Latest State of Play Is One of the Worst-Received PS5 Shows Yet

It had Monster Hunter and Astro Bot. What else could you possibly want?

Sorry but it was pretty bad. I enjoyed the concord cutscene then it became a 5v5 shooter, silent hill is looking more and more like just another bloober game, and as much as i enjoyed astrobot i literally said to my mate 'wait, they ended on that?'

This felt like a state of play of obligation rather than they had big games to share.

I’m not sure what people expect. Does it have to be known IP? As long as there’s some nice sunny Japanese stuff I’m happy, my my only disappointment was the non VR-ness of Astro Bot. There were a few good things smattered within that were new to me too! Sony could do without putting their live service stuff front and centre though, doesn’t give the best impression.

Honest question though - what would people consider a good show if this was so terrible? I’d honestly like to know. Anyone?

The majority of that showcase was games trying to be Overwatch, games trying to be Sekiro, or old games. Bless Astro Bot for carrying the PS5 this year.

IMO this State of Play wasn't bad at all

Hey, it had Astro Bot. So wasn't a complete loss

It had Astro Bot which was the only thing I cared to see, so I was content with it. The rest of the games aren’t really for me anyways.

I think Concord looks great.

Meh... it was fine. Astro is great Dynasty warriors has potentials, MH wilds is a thing.
I think people simply have unrealistic expectations.

I saw on chat people asking for Elden Ring 2. Some clearly have no notion of what it takes to make a game.

It wasn't spectacular but it was fine. People are so negative these days. If this was a showcase I would understand all the buzz around it, but now I really don't know what people expect from a state of play...

It was the first one I've tuned into in a good while, and it was quite a lot of brown Asia settings with samurai action, Silent Hill 2 looking rough, two framey as hell VR games, Overwatch, Marvel's Overwatch, and Astro.

And holy hell, after that middle section of Asia aesthetic samurai games just....blending together in a weird soup (I couldn't tell you what was what in there) Astro stood out like a neon city in the void of space.

That kind of just....whimsy and fun, that filled the PS1 and 2 and most of the PS3 that made me personally a PS fan (I started with the PS1 long before I got another brand in my life outside of the Mega Drive) has just evaporated from a whole load of ....single player narrative experiences.

And that's cool, that's what ya wanna focus on, but variety breeds a strong platform.

Negativity online? No way!

I don't understand why they didn't show a Tsushima 2 10 second trailer with no release date. Throw your fans a bone

Astrobot is 2024 Goty, the rest of the stuff looked meh. Does until dawn look worse than the PS4 version or is it just me?

I asked for a platformer and that's what I got. An amazing looking one, too. I can't complain really

I don’t know when these companies will learn that cut scenes are not what people want to see. I do think the reception may have been a little less cold had they not spent a third of the show on one single game, with mostly cut scenes.

There were a handful of nice looking games, with astrobot obviously being top dog there. I’d say it was about a 6-7 and more or less as I’d have expected.

It was a 30 minute state of play so I never expected to see the big exclusive games or any brand new big third party reveals, those are saved for the proper 90 minute showcases. I think people's unrealistically high expectations always brings these state of plays down when in reality they're doing what they are meant to and updating people on what games are coming within the next 12 months and allowing third party developers to showcase their games.

Most people were expecting showcase levels of reveals and big AAA announcements and no doubt you will have people comparing it to Microsofts actual 90 minute showcase next week 🤦.

I guess Summer Gamefest will be the ACTUAL show we see the big hitters. Never expected anything huge from Sony here.

Outside of Astro Bot, it was pretty eh. Nothing wrong with Monster Hunter and it's cool that we have a release date on the Silent Hill 2 Remake, but it was mostly just a lukewarm stream.

Seeing gameplay of Concord just made me want a single player sci-fi shooter made by a first party Sony studio.

I think if you're showing third party stuff that's scheduled for 2025, maybe just mention one or two of your studios are also still making games for 2025/26. Even if it's just a 5 second teaser with no title, it feels like the consumers are owed a little something to excite them. People like teases, it engages the community in a positive way, rather than the negative way they are getting now 😅

The games weren't horrid for the most part, but Sony just isn't reading the room. They blue ball the community for ages, come around E3 time and then spend half of the show with a generic PvP shooter, the most unnecessary remaster possible and pc announcements that could be relegated elsewhere, and then in the end show two big games, but no surprises.

