E3 2016: Sony

Sony has some pretty dedicated PlayStation fans, and the company knows how to cater to them. Dramatic orchestral music set the stage for over an hour of game reveals and demos. We knew there would be no announcements about upgraded PlayStation hardware at this show, so with that in mind, let’s get right into the recap.

God of War

Nothing like starting off with a bang, right? The crowd erupted as a God of War reboot demo began with a grizzled, bearded Kratos and his son setting out to scavenge and hunt for food. The game features intense and vivid melee combat, just as you’d expect, and some of what Kratos could do with his axe looked pretty awesome indeed. A new Spartan Rage ability can send Kratos into a fighting frenzy, helping him overcome even the biggest of enemies. The demo climaxed with an emotional moment between father and son as they kill a deer together; you could almost feel the expectations for the storyline rising as the demo progressed.

God of War is in development for the PS4; no release date was announced.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

One of the more unique games shown off at last year’s conference, Horizon: Zero Dawn returned in a more advanced stage of development, and there were lots of noticeable advancements. The game will include enemy tracking, a weapon wheel, a crafting system, and BioWare-esque dialogue trees, just to name a few features. It looks like corrupted machines can go rogue and attack aggressively, and you can commandeer ride-able machines to cover more ground more quickly. You can even tether enemy machines down with ropes fired from arrows to keep them still. Some machines will be vulnerable to certain types of weaponry, such as fire, and the combat system looks pretty fluid as well.

Horizon: Zero Dawn will be released for the PS4 on February 28, 2017.

Detroit Become Human

This was one of the more interesting trailers. An android is sent in to save a child in a hostage situation on the top of a building, much to the dismay of the child’s mother. The hostage-taker turns out to be another android, and the child ends up dying – or does she? It looks like, according to the trailer, Detroit Become Human will allow you to investigate crime scenes, examine evidence, and choose differing paths within a storyline; in another version of the scene, the child lives and the malicious android is destroyed. The whole thing vaguely reminded me of a futuristic L.A. Noire, though we’ll need to see more of the game before we can draw any additional conclusions.

Detroit Become Human is in development for the PS4; no release date was announced.

Resident Evil VII

One of the biggest surprises of the show was none other than Resident Evil VII, which looks to bring the series right back to its survival horror roots and will be fully playable in PlayStation VR. The demo had the player wandering around an abandoned house, attempting to flee the structure before they are captured and killed. If the demo is any indication, the final game will have plenty of hold-your-breath moments, The game seemed to have tension to spare, and in a VR horror game, it’s much harder to escape the scares, so that might take things to a whole new level.

Resident Evil VII launches on Xbox One, PC, and PS4 (with full PlayStation VR support) on January 24, 2017.

PlayStation VR

If nothing else, PlayStation VR looks like the most cost-effective way for players to experience this new paradigm in gaming, and for those of you who want it, you won’t have much longer to wait; PlayStation VR will be released on October 13 for $399. More than 50 games will be available for the device between launch and year’s end, including support from huge franchises and brand new, VR-specific titles.

Lots of these titles received stage time as well, many of which will be developed by Sony studios. Farpoint places players on an unknown and hostile alien plant with lots of unfriendly life coming after you. Star Wars Battlefront will receive exclusive X-Wing VR missions set in space. Batman Arkham VR promises new content for the platform from Rocksteady themselves. Final Fantasy XV will support the PlayStation VR platform at launch as well with exclusive first-person content built for the device called the Final Fantasy XV VR Experience.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

The next Call of Duty got an on-stage gameplay demo, and it looked mighty busy. The demo opened with some intense and fast-paced space combat in a freshly-launched ship, and that looks to be a welcome change of pace from the standard running-and-gunning. This dumped into a zero-gravity segment which featured a grappling hook that allowed for more precise mobility and the ability to pull enemies toward you. After breaching into a command center, an on-foot section featured a portable shield and a decompression lever that immediately sucked all of the gravity out of the room. The demo culminated with a dramatic escape in the same space vehicles, and from start to finish, it really does look like Infinity Ward is trying hard to innovate within the expected Call of Duty formula; let’s see if they can deliver on this promising first look.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare comes out on November 4th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Also shown was a trailer for the remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which will only be available with the purchase of Infinite Warfare.

Death Stranding

To incredible fanfare, Hideo Kojima took the stage to reveal his newest project, and he did so via a mysterious trailer featuring lots of dead marine animals, a naked man, and a newborn who started off tethered to him and ends up completely vanishing. Norman Reedus will start in this new project, entitled Death Stranding, and that’s almost all we know about it thus far. One interesting tidbit I noticed is that a man named Mark Cerny is listed as the game’s technical producer; that’s important because he’s worked on games like Sonic 2 and the original Crash Bandicoot, and he was the lead hardware architect for the PS4 itself. If he’s on the project, something big is going down.

Death Stranding is in development for the PS4; no release date was announced.

Days Gone

First revealed early in the show via a cinematic trailer, the presentation concluded with a biker-based post-apocalyptic game called Days Gone by Bend Studios. The demo shows the main character scavenging through an abandoned camp, creating a makeshift silencer for his pistol, and chasing another character called Two Dog. It’s not long before the area is completely flooded with what look like zombies, and as Two Dog succumbs to the hordes, the main character barely manages to escape after several tense firefights and creative bits of environmental usage. The game pumps literal seas of zombies on-screen at once; it’s some pretty impressive technology, even if it is at all scripted.

Days Gone is in development for the PS4; no release date was announced.

Additional Announcements

As you’d expect, there was also the usual slew of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it game reveals. After years of hype and anticipation, The Last Guardian finally got a release date of October 25th. To the excitement of pretty much everyone, the Crash Bandicoot trilogy will receive full remasters for the PS4, and Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens was also shown off. Insomniac Games is also making a Spider-Man game, and it looks like a PS4 exclusive as well.

With Sony’s conference in the bag, that concludes our coverage of the main E3 press conferences. What did you think of Sony’s show, and which company put on the best display? Let us know in the comments below. We’ll have additional coverage of E3 as the days roll on, so keep it here!