Feature: Five PS4 Announcements You Should Expect at Paris Games Week

It's been a funny ol' Gamescom, hasn't it? There's been some big news from third-party publishers, but it's definitely felt like something has been missing – mainly Sony. Without a PlayStation press conference, we've been left searching for scraps of news rather than tucking into a main course of announcements and trailers. And that's a shame, because the German convention is honestly one of our favourite shows. Of course, the silver lining is that the Japanese giant's not done yet: it's still got the Tokyo Game Show, Paris Games Week, and the possibility of a second annual PlayStation Experience in its crosshairs. So, in keeping with the European theme of the week, here are five things that we expect the platform holder to announce for the PS4 outside the Eiffel Tower this October.

How low can you go?

Alright, this author's been banging on about this one since the beginning of time – but we really do think that a price drop is coming for the PS4. Yes, the system's selling faster than moustache wax at a hipster convention, but Sony would be stupid to let the momentum drop off before giving it another shot in the arm. If you look at the PlayStation 2, it dropped the price right around this point in the generation, and it opened up the device to a much more mainstream audience as a consequence. And with guaranteed money spinners such as PlayStation Plus now on its side, it's not like it's going to feel the hit on the hardware. Plus, if you factor in the timing of Paris Games Week – which is right before the holiday shopping season starts in earnest – and the fact that the potentially expensive Project Morpheus is right around the corner, it makes too much sense.

A very Quantic Dream

Pub quiz time: which studio with an extremely close relationship with Sony Computer Entertainment is based in Paris? Easy-peasy, it's Quantic Dream. We've known ever since the release of Beyond: Two Souls that the developer is working on a PS4 game – in fact, Ellen Page's bonkers escapade was built upon a basic version of its new-gen engine – so it seems roughly the right time for us to learn more about what it's up to. The rumour mill has been a little quiet of late, but everything we've heard up until now suggests that the developer's working on something to do with artificial intelligence, which is most likely inspired by that old Kara demo that was released for the PlayStation 3. David Cage's games are always divisive, but they're always different as well, so we can't wait to see what he's got up his frilly sleeves this time.

Born to be WiLD

Want to know another coincidence? Wild Sheep Studio, the indie team formed by Rayman maker Michel Ancel, is also based in France. It's been over a year since we last heard anything about WiLD, the PS4 exclusive that puts you in control of various animals. We know that the title – which won our best of show award at Gamescom 2014 – is still in development, because the developer's hiring on its website. Moreover, recent rumours suggested that the team behind Beyond Good & Evil 2 had moved on from Ubisoft to other things, which we very much suspect to be this. We doubt that it'll be out anytime soon, but Sony's not in the habit of burying promising projects, so we have to imagine that it will be at Paris Games Week.

Dreams can only get better

This one's already confirmed: we'll be learning a lot more about Dreams later this year. Media Molecule said that it wanted to announce the game at E3 2015 in order to pique the curiosity of PlayStation fans, but we should get a lot more information about how it all actually works at Paris Games Week. It sounds to us like this title's all about collaboration; it's about realising your imagination and then sharing that with the world. You can make games with it, but composers may instead opt to write music which could then be used as the backing track for someone else's level and so on. We'd expect a beta to be announced, too, as the Guildford-based developer has confirmed that that's what it's currently working on.

The obligatory updates

It's a bit of a cop out, but we'd fully expect updates on all of the other upcoming PS4 exclusives at Paris Games Week. A game like Horizon: Zero Dawn seems like a dead-cert, for example – perhaps we'll see some of the title's exploration or role-playing aspects now that the combat has been revealed – while we're sure that there'll be a new trailer for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End at the very least. The Last Guardian could also put in an appearance depending on its presence at the Tokyo Game Show, and, here's a long-shot for you, how about a sneak peek at Gran Turismo 7? Sony's said that the audience for Polyphony Digital's simulation racer is predominantly in Europe these days, and we reckon that the mere mention of the franchise alone would shift systems.

Sony's pressers in Europe tend to favour oddball announcements over the usual glut of AAA that you find at E3, but would this satiate your PlayStation cravings after a disappointing Gamescom 2015? We'll have more on Paris Games Week closer to the event, but in the meantime, let us know what you're hoping to see at the show in the comments section below.