E3 2018: Sony Predictions

Ah, and with this we’re finally at the end of the official “press conferences”. Nintendo essentially “gave up” doing proper press conferences years ago, instead choosing to use their popular “Nintendo Directs” to bring E3 information to the people. Placed at the very end before the conference officially starts, Sony’s conference always has the highest expectations for gamers. That might be part of why this year Sony’s placed some limits around the expectations, instead informing us they’ll be centering their show largely around a “fab four” of Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part II, and Death Stranding.
Sony’s press conference begins June 11th at 6:00PM Pacific, 9PM EST.  And if you haven’t, be sure to check out our coverage for EA, Microsoft, Bethesda, Square-Enix, and Ubisoft.

The Last of Us Part II: One of the four confirmed games Sony’s bringing to E3. As the original is one of the best received titles Sony made last gen (and this gen with the Remaster), this game is easily one of the most anticipated titles coming out of Sony’s conference. Presumably this time we’ll finally get a bit of game play as well as a targeted release year, as Sony gets ready to decide on their 2019 slate of video games.

Ghost of Tsushima: Revealed at Paris Games Week in October, Ghost of Tsushima is the latest title coming from Sucker Punch, the company responsible for making the inFamous series of games. This is yet another hard left in terms of what you’d expect from a developer, as the only thing this has in common with inFamous so far is an open-world style of gameplay. Other than that, it’s set in the ancient past during the Mongol Invasion of Japan, and you seem to play as a “normal” human rather than a superhero like their last three games. Granted, this part remains to be seen–it’s entirely possible there’s a supernatural element present. That’s why everyone’s so excited to finally get some gameplay.

Spider-Man: Coming out just before the heavy hitters of the fall, Insomniac’s Spider-Man has been one of the most highly anticipated projects from Sony since it’s reveal two years ago. One of the four games getting a deep dive at E3, this is more to keep up the hype than anything else. We know the release date, we’ve seen combat, and we’ve got a decent idea of what the story is like. Presumably this will give us a boss battle so we understand the variation in combat when faced with proper threats.

Dreams: Media Molecule’s latest title where players can both experience the ephemeral stories meant to capture what we experience during REM sleep, Dreams is supposed to come out this fall sometime. Presuming it doesn’t get delayed, this should be present at some point during E3. Expect a demo announcement to give folks a chance to see what the game is about, then an announcement of its release date. It seemed like it was a little hard to get a handle on, because it was a game where you were supposed to be able to “create anything” in it, but the latest glimpses we’ve seen of it appear to have figured things out.

Concrete Genie: One of the only titles revealed at Sony’s Playstation Experience last year, Concrete Genie is from the team over at PixelOpus, the same team responsible for Entwined. Entwined was one of the first games to be revealed and launched in the same day, and with the way Concrete Genie has largely flown under the radar over the past few months since it’s announcement there’s a strong chance this will happen here too. They’ll reveal the “action” parts PixelOpus hinted at during PSX, then launch the game on PSN for $20-30.

Death Stranding: This game has made appearances at every single conference Sony’s been at since Kojima revealed he was working alongside them. And we still aren’t sure what the game is about–we only know it’s an action game with a strong social element added to it. After two solid years of development time though, presumably it’ll finally make an appearance with proper gameplay here, especially since it’s one of the four games meant to get a deep dive during the show.

Shadows Die Twice: The latest weird game coming straight from the minds of FROM Software.  Announced at Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, we’ve got no information on this other than a vague teaser, so fans of their style of gameplay are waiting with baited breath on what they have planned. Honestly this could be either at Sony or Microsoft’s show–they’ve both established a working relationship with the former Armored Core developer. But since Microsoft is likely going to be drowned in multiplayer games attempting to show off how much prettier their games are on One X, Sony feels like a stronger assumption.
Lightning Round:

• Capcom just might make an appearance in a big way here.  Current rumors include Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and Onimusha. They might split them across Sony and Microsoft’s shows, or they might just show them all at a single place to give everyone the impression that Capcom is back and no longer playing around.
• There’s no proof Rocksteady, creators of the Batman: Arkham series, will be at E3. But if they are, after years of working alongside Sony it seems obvious they’d unveil their new IP with Sony’s show.  No current assumption for what they could be working on–Superman, Justice League, or a new IP are all potential titles.
• Warner Bros. Montreal was supposed to be working on a Batman title centered around Damian Wayne, but they rebooted the project sometime prior to 2017. Given its still supposed to be “Batman”, this game has about the same chance of being present as Rocksteady, if the aim is to launch the title in 2019.
• Sony is the home of Activision partnerships, so we’ll get a lengthy gameplay trailer for the new Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII and Destiny 2’s Forsaken expansion pack.
• Sony hasn’t given up on VR yet, so we’ll get a lengthy VR sizzle reel proving how their commitment to VR is as important to them as it was when they first launched their VR console two years ago.

That about wraps it up for Sony’s show. As always, we can’t predict unknown unknowns. Last up is the cap off to E3 with Nintendo’s Direct. We’re almost at the finish line!