Whether you thought he was a wrapper for a briefing or a little disappointing, PlayStation Showcase 2021 he was unquestionably reserved. Aside from two new Insomniac Games projects, the Japanese giant focused mainly on the first-party title updates that were announced last year, such as God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7. Although it went be exciting to see these versions, there is still it gets very wrapped up.
For example, we were expecting an announcement from the new Firesprite studio, especially if you consider the timing of Sony’s acquisition announcement, just 24 hours before the event. From interviews with PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst, we know the UK-based team is working on several games, but it looks like they’re not quite ready for the first hour yet. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for our first vision.
Perhaps the biggest absentee by far was Naughty Dog. While the award-winning studio announced the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection for PlayStation 5 and PC, it’s starting to feel independent, the multiplayer game The Last of Us is within walking distance. Earlier this year, we would have put money into the California studio that would publish it in 2021, but from the job listings we get the impression that it’s not even close.
There are new games in development on many Sony computers, such as Bend Studio and London Studio, but frankly, we didn’t expect them to appear. The same goes for the partnerships PlayStation has announced with people like Jade Raymond’s Haven – it’s too early for those. Horizon Forbidden West has received its recent Game state, so it will always surprise us if this appeared as well.
On the third-party front, Warner Bros. continues to keep Hogwarts Legacy in its Nimbus broom closet, following its revealing trailer from last year and subsequent delay. There was no trace of the Grand Theft Auto remasterings rumored to be working on Rockstar, though presumably the developer wanted to focus on its GTA 5 remastering for now. Also, surprisingly, there was no Call of Duty trailer – we waited because of Sony’s marketing alliance with Activision.
There was also no update of the services: the owner of the platform did not even mention it PS More or PS Now once. Viouslybviamente, these subscriptions continue very well, but there is an emerging challenge from Microsoft with Game Pass that the manufacturer seems reluctant to address. Given that there have been rumors that Sony is cooking up a competitor, it will be interesting to see when it really is ready to talk about what this entails.
All in all, we feel like we’re coming out of this presentation with as many questions as we’ve done, as we’ve already written, in a controversial way. Of course, it’s not too surprising: Sony seems to prefer to announce games much later in its cycle these days, even though both Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Marvel’s Wolverine overcame that trend. We assume that these collaborations are too large to be kept secret; although the rest is under lock and key.