Sony capped off their great 2017 at PSX, where they discussed the past,present and future of their company, as well as the PlayStation division. All in all, it was a decent showing that carried with itself, a decent amount of goodwill and enthusiasm. There was a lot of focus on some of the most prominent names of the company, as well as the people who have been involved with them over the years.
Starting off, was a casual, dry banter filled chit chat between Shawn Layden, Cory Balrog ,that later resulted in an all-star developer/executive panel with Siobhan Reddy, Hideo Kojima collectively sitting in a succession of long couches, talking about games (and themselves). Balrog talked a bit about the new God Of War (with some short footage present and accounted for) and the pressure of development schedules. Reddy hyped up Dreams, from Media Molecule, their latest venture after LittleBigPlanet.
There were a few trailers shown, most impressive of which, was an extended hostage sequence from Detroit: Become Human, which displayed it’s various branching narrative options and incredible visuals. Others included Donut County, developed by Annapurna Interactive, a subsidary of Annapurna Pictures (Yes, the one which is owned by Megan Eliison) and a VR title called Jupiter & Mars (that has Dolphins and synth pop music for some reason).
Monster Hunter World was shown a bit, and it looked and felt really impressive. It featured great visuals, smooth gameplay and (yes of course) co-op gameplay. The multicoloured visual scheme and the giant monsters looked amazing and overall, it’s the game we’re most impressed by at the moment and can’t wait to play over PSN. Fighting games also had a presence, with SoulCalibur 6 and Blazblue: Croos Tag Battle shown in brief trailers, with a tentative 2018 release announcement and nothing else. Time to keep our eyes peeled.
The Death Stranding trailer from the Game Awards was shown again, and also conincidentally served as the entry point for Kojima to the stage, where he chatted about his relationship with Sony over the years. It was followed by a remake of the PS1 classic MediEvil that was announced for the PS4 (coming in 2018), much to the surprise and pleasure of fans of fans.
After a bit more chatter, we have our first look at the new IP from Sony, Concrete Genie that was unveiled back at Paris Games Week. The dev from Pixel Opus showed off the painting mechanics and revealed that the game is about bullying with the graffiti being the protagonists’ way of dealing with it. The devs also delve into the development and inspiration aspects for the game, and that brought the show to an end.
Apart from the MediEvil announcement and some more Concrete Genie footage, nothing else really grabbed our attention. Did you enjoy the PSX show?
The show was really…lame.