Fresh off of Sony’s recent PlayStation network outage, the worst since the whole-month outage debacle back in 2011, Sony held their late-winter State of Play on Wednesday afternoon. With recent announcements of their big first-party exclusive games dripping in triple-a flair, fans were excited to see more of what Sony does best on PlayStation in this modern era of showcasing. Would Sony deliver on the excitement?
The 40+ minute streaming event came out of the gate with fan-favorite Monster Hunter Wilds from CapCom, showing off its shiny new grinding paint. Monsters, monsters, dragons, and more monsters, the core of Monster Hunter seems to remain intact for the anticipated installation in the franchise. With new weapons and diverse environments (are we going to literal hell?), Monster Hunter Wild’s sleek visualization of fighting supreme monsters (with friends!) in its new gameplay trailer had the State of Play banging just minutes in.
Shifting enemies and styles, Sega and Lizardcube followed with a new “artsy” take on Shinobi, with their new 2D platformer, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. Today’s first look showed off a stylish rendition of Shinobi combat, complete with dashing, slashing, and a hint towards its notorious secrets. An absolutely beautiful art style and frantic, over-the-top combat has us racing towards its August 29th release date.
The event surged through its next few titles, revealing gameplay of the underrated Sonic Racing series new entry, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds; Bandai Namco’s next entry in the Digimon Story franchise, Digimon Story: Time Stranger; the forever-ago announced Lost Soul Aside; and a demo announcement for the soon-to-play Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. The demo announcement was quickly piggybacked by an announcement of Like a Dragon-themed DLC for…Dave the Diver? What the hell?
After the flurry of “Act 1” of the event, we got GearBox’s Randy Pitchford and his teammate…Randy. Borderlands 4 wasn’t necessarily on our radar for this State of Play, but the Randys came on to present a brand new gameplay trailer for their gun-toting hit franchise, Borderlands. The upcoming Borderlands 4 showed yet another display of diverse environments on the afternoon, with BL4 journeying from tropical locales to cyberpunk cities. There were more than a few guns and new psycho-slaying abilities featured as well, but it still just looks like Borderlands to us. One of the Randys also announced the release date for carnage, dropping on September 3rd of this year. There will also be an exclusive Borderlands 4 State of Play coming this spring.
One of the darlings of the Game Awards announcements, Sony followed up with a brand new, and probably final look at its new author-driven co-op game, Split Fiction. The more we see, the more interesting the world looks, and that continued today. Bending and creating new environments to team up against the odds continues to look delightfully fun, and we can’t wait to get our hands on this one on March 6th.
If you’re into the Dark Pictures Anthology games like Alyssa, you can be excited about Directive 8020 making the next appearance. Announced at Gamescom last August, Directive 8020 extended its revealed gameplay this afternoon by further showcasing its sci-fi horror, choice-driven screams. We got to see more of the planet Tau Ceti, its characters, and most importantly, its alien enemy that mimics its prey. Get the hell scared right out of you on October 2nd.
A new Five Nights at Freddy’s game is a big deal, right? That still a big deal? Well, there’s definitely a new one coming in the form of: Five Nights at Freddy’s: Secret of the Mimic. We thought it looked pretty cool, actually. The 11th mainline game in the franchise was teased back in August, but today’s State of Play featured the whole bear. A new “enemy” awaits in this new sneak peek, and it definitely seems to be on par with some of the best ideas in the franchise. New FNAF hits this June.
Is this where the show peaked? Horror? Claymation? Art direction and spooky spooks? Maybe. We saw this game called The Midnight Walk back in September and somehow forgot about it, so we got to have a genuine “ohhhhh yeah…” moment of the show here. The folks over at MoonHood reminded us of how brilliant this little project might be, and every little spooky thing we see in this first-person claymation-style adventure looks absolutely wonderful. The dark look we got today furthers that excitement through new looks at gameplay and world interaction, and we couldn’t be happier that we got to see it today. The Midnight Walk spooks into our lives on May 8th.
Darwin’s Paradox also made a short appearance. The first game we can think of since Octodad that features an octotagonist…octopus hero…octopus, this upcoming game from the French developers over at ZDT studios has its octopus hero, Darwin, on a cute and fantastical rescue mission. In this first reveal trailer, traversal plays a key role in Darwin’s Paradox, as they showcased much of Darwin’s eight-legged abilities in maneuvering around his world. More of a survival game than anything, the paradox looks inviting if you’re into stealthy, puzzle-based affairs. It’s TBA 2025.
Sony brought machine gun fire that would seemingly lead into its finale, with trailers for Warriors Abyss, an upcoming roguelite from the overwhelmingly large Warriors series that launches TODAY; Hell is Us, a 3rd-person action game from Rogue Factor; Dreams of Another, a wonderfully pixelated form-shooter from Pixeljunk; Tides of Annihilation, a single-player action title with CITY-SIZED MONSTERS(we love that); and winding down with the announcement of the underappreciated Days Gone Remastered, coming April 25th.
Sony then gave us an extended look at Metal Gear △: Snake Eater. (Yes, that triangle is a delta and is pronounced “delta”.) Ultimately a remake of one of the most popular in the series, 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the stealth-action hit never looked better. Featuring slick new visuals and enhanced controls, Snake showed off what he’ll be able to be solid at on the PS5. We get to revisit this classic on August 28th.
We really hadn’t seen any true shooters until Metal Eden popped up towards the end of the show. A hyper sci-fi adrenaline rush awaits in this first-person bullet-slinger. Its catch was displayed today in the form of “core ripping”, a new form of strategy and ability building that make it unique. Metal Eden is coming soon, May 6th.
IO Interactive rarely misses, and as the runner-up to the final reveal, their new story-driven single-player adventure from Build a Rocket Boy got a shiny new gameplay trailer. Mindseye, classified as a “Techno Spy Thriller”, is led by Grand Theft Auto’s former lead game designer Leslie Benzies. Today’s trailer was rich with mystery, espionage, and technological influence as its hero and acquaintances’ story begins to unfold. 3rd person gunplay, fancy cinematics, and the ever-popular driving cars were on full display as the hype train begins for Mindseye, out sometime in 2025. Hopefully.
Ending the show in fantastic fashion (for me) was a brand new announcement from one of the most beloved developers of Birds & Swords, Housemarque. The brilliant Finnish studio that brought us bullet hell masterpieces such as Super Stardust, Dead Nation, Resogun, and the recent PlayStation roguelite hit Returnal, announced a brand new IP for 2026, Saros. Even though it was just a cinematic trailer, it was clear from the moment we saw the circle formation of blast orbs that this was a Housemarque gig. What we can guess is the protagonist narrating; he asks, “Have you ever wanted to fight the sun?” Well, we do now. The 3rd-person death-reshaping game looks dark and awesome from its new cinematic trailer, and we can guess it will have some similarities to their recent hit, Returnal. We’ll have to wait awhile to be tested; all we got was 2026 for a date.
So that’s it. The show ended. Only until we revisited the show as a whole could we appreciate what Sony showed us today, because the lack of any content from those big, splashy triple-a games that we mentioned at the top that we know are coming, left a sour taste in our mouths. Nothing from Ghost of Yotei, nothing from Death Stranding 2, nothing from Wolverine, and nothing from Intergalactic. Their time will definitely come; we just wish we could’ve seen something from just one of those to sweeten the pie of what was a pretty solid showcase of both first and third-party installments coming soon to PlayStation.
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