I don't want to be negative, but Sony has been lousy with their showmanship ever since they switched to this digital format, while promoting bigger things like back when psvr2 or the new psplus tiers were announced on the psblog... why!?

If it wasn't for Astro Bot I would have called it the biggest waste of time of the year. If you're a Overwatch fan though you were probably having the time of of your life!

Maybe if pushsquare stop fanning the flames. Already had one article about it.

It was average. It was a 30minute show. Wasn’t a huge show that was promoted for weeks.

Once again it’s not Sonys fault that people were expecting wolverine/GoT2 and many more.

Frankly I wish they would put PC ports on a different “show”

I play both PS and PC but when watching state of play I’m watching it for PS. Otherwise it seemed to be a lot of games I have zero interest in aside from AstroBot

@tameshiyaku Yeah, I find it strange it's all only on their blog. Seems kind of phoned in most of the time. Like trying to find specific information, it being only there, or confirmation about something.

Most people wouldn't even know about PS.blog unless if you saw it were reported by Push Square, from a YouTube channel, or if you already knew about it beforehand.

Does any other game company do this? A blog of all things?

Oh yay another negativity article from push today we needed more smh. I can’t really blame them because the internet loves to be negative but if people are really trying to say a pretty decent sop was one of the worst yet they need to get some damn perspective. It was never supposed to be a showcase Sony laid out what it was and yet angry gamers that sadly the majority are freaking adults want to act like children because they didn’t get to see what they wanted. It also goes to show why there’s so many studio closures and lay offs because gamers don’t want to give anything new a chance if it’s not from an established series especially one they like it’s automatically trash and why are they wasting time making this or showing this. I just think I need a break from the internet because the constant negativity is just tiring and since websites need engagement that’s all gaming sites are turning into

Praising one game (astro) is a thing and actually bying it is another. I hope people vote with their wallets on this one.

For me, I just skipped a lot of it.

I watched the Concorde cinematic because it was entertaining and skipped the gameplay portion.

I skipped the Gacha games.
I skipped the GaaS games.
I skipped the dress up game.
I skipped the PSVR2 games.

I watched the Blade of Antara with great interest and then found it's another GaaS, so that killed my interest.

I don't even know what to think of Where Winds Meet as it just looked like a boss rush Souls-like. I think I ended up skipping through that because I got bored watching it.

I skipped through Dynasty Warriors because I don't like the series.

I skipped Monster Hunter because I don't like the series.

So, in the end, only Silent Hill 2 and Astro Bot were worth my time - thank goodness I watched this after it already aired so I could just skip through the parts that didn't interest me.

While I certainly wasn't expecting Ghost of Tsushima 2, Bloodborne 2 (or a Remake), Elden Ring 2, or anything completely out there, I was expecting less GaaS.

I guess one positive is that I will have plenty of time before Fall to clear my backlog without much distraction (well, unless Nintendo and/or Microsoft pull out some bombshell Summer Releases).

EDIT: Oh wait, I just remembered that Shadow of the Erdtree drops in June...I have some serious catching up to do before then!

It did nothing for me, so to me it was boring. But to someone else it could have been great. It’s all subjective. But i really only buy a PS for God of War, Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank and then surprises i didn’t know i wanted. Astro Bot will be awesome and at the Xbox Showcase many games could be announced to be coming to PS5 so that rounds out the year more. Sounds like the new Doom, Gears of War collection and Halo MCC are coming to PS5 soon. But next year Sony needs a showcase that brings some games that define the generation for them like they have done in the past. We knew going in this wasn’t what this years show was going to be.

About the PSVR2 games, both that were showned definitly interest me. I would have hope that rumoured Astro Bot game would be VR (only or maybe hybrid) but if they want to push it as much as they can as the Playstation mascot, with the relatively low PSVR2 install base, I understand the decison and the game looks like a 2024 GOTY anyway.

Path of exile 2 is also very interesting. Did they stick to f2p model or is it paid this time?

@zebric21 F2P

I quite liked it. Four games there that are firmly on my radar. Could do without the corporate suits waffling though. Triggers my Phil Spencer 'chatty suit' PTSD.

