Paris Games Week Recap
Paris Games week has begun and PlayStation dumps a load of info and content for us to breakdown and hype up. So lets not dilly dally and get right to it.
Destiny 2: The Curse of Osiris DLC
The Grind never stops
To those that were around since Vanilla Destiny we know the legend of the warlock Osiris and the previous name of the Trials of the Nine was “Trials of Osiris”. We finally get to go to Mercury for real and not just a glorified social space and fight the Vex who has completely terra-formed the planet and has been rumored where Osiris has been since being exiled from the Vanguard.
The trailer sets up what we’re up for in the new DLC: Ikora tells us the Vex has opened a gate that will transport past and future Vex types into our reality and we must go assist the predecessor to the Warlock Vanguard on Mercury to push back the threat. We get our first look at expansive Mercury, some old and new enemy types, weapons, armor and Osiris and what he actually looks like and his badass Ghost. Conjecture in the Destiny lore community is that this is a Osiris’ point of view of his fireteam’s fateful raid expedition in the Vault of Glass. Other guardians are in the background but they are frozen in time. Of course with new DLC comes new loot, which seems to be access to some of Destiny 1’s old exotics like the console exclusive Jade Rabbit and a new Trace Fusion Rifle. All of the community’s pining for new content will be satisfied on December 5th.
HZD: Frozen Wilds DLC
More Aloy!!
We got what we can assume to be the final trailer for the Frozen Wilds DLC that will be released on November 15th. Set in the region inhabited by the Banuk tribe (who’s story we didn’t get to see much of in the base game) Aloy is seen with new gear and fighting at least one new machine type and alterations of machines we’ve seen before. The Rockbreaker machine (some say a slight name change to Icebreaker, given the region) is back being as menacing as ever, but also colored differently. In the base game, the wires into the head were colored Green or Red to symbolize corruption. The Icebreaker, and we see later a Snapmaw also has these purple wires so what is this new force that possesses these machines? We also see what seems to be a machine based around a coyote or some sort of wild dog that does fire damage. The setting seems to play a big part in combat and travel as thick snow bogs down movement. Its also looks like in the area we fight the Snapmaw is a frozen lake and Aloy can slide across the ice. Conjecture since the debut of the first Frozen Wilds DLC back at E3 2017 says its staying in the mountain region of North America (base game was in what we know as Colorado, and Utah) and the mountain referred to in that trailer is in what we know as Yellowstone National Park and/or Wyoming. Only a few more days until we can see what new mysteries we solve and what questions will remain unanswered as this will be the only DLC for Horizon Zero Dawn.
Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ignis DLC
Back to Eos
We get a whole campaign just with Noctis’ strategist and resident chef as we take control of Ignis. Given the setting, I believe this right around (SPOILERS!) after Noctis’ fight with the Leviathan in Altissia and Ignis was separated from the rest of the group as we do not see Gladiolus and Prompto in the trailer but we do see Lunafreya and Noctis unconscious after the fight and Atlissia in ruins and what led to Ignis (MORE SPOILERS!) going blind. It seems like a short DLC but the battle sequences and dialogue is sure to leave none unfulfilled. It will release December 13th 2017.
Spiderman
We got to see more from this title that seems like it has been in development for years. We see an older Peter Parker dealing with the ills of adulthood. Being a superhero doesn’t pay rent. Your hiding your identity, can’t really cash in reward checks. They’ve also shown us the scale of the world they’re setting up, with only Peter, Aunt May, and Mary Jane, but Mister Negative, Miles Morales, Wilson Fisk aka King Pin and one scene where The Shocker punches Spidey through a safe. Peter is in the area to see an Osborn campaign rally and we get a glimpse as to how they choose to portray his Spidey Senses as Mister Negative starts his attack. It’s noted that his trailer is more pre-rendered game footage that actual gameplay opposite to what we saw at E3. We see a fight between Spidey and Mister Negative in multiple locations, Mary Jane being a witness to a bank robbery and it seems like the player camera pans to 3rd person behind Mary Jane so it seems that we may be playing the game as her in some parts.. Will all of these characters play a part of the same plot? Was Wilson Fisk right when he was claiming he was keeping order in the city? We’ll fin dout eventually. The game is expected some time in 2018.
The Last Of Us: Part II
These twisted people, this bloody world.
