E3 2015: Sony Conference

Wow. Just wow. Where do I begin with Sony’s E3 2015 conference?

They didn’t even give people a chance to catch their breath at the beginning of the conference before they hit people hard with internet breaking trailers.

First up: The Last Guardian. Yes, you read that right! The Last Guardian was the first trailer Sony shown. Not a CGI trailer, actual gameplay from a working game. A game that everyone had almost given up on and thought had been canned 8 years ago after it was announced for the Playstation 3.

It was hard to believe that it was being shown. It looked beautiful. No other words can describe it. Expect The Last Guardian to be finally released in 2016.

Following on from that jaw dropping reveal, Guerrilla Games took to the stage to reveal their brand new IP called Horizon: Zero Dawn. This game peaked my interest as it takes part in a post-apocalyptic civilisation. So far into the future where mankind have reverted back to hunter gatherer stage using bow and arrows to hunt their food. The ruins of Humanity’s advanced technology deteriorating all around after some mysterious event that wiped out all technology. The footage then moved onto gameplay where our young female protagonist took on some dinosaur looking animals that were robotic. Wow! Where is this game heading and what does it have in store? No idea. But I can’t wait to see what Guerrilla Games have in store for us. No release date was given so don’t expect it out within the next year sadly.

Keeping the motion we moved onto to yet another CGI trailer, this one was for a brand new Hitman game. No gameplay was shown at Sony’s conference but seeing as though Square Enix had their own conference at E3, it was a given that something would be shown there instead. Hitman releases December 8^th 2015 for all current gen consoles.

Next was a tiny trailer for the Playstation 4 exclusive Street Fighter V. it introduced some new characters and gave us a brief glimpse of gameplay. Nothing much else really.

Hello Games then took to Sony’s stage. We all knew why. It was time for No Man’s Sky, and they didn’t disappoint! We were treated to a live gameplay trailer of the game which showed the sheer scale of the game.

Sean Murray from Hello Games showed us just how big this game is going to be. Hopping into a spaceship and showing off some tasty space combat, he then moved onto the galactic map and randomly picked a star in the galaxy and went to it. It was stunning, warping to a brand new and undiscovered planet that not even Murray new about, scanning the environment to identify life on the planet and any dangers. Murray then flew down onto the planet, the ship taking the brunt of the atmospheric entries before landing on this new and undiscovered planet. Murray also showed some first person shooting gameplay and destructible environments.

This is the most ambitious looking indie game I have ever seen and a literally cannot wait to play this game for months and months discovering new and more exciting locations. Murray has promised that he will reveal the release date for No Man’s Sky soon. Not at E3 2015 though. Later on during E3 2015, Murray also confirmed that No Man’s Sky will be coming to PC as well as Playstation 4.

Media Molecule took to the stage to announce their new creative game Dream. A game that they has taken 4 years to develop. We were shown a lovely trailer which demonstrated that you can control the game using the motion bar built into the Dual Shock 4 (forgot they had that huh?). More details of Dreams at the Paris Game Week later this year.

Moving onto Firewatch, a beautiful mystery game taking place in the Wyoming wilderness. The trailer looked like in game footage and it was bright and colourful. No release date was given.

Remember Destiny? Still playing the highly addictive game from Bungie? Well Sony showcased the largest expansion to the game to date The Taken King which is due to be released on September 15^th 2015.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate was next. Would there by gameplay footage? No, of course not. Absolutely no gameplay footage has been showcased at any of the press conferences for Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. What is Ubisoft doing? What’s going on with Syndicate. A lot of fans just want to know whether it’s going to be a big improvement on Assassin’s Creed: Unity, me included. Though it was confirmed that Ubisoft were going to showcase gameplay and let people play it on the show floor at E3. Still though, for the people who aren’t at E3 and watching at home, give them something to get excited over. Instead we got yet another CGI trailer.

Moving on to Final Fantasy. The audience got excited, what could it be? Then we got trolled and Sony showed off Square Enix’s World of Final Fantasy, a game with little characters that sure looks cute, but uninteresting.

