At high school, all I wanted in the world was to travel to LA to see the latest in games at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). I had to settle for watching it online, living through actual game journalists (or those lucky enough to wrangle their way in) as they walked the many sweaty halls of the LA Convention Center.
Now E3 is dead. Thanks to Covid and a governing body that didn’t make the greatest of choices. What’s their loss is Geoff Keighley’s gain. Geoff Keighley is a videogame journalist, who worked on big features like when he was embedded at Valve for the development of Portal 2. These days he’s mostly a presenter, and host of “The Game Awards,” the game industry’s attempt at something as grandiose as the Oscars (but is mostly just an excuse to show off more game trailers.)
Starting in May 2020 as a digital-only event, Keighley’s “Summer Game Fest” is The Game Awards without the awards and is basically a chance to showcase trailers of upcoming video games, of which some are revealed for the very first time. The main presentation was held in person this year at YouTube Theater. With E3 gone, Keighley’s also managed to affiliate with various publisher presentations and independent events and rope them into his Sumer Game Fest umbrella, however tenuous the link.
Directly after the main presentation was “Day of the Devs”, one of my favourites—a showcase aimed at promoting indie games, started by Tim Schafer and company from Double Fine (as well as iam8bit) and curated by a board of industry experts. “Wholesome Direct” offered a look at over 70 cozy indie games, most of which, I could find myself lost in for hours. There were also presentations by Devolver Digital (forever quirky) and a lackluster showcase from Capcom. But the main events were the aforementioned Summer Game Fest presentation, Xbox with its interstellar lineup and Starfield deep dive, and Ubisoft with a sometimes awkward live presentation.
In times of yore, we would have the big three names in games show off trailers (and game consoles) at their respective live conferences; Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. But with the allure of E3 fading, these went online. Nintendo lead the way, moving to “Nintendo Directs,” an online-only presentation more targeted to the general consumer than PowerPoints of graphs and numbers for brick-and-mortar stores. Sony and Microsoft soon followed. This year Sony was on the ball streaming their PlayStation Showcase 2 weeks ago, leading into the Summer Game Fest, while Nintendo held their Direct way back in February.
Now as promised, a selection of games from the various presentations that took my interest and which I’ll be keeping tabs on. There was certainly something for everyone, these games just happen to line up with my particular sensibilities.
12. Sushi Ben
2023
Sushi Ben doesn’t make the list just because of the lack of new PlayStation VR2 games (I’ve actually got quite the backlog now.) But this anime-inspired game where you run a sushi restaurant simply looks delightful, down to catching the fish, hunting ghosts, and the occasional table tennis bout.
It’s also written by the creator of Hatoful Boyfriend, a dating simulator where you date pigeons and that game’s humour looks to be in fine form here.
11. Under the Waves
29 August 2023
I enjoyed my first few hours with the underwater sim, Subnautica, but I got lost in the mechanics and needed more narrative momentum to propel me forward. Under the Waves looks to give me that, along with the scuba diving. Quantic Dream is publishing this, and they are renowned for their particular brand of choice-driven narrative in games like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human.
Quantic Dream has been in the press for workplace controversies with its leadership under David Cage and is supposedly working on a new Star Wars game, but this is a third-party game from another developer under their new banner, “Spotlight by Quantic Dream.”
10. Sonic Superstars
Fall 2023
I don’t know how they keep bringing us back, but Sonic, man I don’t know. Sonic Mania was one of the first decent Sonic games in a while, in the same pixel art style as the original games. Sonic Superstars ditches the pixel art aesthetic for something more modern and embraces 2.5D in some sequences.
It’s also proper co-op, and for whatever reason my son just loves that adorable blue fuzzball.
9. Jusant
Fall 2023
From Don’t Nod, creators of Life Is Strange, Jusant is a gorgeous-looking platformer that is just that. It appears to be focused on its platforming gameplay as you rock climb a mountain and explore settlements on cliff faces, all with an (adorable?) critter on your back.
This is one of those games where less is more when the story is told through the environment and without a quippy protagonist.
8. Cocoon
2023
Geometric Interactive is a new studio co-founded by Jeppe Carlsen, lead gameplay designer of Playdead’s Limbo and Inside, two macabre sidescrolling platformers. Cocoon is a departure for Carlsen, with a top-down isometric view, as you hop around worlds, solve puzzles and fight bosses. It also doesn’t look too scary… yet.
Again, like Jusant, Cocoon’s story is likely to be told simply through its colourful worlds as your bug-like character traverses them.
