Topic: E3 2018

@NecuVise TLOU is only similar to Uncharted in that both are 3rd person story heavy games. SSM were making a new IP until it got cancelled and even then Sony needed convincing a new GoW was the way to go. My point is that you think there might be a double standard in how people view too many Halos but not Uncharted, so I'm giving a reason why it's perceived like that. Heck one of the reasons that might be is that we've had ten separate Halo games on consoles compared to just five for Uncharted.

@Octane my mistake for media molecule, I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out.
@adf86 yes, we have had so many different halo games but out of these games we have had 5 main entries plus one prequel since 2001. The rest were games of different genres so you can't call them the same. Anyway, as I have already pointed out, Sony had a similar situation but with higher count of studios so they had more diverse lineup, plus they had better success with second party studios, especially Japanese.

So I'm thinking that maybe Sony will cut the price of PS4 Pro to $299 at this E3. Do you guys think it's possible or it's too early for that? Are there any rumors about this?

@NecuVise It's possible, but their sales forecast predicted a decline (16 million in 2018 vs 19 million last year), suggesting that a big price cut isn't coming this year.

@Kidfried I think no DLC for God of War. Cory said they hadn't anything planned, and the way he designed this and the upcoming game(s), I don't think there's much room for DLC. Additionally, he also talked about taking a two to three month vacation

I think for Sony's conference:
Spider-Man
The Last of Us (+gameplay)
Death Stranding (+gameplay)
Ghost of Tsushima (+gameplay)
Bluepoint's remake (Demon's Souls?)

And whatever third party games the managed to secure, including From's new game, which I do believe will be a multiplat game. Anything Japan Studio related has a higher chance of being shown at TGS, though I wouldn't mind a teaser for Ueda's new game.

Maybe we get a little surprise, like a new Ratchet & Clank for example.

@Kidfried They have two studios. @KratosMD

I believe both studios also worked on the Ratchet remake so make of that what you will

I wouldn't be surprised if Insomniac are in the early stages of their next game now. Certain aspects of their next game must be complete by now - such as the scripting, voice work, animations, environment crating etc which would leave those people 'free' to start work on their next project. They are still on hand to correct 'issues' that may crop up during the final phases of putting all the parts together, play testing and polishing but games are built like movies and cartoons - start with a script and then you have the voice and mo-capping before you can turn that into animation. You have teams working on the 'environment' before dropping in the characters etc. Its a staggered development as they need certain parts completed before they can start the 'next' part or at least be a certain distance along. Different sections have different deadlines...

Usually in the last 6months, the game is at least 90-95% complete with just polishing and getting all the pieces to work together and then refining those. Its why DLC can come quite soon after release because they can start on it before the game actually releases. H:ZD began development in 2011 after Killzone 3 finished but GG still made Killzone: Shadow Fall and released that in 2013. Even if it had a small team until after Killzone released, they were still on hand to help when needed on Killzone but you can't have people sat around 'idle' once their Part' is finished and waiting until they have some 'issue' crop up.

As Spider-Man is due to release in 4months - probably 3 months until it goes 'gold', there is no doubt a portion of the team working on polishing and play-testing but I would be very surprised if 'everyone' at Insomniac is working on that. In fairness though the game does have DLC scheduled so they could be working on that too but could also be in the 'early' stages of their next project too.

I know its different for 'small' teams where they are all needed to do everything but bigger studio's tend to have people specialising in certain areas - like animation or crafting the environment etc.

Of course I don't expect Insomniac or any other big studio to be 'revealing' their next projects before their current project is released. Even though Santa Monica released God of War last month and no doubt ramping up development on their next project whilst a skeleton crew continues to patch and update GoW, I doubt they will reveal what that next project is.

People think it maybe too early for GG too but as they have a LOT of assets already created for H:ZD - inc a lot of character models too, they could be ready to show something - look what they achieved with the Frozen Wilds - quite a sizeable new area with some new robots too. Its possible they could have enough of their next game done to tease at least a small section of the area its set in with some dialogue in place that sets up the story for the next game - its just a teaser after all and not a 5mins+ Game-play trailer that could come at next years E3 for a 2020 (ish) release...

Sony don't need to show off any 'new' projects. They could have games like Wild, Shenmue 3, FF7 remake, Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding etc and that will not necessarily feel like E3 2017 which was quite similar to E3 2016. None of those were at E3 last year. Couple that with some new VR and Indie titles as well as the obligatory multi-platform partnerships (CoD, Destiny - maybe RDR2 and any others that may be partnered - Rocksteady's new game?) and you have your hour. That's without showing Spider-Man and Days Gone. Obviously God of War and Detroit may not make an appearance - not unless there is some DLC or sales statements.

One strange thing for Sony's E3 sort-of-conference this year is that they will omit Days Gone allegedly because it has a month coverage in Game Informer but that doesn't stop them from having Spiderman for the third year while it was also featured in Game Informer this year. It's probably because Spiderman is so close to its release but honestly, I'm sick of seeing that game again. I just want to play it. I've seen and read everything I need to know.

I've noticed too that they didn't mention Dreams. My guess is that they are going to promote it heavily on Gamescom, PGS and PSX if it doesn't come out earlier. Seems like they saved E3 for their biggest hitters.

It's a hard thing to market. How do you sell someone on Dreams when its been so nebulous up to now?