Just show the games. They'll speak for themselves.

Yeah, I’m buying a PS5 again for Astro so I suppose it’s wasn’t all bad for PS.

@VaultGuy415
People would complain about that, too.

Surely one can acknowledge a middling presentation without sparking an existential crisis? Regardless, over 3500 votes in this poll alone is nothing to scoff at and Sony would be wise to take notice.

I'm still trying pull myself out of the lull caused by the 12 minutes of Concord to kick it off.

Everything else was decent.

@UltimateOtaku91 "and no doubt you will have people comparing it to Microsofts actual 90 minute showcase next week"

Sony well knew about Microsoft's showcase before making this State of Play so they could have done things differently if they didn't want to be seen as the inferior show 🤷

@Tecinthebrain I don't think Sony care, the last two years they have had the inferior show and nothing has changed, they are still selling well and xbox are selling poorly, so these shows/SoP have no real impact.

It gave me at least one thing I really wanted to see so I'm happy.

The problem is that the longer Sony take between communications the higher the expectations are, you only have to read the PushSq staff editorial before the "show" to see how rampant the expectations were.

And the less said about opening with a ten minute cgi for a (on the face of it) bog standard arena shooter the better.

I think people's expectations were skewed.

Let's be realistic. Without them coming out and saying it we know they have restructured to put less emphasis on the live service stuff and have more of an even split. They have been clear how their studios are set up now but doesn't take a genius to know this will now delay output from Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch and the like.

We have seen the issue before on PS and now seeing it on Xbox too Fable for example. I would much rather see the games revealed when they are close to ready ie months from release.

Secondly they have also shied away from showing CGI trailers of games that are a way off. All of the first party in this SOP due out this year but that also creates the caveat of then not showing what the key studios are working on as it's not ready.

I think we will just have to take it on the chin and temper expectations this year. I think 2025 will be a bit stronger.

I personally would rather not see logos, trailers etc for games that are miles from release.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I'm in agreement that the media and comment sections fan the flames.

But can you blame them in a sense?

We are into the second half of the consoles life cycle and non of the first party big guns apart from a minor couple have actually released a fresh game.

Demon Souls
Returnal
Rachet
Spiderman 2
Horizon dlc

I've probably forgotten a couple of just PS5 only games.

Then we have only had

God Of War Ragnarok ps4 and ps5
Horizon Forbidden West ps4 and ps5

Both games cross platform releases.

The rest of been remasters of games what didn't really need a remaster

The last of us part 1, the remaster yea its good but what a waste of resources being done by naughty dog themselves.

The last of us part 2, what the actual? They already did a patch for ps5, this did not need a re release or a tact on roguelike.

Then factions 2 cancelled what an absolute waste.

Bend no where to be scene but that's normal.

Sucker Punch, Ghost great game epic game, but we seen or heard nothing of whats next and the last game was a ps4 game.

Blue point? Released a launch game, haven't heard nothing since.

Firesprite??? Last game they made was back in 2018, its now half way through 2024.

What about fairgames? Cgi trailer last year and then nothing.

And probably loads I cant think of.

Yes games take longer to make and yes giving false hope to early and disappointing people.

But fans and myself want something to get hyped about.

2024 all we are getting is

a 5v5 hero shooter Concord which they spent alot of time on and didn't even explain why I should care or why its better than the rest.

Astro the shining star, im hyped for it but its still just 1 game in a year. Without knowing anything.

Until Dawn? Really? It doesn't look any different or better than the Original. May aswel just gave out a patch.

We know the games are coming but its like they've gone completely media blackout themselves than giving us small teases.

I think people are just getting a little frustrated with being half way through and we havent moved on from ps4 and we still waiting for the big hitters.

Sony's lack of 1st party output is truly pathetic and embarrassing. Sony fanboys truly have have no excuse to gloat and crap on Xbox, and Xbox are no heroes either, let's be clear about that.