7. Viewfinder
19 July 2023
Viewfinder was recently put on my radar—a Portal-like puzzle game, that has you capture black-and-white images of your environment with a magic instant camera and place them to figure your way around obstacles. These photos are cute little slices of the world you captured and may need to be rotated to be of use.
The publisher also released a demo which I hungrily devoured the same day of its release. Even with its twisty concept, the demo was mostly straightforward, if a little clunky in places. Besides duplicating objects, it remains to be seen what other tricks the developers have up their sleeves.
6. Henry Halfhead
TBD
Henry Halfhead’s trailer was just delightful—half a head transforming into everyday objects around the home to solve mundane quests like getting ready for work. And I’m excited for the antics my son and I can get up to in couch co-op.
It’s surprising how much personality you can assign to a lowly apple when you slap eyes (and a Pinocchio-length nose) on it.
5. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
18 January 2024
This is one of the total surprises right at the top of Keighley’s showcase, a reveal not even made at Ubisoft’s own presentation. They’ve had troubled development with their Sands of Time remake so I was not expecting anything like this.
It’s a modern reimagining of the classic Prince of Persia. 2D sidescrolling of course, but The Lost Crown appears more fluid than the pixel-perfect original by Jordan Mechner. Our prince’s appearance and fierce demeanor here are closer to that of the Sands of Time sequels where our prince gets a harder edge. It wasn’t a direction I was overly fond of then, but at least this time-tripping gameplay looks to be a good time.
4. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
20 October 2023
I thought I had my fill after Marvel’s Spider-Man and Miles Morales from Insomniac Games. But after coming out of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse with my mind blown once again, I’m back on board for another swing around New York City, this time with a map twice as big with new boroughs not previously explored like Queens and Brooklyn.
Like Grand Theft Auto V, Spider-Man 2 promises the ability to switch between Peter Parker and Miles Morales throughout the game, with story quests dedicated to each character. They each have their own skill tree as well as a shared one. Miles gets a wingsuit, and Peter gets a case of the Venom. Twice the Spider-Men. Twice Manhattan. Twice the fun?
3. Star Wars: Outlaws
2024
We’ve just had EA’s take on the Star Wars universe with Jedi Survivor. Lucasfilm is spreading the love with Ubisoft who is ditching the lightsabers for blasters in Star Wars: Outlaws. I’m more interested in a game like this with a more linear cinematic narrative than the literal thousands of discoverable planets in Starfield.
Speaking of vast open worlds, Ubisoft looks to be changing up its open-world flavour for the first time in forever, making this feel less like Far Cry and closer to something like Red Dead Redemption. If you want to systematically take out enemy encampments, that Avatar game Ubisoft also showed, is basically a Far Cry game set in the Avatar universe.
2. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
February 2024
What’s more to say? The closing of Keighley’s presentation was Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the next chapter of the Final Fantasy VII meta (canon-breaking?) remake. I found it hilarious how the audience cheered at the reveal of it being released on 2 discs. Back in the day, you could tell how serious your RPG was by how many discs it had (floppys’ had it bad). The full game of FFVII came on 3 CD-ROMs (probably due to the amount of full-motion video more than anything.)
I just love how much folks (myself included) are clamoring for the next remake of this beloved game, when Final Fantasy XVI and its brand-new story is out next week to seemingly less fanfare.
1. Alan Wake 2
17 October 2023
I’m currently replaying Alan Wake, a 2010 game from Finnish developer, Remedy, about a writer who moves to the town of Bright Falls and begins to encounter dark spirits that start to wreak havoc in the real world, events that appear to be his own writing. It’s an outside take on rural Americana which brings a Twin Peaks vibe to the whole affair.
Alan Wake: Remastered does look better than when it was on the Xbox 360 but you can certainly feel the age of it. The dialogue is stilted, the level design is pretty linear and the controls are clumsy, forcing you to reload batteries to recharge your torch (the shadow monsters hate light), as well as weapon ammo. On the other hand, how the game broke the story into episodes, complete with recaps, still feels novel today.
I do have hope for Alan Wake II, which is now committing to survival horror like the Resident Evil games and with it now splitting time between the kind of boring Alan and our new protagonist, an FBI agent named Saga. Also, Remedy’s work on Control, and tying it in with Alan Wake and expanding it into a grander universe makes this a must-play.
Further reading
Summer Game Fest featured no women on stage by Ash Parrish
Sale of the century by Nathan Brown