PlayStation’s State of Play Set a High Bar for (Not) E3 Week
PlayStation’s State of Play reminds us why (Not) E3 week is so awesome
There’s nothing I love more than setting my expectations unrealistically high, sitting through hours of glorified ads, and ending the week feeling somewhat empty and unsatisfied. That’s right, folks, E3 is finally here…kind of. I say kind of because E3, as we all know by now, is dead. Murdered by none other than E3 itself. The show must go on though, so we still are getting several big gaming showcases over the next couple of weeks, and somewhat surprisingly, PlayStation volunteered to get the ball rolling with the 3rd Party State of Play.
PlayStation’s presence during the summer has lessened over the years. In the past, they partnered with E3 to host one of the biggest annual showcases of the summer. That all changed when they announced they were pulling out of E3 three years ago. Since then, they’ve decided that the Summer is for vacations, not work, as they have opted to do smaller and shorter features while saving their big blowout showcases for the Fall.
That short history lesson sets the stage for the State of Play they announced for June 2, 2022. They announced it would be a 30-minute show featuring 3rd party partners and PSVR2 titles. I’m not going to lie, my expectations were low, like really low. PlayStation State of Plays over the past couple of years have seemed like more of a contractual advertising obligation more than a proper gaming presentation for the fans, but this time was different. By the end of the show, my eyes were wide and excitement was oozing from my eyeballs as I tried to figure out a way to warp to 2023.
The 30 minutes it took to present everything was the perfect amount of time to showcase everything they had, and none of the trailers felt phoned in or lackluster. While the presentation wasn’t the craziest thing we’ve ever seen from PlayStation, it was a series of announcements that several different fandoms have been waiting for. Being able to see gameplay and get release windows for games like Resident Evil 4 Remake and Final Fantasy 16 was awesome, and everything I could have asked for from this type of presentation. Even PC owners got tossed a bone with a huge announcement that Spiderman was coming to PC this year. I don’t want to necessarily recap the entire show, I’d recommend you watch it for yourself. Instead, I want to talk about what this presentation means for the rest of the summer and beyond.
During a year that seems to have gotten its “Best year of gaming” title punted to the subsequent year, fans are hungry. Our most anticipated games are getting delayed, many previews for Fall releases have looked “meh” so far, and major first-party releases are looking almost non-existent. The PlayStation State of Play was the first step toward re-assuring gamers that the good stuff is right around the corner. They showed solid gameplay for a lot of games we’ve been hearing about for years, and that gameplay looked good. They also gave us a lot of release windows to help us start mapping out what the next year of gaming looks like. This is what a summer showcase needs to be.
Summer showcases needs to show us the best of the best and let us know when we can expect it. Not a CGI concept of what could be the best of the best when it releases at an unknown date, and not twenty different GTA online and Fortnite season announcement trailers. It’s now up to the Summer Games Fest and Xbox to match that energy.
Summer Games Fest has the unique challenge of content curation. It will primarily feature games that we’ve seen before, which means to keep people engaged there needs to be exciting new gameplay demos and release date announcements. Until it becomes a showcase that companies are comfortable debuting games in lieu of their own showcases, Geoff will have an uphill battle to fight getting this show to stand shoulder to shoulder with PlayStation, Microsoft, and Nintendo. If we can get at least one shocking announcement like a God of War Ragnarok release date or a SilkSong release date, that will solidify Summer Games Fest as a trusted showcase that is here to stay.
The Xbox summer showcase last year was my favorite showcase from them in recent memory. The pacing was fantastic. There was a constant flow of trailers and announcements from start to finish. Not to mention, they released a complementary showcase that featured developer deep dives and more, which was awesome and gave the opportunity for the main showcase to be more streamlined. Unfortunately, that won’t cut it this year. With the delay of Starfield and Redfall people are getting antsy. Xbox has what seems like a hundred studios working on two hundred projects, but we’ve barely gotten any information or gameplay of these projects. This week we’ll need to see a lot of gameplay and release windows from Phil and the team. I have faith in the Xbox first party studios, seeing as Deathloop, Forza Horizon 5, Psychonauts 2 were some of my favorite games of last year, but I’m tired of waiting. Let us know about the projects that you’ve been announcing over the past couple years. Let us know what each season of 2023 will look like.
The summer of game announcements last year was a mess. We have dozens of presentations that 9 times out of 10 had almost nothing to present. This year it seems a little more pared down. As of now it’s up to Summer Games Fest, Xbox, and maybe Devolver to maintain the hype this time around. Let’s see if they can all step up to the call. Keep an eye on this site, as I plan to have thoughts and reactions on all the major showcases over the following week.