E3 2018 PlayStation Showcase: A Deep Dive into Uncharted Territory

From the moment the first details were confirmed, it was clear Sony’s E3 conference this year would have an unorthodox feel. Instead of promising a steady stream of announcements like in previous years, they confirmed it would feature deep dives into four games: The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. They didn’t say it wouldn’t have other announcements, nor say it would be a series of roundtables like their PlayStation Experience Opening Celebration last year. But it was going to be different from what watchers were used to.

Oh boy, was it different. The event started in a church setting, in one of the most bizarre venues ever used for an E3 conference. This led to a performance from Gustavo Santaolalla on the banjo, lead composer for both The Last of Us installments, and used it to play a theme from them. This introduced the deep dive for The Last of Us Part II, which started with Ellie at a party. After she kisses another woman named Dina, the scene transitions to one where she’s surviving in a dilapidated urban environment, marking the first gameplay showcase for the title. Interestingly, Ellie was by herself, with plenty of humans who wanted her dead.

The game looks similar to the first one, though the survival, stealth, and melee features have received modifications to make them more seamless. The game itself also looks gorgeous, with visuals clearly PS4 Pro-enhanced, which makes the newer system hard to resist for anyone trying to stick with the original. It was a good presentation, though I’m not sure it was worth it for the attendees to be stuffed inside that church. The game will release on… oh, they didn’t even give a timeframe. That’s too bad.

This was followed by an intermission, where Sony moved everyone into the main room. During this, an interview was conducted with PlayStation America head Shawn Layden, something odd to have in the middle of a conference. Subsequently, maps were shown for Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, where it was also confirmed that Back in Black maps for Black Ops III will be given to anyone who preorders the fourth game from PlayStation Network. Black Ops III is also now on PlayStation Plus.

Heck, they had so much time moving everyone to the other venue that they also went over the announcements made over the days before the conference. This included Tetris Effect (from the Lumines team, including Tetsuya Mizuguchi), the February 22nd release date for Days Gone, adventure game Twin Mirror from Life is Strange developer Dontnod Entertainment, action-adventure game Ghost Giant for PlayStation VR, and rhythm game Beat Saber for PSVR. Also, there was a story trailer for the Destiny 2: Forsaken expansion, which showed the potential murder of a fan-favorite (?) character. Lastly, a New Game Plus mode was confirmed for the recently released God of War.

After everyone was seated, the audience was treated to a performance from a Japanese bamboo flutist. This led into the Ghost of Tsushima deep dive, marking the first gameplay showcase for the title. This will be an open world samurai game that takes place in late 13th century Japan during the Mongol invasion, and the location’s shown thus far are lovingly-crafted visual spectacles. The demo showed protagonist Jin journeying around ancient Japan, and he subsequently meets up with Masako. The gameplay segments showed the combat features the game will have, and early story developments. This followed in TLOUII’s footsteps in how Sony didn’t mention a thing about a release timeframe.

In case anyone was concerned, this conference did have normal video game reveals after all, though the number was considerably lower than the the Xbox conference’s 50. Control was revealed, a third-person action title developed by Remedy Entertainment, who previously worked on the Alan Wake games and Quantum Break. It will star Jesse Fadens, a woman with supernatural abilities searching for answers within the game’s world. It will release for Xbox One and PC in addition to PS4 sometime next year, published by 505 Games.

It was bound to show up sometime after being announced nearly three years ago, but the remake of Resident Evil 2 finally surfaced here. The trailer showed familiar scenes and characters, including main characters Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, both of which have new voice actors. Sherry Birkin and Ada Wong were also briefly shown, the latter only from behind. The remake will have an over-the-shoulder perspective now, instead of an isometric one like the original PSOne title, which could ruffle some feathers. You can see more of this through the alternate trailer released after the conference. The game will release for PS4, XB1, and PC on January 25th, meaning it will miss the 20th anniversary year by a month.

Trover Saves the Universe was also revealed (not “Trevor,” which it’s been mistyped as several times), a platforming adventure from Rick & Morty co-creator and voice actor Justin Roiland, who’s also lending his voice talents to this. It looks like a wacky time, and you can bet that a sizable audience will go wacky for it given who’s involved. The game will come to PS4 and PSVR at some unspecified time in the future. This conference sure was light on release dates, huh?

Kingdom Hearts III is appearing at every conference, and the PlayStation one was no exception. This trailer confirmed how the Pirates of the Caribbean world will return, and the character models in this world will be far more realistic this time. The new trailer also showed Kairi, and Riku sitting with his old shadow self from the first game. This installment will absolutely have several twists that will make little sense, even to those who’ve played all the games. KHIII will receive a special PlayStation 4 Pro, and for anyone who wants to catch up, there will be a separate package that includes all the Kingdom Hearts games in one bundle. As mentioned earlier, the game will arrive on January 29th.

The third deep dive for the conference was for Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding, whose gameplay was also revealed for the first time. It will star Sam (Norman Reedus’ character), a working man described as being on par with a blue-collar worker who, uh, travels the world to deliver babies presumably. The details are still vague, but the video showed how it will be graphically impressive while telling its bizarre tale (in a good way). It was also confirmed that actresses Léa Seydoux (of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) and Lindsay Wagner (of The Bionic Woman) will be part of the game. Of course, no release date or timeframe was provided.

The final reveal for the show was a surprise, mainly for how soon it’s coming after the first game: Nioh 2. This was a samurai game from Koei Tecmo that featured gameplay akin to FromSoftware’s Souls titles and Bloodborne, and is the company’s best-selling game in their merged form. Unfortunately, no details were provided, and neither was a release date. Fun trend.

The final demo was the deep dive for Marvel’s Spider-Man, which showed off several previously-revealed gameplay aspects in further detail, and revealed more villains. It mainly occurred within a maximum-security setting, where Spider-Man dealt with an inmate uprising. In addition to fighting several inmates at a time inside, he also fought big-time villains Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture, and Electro in a nigh-simultaneous manner, ostensibly insurmountable odds. He then escapes the facility, and is greeted with all four of them on the roof. Despite putting up a good fight, they get the better of him, though the demo cuts away before the true villain responsible for the fiasco is revealed. This game will arrive on September 7th, but look forward to more gameplay demonstrations since it’s playable at the show.

The early aspect of Sony’s conference this year was certainly some kind of experiment, but having a commercial break-like gap during it destroyed the pacing, even if the overall event wasn’t too long. The rest involved trailers and gameplay demos being played without much talking, similar to last year’s conference, where it could have been given a Nintendo Direct-like presentation without losing too much of the spectacle. It’s nice that they tried something different, but it would probably be best for them stick to what they know, like Microsoft this year. This wasn’t one of Sony’s best conferences, but the games they showed thankfully prevented it from being among their worst.

If you want to watch the conference, feel free to do so here. Separate trailers are also available on the PlayStation YouTube account, and blog posts with more info are on the PlayStation Blog.