E3 Coverage: Sony Press Conference

Sony had the last press conference of the day and the chance to get in the last word.  Microsoft had already laid down the gauntlet with backwards compatibility, what would Sony’s response be?  We had been told earlier by Sony higher ups that 2015 would be low on PS4 exclusive titles.  We knew Uncharted 4 would be announced, we also had been hearing rumours that The Last Guardian would be announced as well.

It was what Sony opened up with.  The game play demo for The Last Guardian wowed the audience.  It was beautiful to watch.  Sony answered back to Microsoft.  It did a great job of mixing real life with anime, it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t.  Shuhei Yoshida was on the stage to announce, and it looked like he was announcing the birth of a new child.  It was awesome to see a smile on his face.  The wait was over, The Last Guardian was coming back.

Guerilla games was up next and did something unexpected.  They went off their Killzone franchise and introduced us to something new.  The best way to describe it would be: Cave Punk.  Horizon Zero Dawn is set in a post apocalyptic world where robots are the new animals.  Give credit to the PS4 engines, they make this game look pretty.

Cave Punk is the only way to describe the look right now.  It was an unexpected but strong showing by Sony.  The feeling was that Sony was going art house with their games, which was evident by the next few games they presented.

No Man’s Sky looked like a space exploration game that would draw people in.  Hello Games has been cooking it for a while, but the time they’re taking shows.  The scale and scope of the game is almost unimaginable.  When Sean Murray dropped the line, “Most of these places have never been visited, most of them never will be.”  Take the time to watch the demo, it will astound you.  The trend continued with the next announcement for Dreams.  It’s not often you see a game designed for creating co-operative art.  This looks like it could be on the same creative scale as Little Big Planet.   It was a nice appetizer for the bigger meal.

After some trailers for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and we were served two main dishes.  First was the announcement of a Final Fantasy VII remake, which got one of the few crowd reactions of the night, the other was the start of the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign.  As a note, the $2 million USD goal was reached within 24 hours, and it broke the Kickstarter site.  It shows how much people missed Shenmue.  After a brief Arkham Knight trailer, and a potential spoiler, showing one of the PS4 exclusive missions, Sony jumped into their version of VR.

They debuted Project Morpheus, while the name was awesome, they didn’t say a lot about it.  It’s a virtual reality peripheral they wanted to use it to take eSports to the next level.  Attention was then shifted to Playstation Vue, a pay service that would allow users to select which individual channels they want, without purchasing a bundle package.  This was interesting to see, because it starts to move the PS4, from a pure gaming unit, into the realm of home entertainment.  Again, not much details announced, like if it would work outside the US?  It was still nice to see steps being taken in that direction.

It was time for desert.

Sony was now ready to bring out the things everyone had been waiting for.  The first was the announcement that they had exclusive rights to Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.  The trailers looked like they merged Modern Warfare and Titanfall into one game.  The parkour system and some of the maps were similar to Titanfall, which would make since Respawn came out of Activision.  It will be a game to follow, if not just for the similarities between Titanfall and CoD.

After a trailer for Battlefront, and some Disney Infinity 3.0 exclusive toys, Sony jumped to the trailer everyone was waiting for.  It also drew the biggest pop of the night, Uncharted 4.

This was amazing to see.  It was everything you wanted to see in an Uncharted game.  It had action, comedy, stunning graphics, and subtle additions to the action.  It’s something you have to watch to appreciate.  If you are a PS4 owner, this should be on your must buy list.  The trailer lived up to all the expectations.  With that, the press conference was over.

Some thoughts on the conference:

• Sony came in with lowered expectations, but the crowd wasn’t as active as with Ubisoft, EA, or Microsoft.  It was hard to peg down the reason for it.
• The things that stuck out to me were the indie games.  I thought that No Man’s Sky and Dreams were beautiful, in concept and execution. With the exception of Uncharted, it looked like the best Sony games presented were the indie ones.
• Horizon Zero Dawn looks interesting as well.  It’s new and it really maxes what the PS4 can do graphics wise.  I want to know more about that world.  I think it has the potential to make some waves.
• I’m officially taking credit for the term Cave Punk.  It’s the best way I could describe it.
• I think the Sony press conference would have had more pop from the audience if they had gone before Microsoft.  With backwards compatibility, the Occulus, plus the Hololens, it felt like Sony didn’t have enough to keep up.
• Final Fantasy VII looked great in the teaser trailer.
• Throughout the presser they kept saying things like “On Playstation first,” or “Playstation has the head start.”  It’s okay if it’s not exclusive.  A lot of us would love to see all the games go cross platform.  It was a little disorienting, you’d have to say: “Wait, does that mean PS4 only?”
• I don’t own a PS4, but I’d buy one for Uncharted 4.  If it ever came out for other platforms, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.  There’s something about the writing and action that I love.
• I’ll drop some fighting words, Nathan Drake is a cooler Indiana Jones.
• The flying punch off the roof followed by the gun popping up sold the trailer for me.  I could have turned it off and been happy after that point.
• If I were to give it a letter grade, I’d say Sony got a solid B.  They’ve had amazing press conferences in the past, but this one didn’t live up to what they’ve done.  Maybe it’s a cyclical thing; maybe it was a focus on the lack of exclusive triple A titles, and not enough on the indie games.  It was good, but it wasn’t the best.
• I was impressed by almost all the indie titles Sony put out.  They should start pouring money into them, and running with the art house theme.
• If I were to pick a sleeper block buster from this group, my money would be on Horizon Zero Dawn, which continues a weird trend of hunting robot animals this E3.
• While not Sony’s fault, the Arkham Knight trailer, I think, spoiled a big reveal.  I won’t say what it was, but be careful when you’re watching trailers for it.
• I was scratching my head at the Black Ops 3 trailer.  I know the Respawn crew left Activision, but it looks like they left some design ideas behind.  All I could think when I saw the parkour system was, this is Titanfall minus the robots.  Heck, even one of the maps they used was almost identical to the Fracture map.
• Overall, I liked the stuff that Sony didn’t put a lot of oomph behind.  The indie games they showed have a chance to cut out a spot for themselves amongst the triple A’s.

That’s it for the Sony press conference.  Where you pumped for the FFVII remake announcement?  Did you cry a little at The Last Guardian coming back?  Are you already planning out how much time to take off for Uncharted?  Let us know in the comments below.