The trailer opens with a woman being dragged by two men. We all assume its grown up Ellie, but she looks so different that I questioned if it was. With the tone of voice and grunts, I thought it was Ellie but an accompanying Interview reveals they’re expounding the story to adjacent characters in the universe. So now we start asking questions: Who are these people? Why did they capture her, are they just cultists of is there an ulterior motive? Why are they hanging people? Is this some sort of torture or sacrifice? This unknown woman is the first to talk and has typical dark cultist dialogue. Then we see these unknown thugs capture another girl named Yara. After spitting in the leader’s face, they hold her down and begin beating the crap out her left arm with a hammer. Before they can get to her right arm arrow pierces the face of one thug. The distraction allows Yara to grab the hammer and use the nail-puller side to impale the other. The chaos forces the leader to use her gun and blindly fire her gun into the darkness where the arrows came from. The unknown woman, who is still on a noose, manages to use her legs to subdue the leader and Yara finishes her off with the nail puller to the head. We see the person who was firing the arrows, named Lev, come out of the darkness and initially ignores the woman who is now hanging unassisted and goes to Yara. She tells him to cut the unknown woman down, he protests saying “She’s one of them” then does it anyways. She has no time to really say much when she gets cut free and picks up the hammer before a Clicker and other infected run at the trio. Suspense!
First off, the full display of the detail of 4K is shown off in the gore of the game. Part 1 was gory but they really went to work on that for this title. The gore plus sound design makes the scene where Yara has her arm shattered unsettling. What is this cult that captured this woman? And who are they in reference to Yara because the leader was the one that names her in the trailer? What is this ‘Sin” that she spoke of when she had the knife to the unknown woman’s stomach ready to gut her like the other victims whose bodies are hanging on display in the same area? What is an Apostate in the Last of Us universe? What are ‘The Demons’? Another enemy type? A different type of Infected? What they call the Infected now? We got no release date for this trailer so we have to wait until at least E3 2018 or Germany Gamescon for more information.
God of War 4
Father/Son Bonding
The latest entry in this series sees Kratos with his son in a short gameplay trailer. What is interesting to note is game isn’t a glorified escort mission as his son engages in combat and assists with some impressive combos. The mechanics still harken back to the quick-time event of the past and seems smooth by what the trailer shows. The tandem quickly disposes of the enemies and we get the title screen with more dialogue and a mysterious figure singing in the background and leads into a cheap jump scare that no one should fall for. Seeing that this title should be based around Morse mythology, I await knowing what that actually was and what adventures the duo will be on, given a release date of Early 2018.
New Suckerpunch IP: Ghosts of Tsushima
From the studio that gave us the Infamous series, Ghosts of Tsushima is a game set in feudal Japan. According to the developers in an accompanying interview, it is an open world game on the island of Tsushima during the Mongolian invasion of 1274. The dialogue is of a person talking to a samurai and speaking of the alternate ways to win a war by learning about the people they wish to subjugate. The person talking to the samurai asks him “ Do you surrender?” We see the samurai he is talking to with fire in the background, then being consumed by it and smoke then reappearing from the smoke with a different background and a demeanor of “you don’t want to mess with me.” We see a few cuts of combat but no gameplay. There is also no release date. Since this is a world premiere of the title, figured we wont hear from this again until E3 2018 with a release in late 2018-early 2019 at the earliest.
Detroit: Become Human
If I had to pick a favorite trailer out of Sony’s day this is it.
We get another new trailer that more mirrors the first ever trailer that was debuted at E3 2016. We see the android name Kara brought home to a lower class area of Detroit, staunchly different from the other trailers. From the very beginning, you can tell the father is a sketchy character. There is more focus on the ring on the side of Kara’s head as it flickers and turns different colors. The premise of the game is how you interact with the world as the android in a nonlinear narrative; how you learn, how you address different situations. We find out multiple things as the trailer goes on: Todd, the father, broke Kara before and had to get her “reprogrammed” so maybe the changing ring color is actually more of a glitch? The father is abusive so as Kara the player will need to either remain obedient or become deviant which branches out into different end scenarios. We see in the trailer the end result of each major decision and gives you how the player may have gotten to each point. This is one of the more unique structures of games currently and I can’t wait until it finally gets released in the obscure timetable of 2018.