Cognition Dissemination: The PlayStation Showcase 2021 Revealed Sony’s Priorities

Sony Interactive Entertainment was bound to use their PlayStation Showcase 2021 stream to show off their biggest upcoming games and make at least a couple of similarly big announcements, and they did. This was notably a “Showcase” instead of the usual “State of Play,” which informed fans that this would be a stream worth tuning in for — not that the latter style of showcases aren’t occasionally worth watching. Nearly every previously-announced PlayStation-exclusive title made an appearance, while big ones were shown in action for either the first time or after a long respite. It was their equivalent to the E3 2021 presentation they didn’t have.

Moreover, this was an opportunity to determine SIE’s strategy for the PlayStation 5’s immediate future through the kinds of games they’d show. They couldn’t have made their focus clearer, even if the overall stream was devoid of many surprises. Those rumors about the company being laser focused on big-budget AAA games were proven true.

Following the… interesting intro, the reveal that a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is indeed in development from Aspyr Media set the tone for the presentation’s remaining time. The remake is being published by SIE as a timed console-exclusive title. Comparatively smaller titles like Project Eve, Bloodhunt, and Tchia were shown, but it spoke to how blockbuster-focused this stream was that those came even close to qualifying as “small.”

Also revealing was how nearly every title featured is at least a timed-exclusive title for a Sony console, if not an outright exclusive, outside a few exceptions like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and Alan Wake Remastered. Deathloop has made an appearance at every Sony presentation that’s featured multiple games since its announcement, and they couldn’t break the streak here despite it releasing on September 14th. Ghostwire: Tokyo looked more polished compared to previous appearances. Both will be the last Bethesda titles to release on a Sony system in the near future given who owns the company now.

Significant portions of the presentation were reserved for PlayStation-exclusive games like Gran Turismo 7 and God of War: Ragnarok. For the former, it was the first extended presentation in a while, for a franchise that hasn’t seen a new numbered installment since the PlayStation 3 days. It will come more than eight years after Gran Turismo 6 when it releases on March 4th, 2022, barring any delays. Ragnarok finally received the subtitle it was rumored to have for months, with the presentation and subsequent interviews confirming how it will be the final Norse mythology game. There’s no way they’re ending the franchise here, but I’m surprised they’re leaving the current setting after the Greek mythology one received three times as many titles. Granted, those games were much shorter than the new titles.

Forspoken is another notable console-exclusive game, and a remarkable project on Square Enix’s part. It’s developed by Luminous Studio, the Japanese team that worked on Final Fantasy XV, but features western talent in many of its biggest production roles. It’s being written by Amy Hennig (of the Uncharted and Legacy of Kain series) and Gary Whitta (of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), with a soundtrack from Bear McCreary and Garry Schyman. It’s also remarkably avoiding the production cycle of the team’s previous game by actually having a spring 2022 release timeframe.

Nothing says “we’re focused on blockbusters” like having three Marvel adaptations shown in a presentation. The story trailer for Eidos Montreal’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy game was shown, sure, but the real focus was on Insomniac Games’ titles, one that might become the official Marvel Gaming Universe development studio following the release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is in the works, to little surprise, with a trailer that showed how Venom and likely Kraven will be the villains focused on in the next title. The game isn’t due until 2023, making this one of Sony’s classic early-bird announcements, but there’s nothing surprising about that given how Insomniac released both Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the aforementioned Rift Apart in the last year.

The real surprise announcement was that Insomiac is also working on Marvel’s Wolverine. The teaser didn’t show any gameplay, but provided hints about what the game could be. In addition to taking place in the same universe as the Spider-Man games, the Ontario tags on the car suggest this game will take place in Canada, a country that’s a second home to Logan. They also hint that the Incredible Hulk could be involved. It hopefully won’t take long before Insomniac shows it again, but if Spider-Man 2 isn’t due until 2023 despite having a bigger showcase here, this might be even further off.

There wasn’t an indie game to be seen in this presentation, outside perhaps Tchia. Big games will be the focus for SIE from here. For as good as indies can be, often better than their big-budget counterparts in terms of what matters for games, this plan will work out for Sony and their fanbase in the short term. The audience that wants more AAA games and less indies is significant, and the company knows which kinds of games people buy consoles for. The same can apply to Japanese games, where the only ones that appeared were Ghostwire: Tokyo, Gran Turismo 7, and Forspoken.

Smaller games will still be showcased at future State of Play presentations, but it speaks volumes that they were left out of their biggest presentation. Microsoft and Nintendo would never do this in their current states, both of which showed a slew of indies during their last big presentations. This is a fine bet on Sony’s part to make for the short term, but they’d better hope there isn’t a long-term issue that involves reaching a point in time where big-budget games are too expensive to be released by the bulk. If that happens, they can’t say they weren’t warned.

For anyone who likes big-budget games: They have a lot of good games coming. But they’ll take time to release thanks to the resource requirements for developing multimillion-dollar games, and the pandemic hasn’t helped the production workflow. Maybe — maybe — it will get easier to find a PS5 by the time most of them release.