Special Feature: Sony’s PlayStation 5 Event Was the Best They Could Provide

Expectations were through the roof for Sony’s PlayStation 5: The Future of Gaming digital event, to no surprise. Microsoft has been detailing the Xbox Series X since The Game Awards last year, immediately revealing the look at its PC tower-style system and software. Sony, comparatively, maintained secrecy for most features and software titles until this event. Considering how select communities on social media and the internet’s remaining message boards get, and how Sony was hyping this up to the point of airing ads on TV, feelings of disappointment were inevitable.

A solid slate of titles were revealed over the course of about an hour and 15 minutes. Several were exclusive titles being developed by PlayStation Studios, to be published by Sony. Key among them was Horizon Forbidden West, a sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn that very much resembles a follow-up. The environments will be new thanks to the adventure moving to the western segment of the post-apocalyptic United States (the original took place largely between Colorado and Utah), but the robots and even Aloy’s outfit look identical.

Another big announcement was for the Demon’s Souls remake, where Bluepoint Games and Sony’s Japan Studio are giving the mid-budget PS3 title a new facelift. It helps that the Souls series is considerably more popular now compared to when the original launched in 2009. Remarkable when you remember that Sony passed on localizing the original game outside Japan.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was another key announcement. It’s a smaller standalone title compared to the 2018 Marvel’s Spider-Man game starring Peter Parker, more akin to Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. But it’s giving a lot of fans what they want in having a Miles Morales-led game. Even better, there’s a high chance it will be a launch title with its intended fall 2020 release timeframe. Insomniac is also working on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the first brand-new title in the series since 2013’s Into the Nexus on PS3. (The only PS4 Ratchet & Clank title was a reimagining of the first game.) The purchase of Insomniac is already paying off for Sony.

The surprise of Gran Turismo 7’s announcement was dulled by the totally-accurate leak from a few weeks ago, but it looks as stunning as expected in motion. Housemarque is also getting ambitious with Returnal. Not the best name, but the concept of exploring and fighting against a hostile planet with randomly-generated events and designs sounds good — truly No Woman’s Sky. Sony didn’t forget smaller games, like Destruction All Stars, Astro’s Playroom (preloaded on the system — a tidbit not mentioned during the show), and LittleBigPlanet spinoff Sackboy: A Big Adventure.

Third-party titles were also highlighted. Square Enix’s Luminous Studios, the team behind Final Fantasy XV, is working on Project Athia. Given the short look, tentative name, and company behind it, this could take years to release. Capcom’s Pragmata will also take a while, specifically until 2022, for which no details were provided. Other games shown were Bethesda’s Ghostwire: Tokyo (still in development despite director Ikumi Nakamura leaving Tango Gameworks) and Arkane’s Deadloop, both of which are now temporary console-exclusives. Resident Evil Village (the “Vill” also works as an “VIII,” notably) was revealed, with all the rumors being true outside it being a cross-generation game.

Sony didn’t forget smaller indie games here, unlike their conferences in recent years, with announcements for titles like Solar Ash (from Hyper Light Drifter’s developer), Oddworld: Soulstorm, Goodbye Volcano High, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Stray, and Little Devil Inside (crowdfunded over five years ago). They also show how indie games have advanced graphically.

It’s tough to doubt that Sony showed an impressive slate of software here, yet several people did. That’s not surprising. There’s a big and vocal audience that watches these events to see one big-budget AAA title after another, but they showed as many as could be expected for the lead-up to the launch of a brand-new console, one that will further balloon already-bulbous budgets and required development resources. The presentation was better than the first Inside Xbox show that showcased third-party titles for Series X last month, one that Microsoft was so thoroughly eviscerated over that the company’s Aaron Greenberg had to apologize for it. But that alone was ridiculous considering the Xbox team previously announced this would only be the first next-gen-focused Inside Xbox show of several. Sony’s show was even better than that.

The vocal-though-likely-small group of people who weren’t impressed with the visuals in the third-party games shown and some exclusives means that Unreal Engine 5 demo inflated some expectations. The demo was a reflection of how games could look in the middle of the next console generation, but it represents visual fidelity that few, if any, early software releases will achieve. Square Enix’s Project Athia is the closest to that, an evidently early project given its name and how little was shown.

Rumors about games that didn’t show at the event didn’t help with expectations either. The Silent Hill reboot from Sony’s internal Japan Studio was the biggest one, which already sounded too good to be true. There’s still a chance it’s being saved for a future event, but you can’t blame anyone for being skeptical with expecting something great to happen with a Konami franchise. They’re not known for licensing out their properties.

This event was the best that Sony could do at the moment, a presentation further complicated by the need to create it during a pandemic. It ended with the reveal of the actual console’s design, which either looks like The Future™, too reminiscent of an internet router or Alienware PC, or like the model house of a tech bro with too much money to spend.  In a small twist: A version without a disc drive will also be released for all-digital purchases, which will likely be a little cheaper. We’ll have to wait for a price and release date, but you should prepare yourself for an expensive system given the tech it will utilize.

If you want to watch the event, you can do so here.