PlayStation State of Play

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The 24th of September 2019 puts us in line for another one of PlayStation’s State of Play presentations where they show us a bunch of stuff they’re bringing to the table in the near future. They’re first up on a doubleheader this evening with Inside Xbox up to the plate a little later on.

Here are some notes and a few thoughts on what PlayStation is bringing to the table.

Humanity opens today’s state of play. It looks like a minimalistic Lemmings. I’m not sure what to make of this, but the music is nice.

Infinity ward follows up with what appears to be a story trailer for the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Considering this is one of the big lynchpins for me and many casual if lapsed CoD fans it looks pretty fantastic. Very dramatic stuff that feels like the fantastic graphical capacity of these games, along with some impressive performance capture, could make this Modern Warfare reboot a title on my must-buy list. A survival mode for the game will also be available first on PS4.

And an adorable and appropriately weird new title that looks and feels very Katamir-Esqueis another minimalistic Indie title with some nice music. It’s wholesome and cute. It’s called Wattam. If it’s on Nintendo Switch, then I’ll go for it.

Techland shows off a gorgeous-looking adventure type game that starts with our character being cremated by his tribe. He wakes up seemingly in the afterlife travelling through all kinds of landscapes, forests climbing cliff sides and other such adventures. Arise – A Simple Storylooks gorgeous and gives me major Journey vibes.

A potentially significant title for PlayStation VR is brought to the table in the form of LA Noire – The VR Case Files and is available today! The interview segments could be a great experience in Virtual Reality but it feels like Rockstar are pushing the envelope on how much they can get out of this now almost eight-year-old game. This is followed up by a montage of a whole bunch of VR games. PlayStation doesn’t seem to have given up on VR, and while I couldn’t name them all for you, there was some stuff in here that looked pretty cool. If you don’t own a PSVR, then it doesn’t feel like there’s anything here to convince you to buy one, but if you’re already invested then you should check some of these out,

A Medieval update kicks off by announcing a demo available now in the PlayStation store. This is a title that keeps looking better and better, but it’s much of what we’ve already seen. Just gimme already.

Civ VI is coming to PS4. An odd one. I would have assumed that Civilisation had made some kind of debut on PlayStation before but apparently not according to the voiceover lady.

Death Stranding is getting a limited edition transparent BB yellow controller and a white limited edition console with one of those inky handprints on it that we saw in the trailer. The controller looks cool, but odd next to the console and any white console…tends to be a bit too much of a dust magnet for me. I’ll be putting down everything for this game but the console, not so much.

The team behind Oxenfree show off a cool super stylised platform with bits of rhythm gameplay on a dance floor, drinking and devilish stuff. After Party looks like a lot of fun to me, and I’ve seen it make waves across social media. It is, however, another cool Indie game that makes think ‘hey! I hope this comes out on Switch!’

October on PlayStation Plus will give us MLB The Show 19 and The Last of Us Remastered. Coincidence? I think not.

Right on cue, we moved into a stunning trailer for The Last of Us Part II. It’s beautiful, it’s thrilling, it’s emotional, and I want to cry. We got a release date!

21.02.20.

I’ll break down the trailer a little below.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Ellie and her girlfriend (maybe) discuss a kiss before we’re pulled out of their home in a small town with other survivors and out into the snowy wilds on horseback. They venture around in snowstorms until they’re separated and as Ellie finds a house in the forest she ventures in, before being restrained. She is thrown hard to the grown, bleeding from the nose and mouth before we hear a gunshot. Ellie discusses her next moves with Tommy, Joel’s brother from the first game before we see her venturing into some very familiar territory while a voiceover from Tommy stresses that she doesn’t understand how big and dangerous this group is. Ellie sneaks around, and we see some incredible and haunting gameplay, including the horrifying sound of a clicker. We see her hiding, avoiding some people in the city before someone grabs her and covers her mouth. Initially, she panics before she registers her situation and relaxes. The man’s grip loosens, and she pulls away before asking what he’s doing here. The man is Joel, who’s back and asks Ellie if she thought he would let her do this alone.

The Last of Us Part II will release on February the 21st 2019.