Then the curveball was thrown directly at our chops. Another trailer, instantly after World of Final Fantasy. What?! What is this?! Oh my God. Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Yeah you read that right. Square’s remaking the legendary Final Fantasy 7 and it’s coming first to Playstation 4 before anywhere else. The crowd went nuts, people’s heads exploded, and I’m pretty sure someone gave birth. That’s how well received this was!

In order to calm people down, Sony then provided us with a Devolver games showcase. Pretty neat.

Once everyone had calmed down, put their clothes back on and sat in their seats again. Sony threw another ball at our faces and announced Shenmue 3. Well, announced the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3. Something which I really didn’t get. They launched the Kickstarter live on the stage with the games developer but the goal was only $2 million. For that Sony could easily afford to pay and have Shenmue 3 as a console exclusive, so the whole Kickstarter campaign kinda lost me. Though when I checked the Kickstarter page during the conference before it melted, the game was already at $500,000. Yeah, not going to take long to get that funded.

Batman took centre stage next to showcase the exclusive Scarecrow missions that are coming to the PS4 version of Akrham Knight. It was a unique take on the Batman gameplay which showed you playing a police officer and firing a gun in first person. Interesting.

Next Sony moved on to the technical tit-bits. First up: Project Morpheus. I’ll give it to Sony they have learned their mistakes from previous conferences (Wonderbook anyone?) and kept the talk and demonstration to a minimum since it is hard to showcase VR headgear at a live conference in front of everyone. It simply cannot be done right.

Secondly, they discussed Playstation Vue which is for our lovely American Playstation fans who enjoy TV. Doubt something like that will ever come to the UK shores however but ho hum.

Moving swiftly back into gaming. Yet another punch was thrown by Sony with the announcement of a deal with Activision to bring DLC for Call of Duty to the Playstation first. This is a huge shot fired into the side of Microsoft. Seeing as though Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 had not been shown at any conference yet, people were wondering where it is. Well that’s why it was at Sony people. Sony has landed a huge deal and this is a game changer for them. It goes to show that, for this generation at least, Sony’s Playstation 4 is in the lead seeing as the Microsoft/Activision deal had been going on since the first Modern Warfare in 2007.

After the trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was shown, it was announced by Sony that there will also be a beta for the game coming soon for Playstation fans only. My my, Microsoft won’t be happy I imagine.

Star Wars was next. No, not Battlefront, Disney Infinity Star Wars. I got to give it to the guy that came out onto the stage to talk about it. Having to come after all the amazing announcements before to talk about Infinity Star Wars? Man, but he did show genuine enthusiasm for it and you’ve got to admire him for it.

Then Star Wars: Battlefront came on. And it was a new gameplay trailer, focusing on the single player missions. It was incredible, it was immense. If nothing else. Star Was: Battlefront is shaping up to be a handsome and well put together game, and the fact that EA have gave us two gameplay trailer for it showing two completely different aspects is admirable.

Now we come to the end of the conference. But before Sony departed us, they had one more thing to show us. Something that all Sony fans wanted to see from the very beginning, Uncharted 4.

This was a live gameplay demo. How did we know that? Because the controller wouldn’t respond, we were treated to Nathan Drake standing there for a minute doing nothing. Once the demo had restarted the ball could finally get rolling. This game looks and sounds beautiful. City vistas, the sheer amount of people in the crowds of the busy market place it was astonishing. Then the bullets started to fly and all Hell broke loose in typical Uncharted fashion. A mix of melee and shooting combat was on show blended with classic Uncharted Parkour  made for an exciting trailer, but they weren’t finished yet oh no. Cause you now have a tank on your arse. So Drake and Sully hopped into a Jeep and ran for it. Taking control of the jeep hurtling towards your brother who is in a convoy getting the crap beaten out of himself probably, you have multiple ways to make it down a busy street, off ramps, tight streets etc. Very exciting. It all built up to a dramatic climax of drake nearly hitting something as ever, and that was it. Trailer over, conference over.

Without a doubt, before the conferences were over, Sony has won E3. They delivered amazing reveals throughout that will have gamers speculating and pondering for months to come.