I'm getting Silent Hill 2, and Astrobot truly looks wonderful, so maybe that as well. Otherwise, wow did Sony ever drop the ball... 🎮

Yeah it wasn't great but what were people expecting. It's a state of play first of all.
They said 14 games. We had rumours, Astro, Concord God of war PC. And 2 vr games.
That leaves 9 games to see. While Monster hunter, silent hill and path of exile are known quantities, they still look great.
We're never going to get Activision, Bethesda games to pad these things again when things are lean. No doom, fallout, CoD etc. The new normal is lean when 1st party are quiet.

@Danloaded

"silent hill is looking more and more like just another bloober game"

LOL. I'm so happy y'all are in a very small minority who think this. The majority of the fanbase absolutely loved it. At least there's always the OG version people can play.

@Bettyswollocks As June is now essentially the E3-but-not-E3-RIPE3-season, it's reasonable to assume that people had higher expectations for this particular SOP. Plus with the random Silent Hill event, The June Nintendo Direct upcoming, the June Xbox event, this is new game reveal season. Sony dropped the ball.

@Ravix Agreed, it makes me feel like we wont get any first party games until late 2026 or 2027. At that point, why should I care?

@ArashiKageTaro Agreed. Silent Hill 2 looks great. I'm honestly sick of "aww everything looks awful" online game culture. SH2 looks fine to me. I see no disrespect to the original game. The fog especially looks fantastic.

Yep, it blew. I went in with very low expectations and still came out disappointed. PlayStation fans are tired of being given little to no reason to be excited by first party for the past 3 or so years.

@KoopaTheGamer how about some first party games

@KoopaTheGamer people want an E3 show. That's why it's a letdown

Astro Bot was the only good looking game

@ArashiKageTaro yeah, this baffles me completely. Bloober get short shrift by purists and the game is judged before it even releases. Looks great IMO. purists annoy me. Someone said on here recently that they wouldn't accept a Castlevania SOTN remake unless it was made by wayforward....baffling mindset in my eyes. Wait and see if the game is good for god sakes, who gives a fudge who makes it. It's like people want Bloober to fail, and that's sad in my eyes.

I thought the state of play was ok, some interesting stuff there. Wasn't mind-blowing, but enjoyable enough. I would love to see more first-party stuff, of course. The lack of anything is just the problem with AAA development today. People blowing it out of proportion as usual.

Everyone has their tastes, but people who say that there was nothing good looking are either being disengenuous, or they have such a narrow taste in games i wonder if they should just take up another hobby.

Maybe they are waiting for the rumored September showcase / PS5 Pro reveal event to show the major upcoming 1st-party games? #hopium

@__Seraph Bloobers games have always felt like old school horror games but all in, good but including the bad bits awkward control schemes etc.

Ironically having a go at remaking an old school horror in that sense probably suits them. If they can recreate that old school horror atmosphere the game had the controls etc don't need to be perfect for that. So I am looking forward to this.

I think the vocal minority on social media does not represent the majority of the user base. That does not mean anyone’s voice is less important, it’s just the folks that only play FIFA and GTA probably aren’t being heard.

Big stuff that wow us takes longer to make, yesterday’s show was very good with Astro and MHW looking amazing to me. I think folks just want something new and exciting, and since Concord reminded them of other shooters it wasn’t enough new and exciting things. I believe this entire lineup was leaked on Era and Reddit…

Gameplay is king, if Sony makes good games, they will be just fine. Nobody batted an eye at Helldivers 2 either. I gauge the conferences on a hype scale and things that I actually want to play as something separate. We need GG, ND, GT7, Bend, SSM to show us PS5 only stuff to for the hype, they aren’t ready, so yeah, it’s kinda low key excitement. All there is to it.

@Omnistalgic the vocal minority are the only ones that watch state of play..

i swear i say this every event, but people let their own minds ruin it for themself. ghosts sequel was never going to show up and i kept seeing people upset about a game that was never going to show up when it didn't show up. i thought it was a good event some of the games i think i'll check out for sure. astro bot looked great , silent hill looks great to me, Where winds meet looked good , so did Ballad of antara.

Terrible State of Play.
Thankfully we get another gaming presentation this time around from Xbox in a few days.

I think it was OK, but was also expecting to hear more of what the 1st party studios are up to.