@KratosMD They can still show the game in a 2-minute trailer. But what's the point of going in-depth on Dreams? We've seen plenty of footage at this point to get a good idea of what the game is about. Death Stranding, TLOU and Ghost of Tsushima all get their gameplay reveals in a big gameplay demo I suppose. And Spider-Man is their upcoming big hitter, so it makes sense to promote that one.

Its I think going to be very difficult to market and could easily take up the whole E3 on its own to try and explain what it is. It also doesn't seem like its 'a' game either and reminds me a bit of Lego Worlds (I think it was) where you collect objects that then allow you to use them to create your own experiences. Its much harder to market than LBP which had a game at its core and allowed users to create their own levels - similar to Trials in that respect. With LBP and Trials, you could market the main game - the fact that LBP was a platformer with 'infinite' levels or Trials was a physics based game with infinite levels because users can create their own or play other user generated levels.

The fact that 'dreams' is so open ended - its not pigeon holed into say a 2D/3D platformer or a 2D/3D puzzle game or shoot-em-up or an interactive adventure - it can be all of those or none of those if you don't want it to be. The main hook is that if you can 'dream' it, you can create it. The story mode is just 3 levels designed to showcase what could be possible but the main reason to buy is either to be able to create your own 'experiences' or to play those that others have created. It almost seems like the Project Spark of the PS4. If you are not very creative, it maybe worth picking up once those 'creative' types have got their hands on the game and built up a sizeable collection of experiences for you to try.

What surprises me though is that they are also not taking the opportunity to remind people that they still have Wild or updating us on games like Shenmue 3 or FF7 remake too. Spider-Man has been at the past 2 E3's and I can understand why the other 3 are being featured as those haven't really shown us 'much' - not that the Last of Us 2 really needs to but there are still people unsure of what Death Stranding is and Ghost of Tsushima only had a teaser trailer so those all make sense but they also have games that were announced years ago and not had any publicity or mention since. Wild could feel like a 'new' game announcement as its been so long in the 'wilderness' (LOL)

@BAMozzy Square Enix is doing its own conference, so I expect FFVII will be shown off at their own. WiLD is vapourware at this point.

I think it would've been a great idea to launch Dreams earlier in the year. Get people to develop some games on it and by the time the masses get a copy during the holidays, there's plenty of content available to play around with.

@Octane The reason I mentioned FF7 was because it first appeared on Sony's stage and it does seem that Wild is vapourware although its still supposed to be in development too - at least according to Michel Ancel but that was over a year ago now with the 'promise' of 'strong updates in the coming year'.

Dreams almost needs to have a 'post release' feature from Sony - that way they can feature more examples of what the community have created and can sell it on that to the more 'general' consumer who may not be that aware or even interested in what they may have seen so far. Its different from those that may have seen 'Days Gone' and just dismissed it as a Last of Us wannabe or just another 'zombie' game as that has the content to show what it is and how it can differentiate itself prior to launch but Dreams seems more likely to be a game that could grow into something special when the community really get their hands on it. Its like trying to sell a game engine with just a small snippet of one developers game when it would be much easier to sell if they showed a variety of different games with different styles to show how versatile and varied it can be etc. Like I said, it almost feels like the PS4 equivalent of Project Spark and whilst this may have great tools to create a variety of different games, it needs post launch coverage to show the creations that others have made. If you don't like 2D platformers, even it has a level creator that offers 'infinite' levels, even post launch examples of the 'best' community levels won't entice someone but if you can literally create any type of game, then some could see something they want to try and maybe more tempted. It really does seem that Dreams needs more 'post launch' coverage than pre-launch - not saying it needs no pre-launch as you need to get the creative community invested early to feature their creations post-launch.

According to leaks, FromSoftware's next game will NOT be Bloodborne 2 but more likely to be Tenchu. A major leak detailing various E3 plans over on ResetEra has confirmed "Shadows Die Twice" is not "Souls-adjacent". Connecting the dots ("Shadows die twice" is a line said by a boss in Tenchu, and it was once a sizeable franchise bearing FromSoft's name), it nigh-on confirms the series is making a comeback.

Not sure how people will fell but I am not a fan of 'Souls' games so I wasn't interested in Bloodborne 2.

@BAMozzy I'm more happy FromSoftware gets to do something different for a change.

@YummyHappyPills As I said, It doesn't bother me at all as I am not a fan of the 'souls' games anyway. I doubt I would buy Bloodborne 2 if/when they do make it. I am not a big fan of Tenchu either (although I did prefer it to souls) and I wonder if it will be multi-platform too as the franchise has been on all consoles.

Also wonder if Bluepoint are working on remasters?

@BAMozzy Xbox One, PS4 and PC

@YummyHappyPills More than likely - but maybe Switch too - if not simultaneous release, later on down the line. I guess that will depend on the game and its structure, whether or not it can be ported down to the Switch. If they go for the 1080/60, it maybe possible to get that working on a Switch at 30fps with obvious scaling down of visuals too as necessary but again may also depend on the game structure. Tenchu is a game that could fit the 'modern' idea of what a lot of games aim for - big open world, action RPG (whether RPG lite or more complex) with side missions etc too.

Anyway, we will just have to see...

@BAMozzy People also said Code Vein was coming yet here we are