mr. Negative theory, but as we've already seen a lot of Spider-Man in the run-up to its release this summer, I imagine at this year's E3 we'll just get a new trailer and not much else. Maybe some new fancy spidey suits will be revealed, or a surprise gimmick, but since we're so close to the game's release, I'm not expecting a whole lot of new info.