It was okay. I kept my expectations in check seeing as it was a State of Play and not a Showcase. Astro Bot was the clear heavy weight and I can't wait for that one. Concord looks fine, I'm just not the target audience for it (I wish it had a SP campaign). I'm just tired of Sony holding back. It's been 4 years for a number of Sony studios, how much longer are they going to keep Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Bluepoint, Bend (5 years) under wraps?

@Gamer_X It's going to truly wild when the Xbox showcase reveals more interest upcoming PS5 titles than this SOP.

Concord looks like the the 'mom can we get overwatch?' 'no, we have Overwatch at home' meme come to life. Over/under on it's lifespan is 9 months imo.

I thought it was Good. I'm excited for monster hunter.

Who is the one in charge of choosing which games to present? Whoever they are, fire them.

It was pretty crap. Can't even remember the game they force fed us for the first 10 minutes. Some 5x5 FPS. Yawn..

Astro bot obviously great, and one other.

A good measure of how good the presentation was, is to go to the lab store, and see how many games featured in the show you have added to your wishlist.

@nomither6 true…my point was a showcase being seen as “largely negative” is probably not indicative of any of the game’s success or failure. It’s mainly a hype gauge from the vocal minority.

I really enjoyed it. The reason why? I'm not a tool. When the state of play was announced I didn't expect a dozen AAA exclusives and if we didn't get that I'd mess my pants and immediately go on line and trash everything Sony.
I watched with no thoughts as to what might be and just enjoyed what was shown. We all know there's other stuff to come and will be revealed at other times .
It's just the ludicrous 'we demand 27 AAA games' crowd that are just embarrassing

I really don’t understand why people keep calling it a showcase when it was just a state of Play. everyone needs to relax. There is more to be shown at summer gamefest. More PlayStation studio games will be announced. And by the way, I thought the state of play was pretty decent. I was hoping for more from Concord other than a hero shooter, but we will see how it turns out when he gets here. I’m confident in the dev team they have. Just wait before you cast an opinion on it.
Other than that, I was glad to see Dynasty Warriors origins and more VR games that were very much needed.

It was a decent amount of content that was probably shown more of obligation to their audience, but they have a bigger show coming next week or so at the Summer Gamefest.

Astrobot just looked like another playstation advertisement packaged in a level based platformer. May be fun but it's still just a gimmicky simple platformer. Missing genuine story in favor of cheering on Playstation, looking at you dual sense ship. Like wtf is that nonsense. Give me Jak and Daxter or sly.

Ok rant aside, Yah not much. Where are the big studios Sony. Hell just an announcement of what is to come, a friggin title screen of something big would have sent the ponies into fervor.

This was just a bland and tone deaf misstep..... Again.

Clearly they are just waiting to try and peddle justification for the pro to come.

The problem is the complete lack of care in paying mind to fan service. They have grown so silent and sterile, completely ignoring the discourse and eroding perception they are accumulating when just a few bones thrown, tidbits of hype and teasers here and there would go so far in repairing it.

It really feels like Sony has completely forgotten what and who catapulted them to the top.

@Omnistalgic true

@KundaliniRising333 I will not tolerate any Astro Bot slander

@UltimateOtaku91 why wouldn't it be compared to competitors shows? You'll literally be the one comparing it if push square decides to write an article on it.

Didn't watch it, don't watch these kinds of things but i know it sucks because the only thing coming to pc is old man game with one death animation when they could have ported killzone 1-3 , uncharted trilogy and infamous series games which built the playstation brand not these corny marvel games and god of war which turns kratos into a 🌽🏀

@Deityjester Because ones a 30 minute state of play and ones a 90 minute proper showcase, both providing different experiences and I'm pretty sure you can fit way more games into 90 minutes than 30.

Was it the greatest SoP no, the worst absolutely not?

Concord & Astrobot are 2 PS studios titles coming soon. Both very diverse for the roster of PS and a Until Dawn remake.
Monster Hunter Wilds & Dynasty Warriors + 2 good PS VR2 titles.

And they showed Silent Hill 2 + the transmission which was a massive step up from it's last showing.

Idk people seem to hate just cause they didn't get what they imagined in their heads.

It was okay not the worst it’s been but not the best. I feel like this gen we’re seeing a lot of game devs developing the same type of games that have been a hit. For example ghost of Tsushima and lately it’s a lot of ancient Japan/china games. A lot of soulsborne games (don’t get me wrong they are good) but it leaves it oversaturated where it can become the same kinda mechanics, gameplay. Also we had that year when we had loads of space games and farming sims after animal crossing, Same with the gachas and pvp multiplayer! I wish devs would bring more original unique experiences. PlayStation is making the money but I think the value in the brand has gone down compared to what it was 2013-2018 or whatever years when it was banging. Maybe our expectations are too high but it seems like it’s an easy fix but dev time does take a while. Be interesting to see how the 2nd half of the console life span will go.

@UltimateOtaku91 Well yeah Xbox is not really selling anything right now 😅 we were really talking about optics and which one people will say had the best showcase. In the end it won't make a difference if Xbox has the best showcase in the world, still some of us would like to see more effort from Sony like they still have stiff competition.

@CrackmanNL I had no expectations and few hopes for it. I didn't think it was remarkable either way.

@Leonhart He's right Astro Bot is just Sony tugging itself off, the trailer was so cringe.

I expected an off year, seems like an off year. I'm good with that. I still need to catch up on 2023.

@Bez87 Yes! Exactly this, spot on. This is actually undisputable.

Didn't see, so cannot judge.
But it looks like I was right in some way - Sony, after GaaS strategy has imploded, have almost nothing in cooking pot.

Anyway I don't understand that mania around Astrobot. Mine experience was I tried to play it on PS4, but in a few seconds it forces me to connect PS camera which I don't own so I was stuck and really don't want to buy camera just because one game.

I don't subscribe to these kind of events...absolute smoke blowing. But from the list of what apparently was shown. Absolute gash.

I hope Herman can get that Sony magic back from the ps3/4 generations.

@KundaliniRising333 dude all of your favorite studios are working hard trying to wow you again lol. Sony hasn’t forgotten anything they are very much aware how GoT TLOU Horizon GoW and Uncharted sold. It takes longer to make games like that, especially ones that look as good as Death Stranding. That’s also part of the distinction of State of Play and showcase. The big AAA are not ready and announcing something a day before it begins should set some expectations that ND and SSM and Imsomiac aren’t going to be there at the same time.

It wasn't THAT bad. The problem was it started off with Concorde, which received quite the mixed response to put it lightly.

It wasn't good either. It was saved from being a disaster by Silent Hill 2's released date announcement, Monster Hunter Wilds gameplay reveal and Astrobot's great closing.

Ballad of Antara and Where the Winds Meet looked pretty good, and like games I'd get not day one but eventually.

Dynasty Warriors Origins was a pleasant surprise and I would've preferred Alien: Rogue Incursion to be regular game, maybe I'll try it out if I ever get a psvr2 (that still needs Half-Life: Alyx, Sony AND Valve)

Astro Bot saved it for me

I’ve said this before, but since Sony isn’t delivering the goods, I’m maintaining hype right now through the third party stuff. Heck, even Xbox has me more excited of some future games to be coming to my PS5. If they port Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones this year then I’ll be weirdly more excited about what Microsoft is doing on my console than what Sony is doing. That’s a problem.

I am a playstation fan and I can say that playstation it's been out of touch with fans for more than a year now, hopefully they will get it before is too late

promising Dynasty Warriors return after the lackluster 9
the charming AF Nikki game
Alien in VR which is what many wanted since Isolation
Ballad and Winds Meet, great looking action games
Astro Bot, star of the show
and the soon to be 10 million seller MH Wilds

"yeah but it didn't have Bloodborne remaster so 2/10"

I'm not saying it was a blockbuster showing but is it bad because of what was there or because what you wanted but wasn't there?

If the new Astro Bot was the most voted game by far even without support for VR2, something went wrong there.

It's all just generic sludge nowadays made to keep you engage and spending money on micro transactions remember when Sony made games that were different like the Puppeteer tearaway and modern nation races creativity in the industry is dying

State of Plays happen often enough that if the game isn't coming out in the next 3 to 4 months there is zero reason to be talking about it.

@KoopaTheGamer Parrappa the Rapper: MC on the Mic (feat. AI Tupac). That's all I wanted, bro.

@Deityjester damn that was truth bomb of a comment . i agree 🔥🔥