Annual Showcase Season is looking fine

This week in sleepless nights,

It’s Annual Showcase Season again. That time of the year where publishers pull out their wares and cram them into various online showcases to get us all hyped. Traditionally this was all based around the Electronic Entertainment Expo but that is now a thing of the past and now centres around Summer Game Fest.  Fragmented would still be an accurate way of calling it though as while we normally think of a few keys shows this last week has contained over 20 events. And I’ve watched them all. Here are some of the larger announcements.

Summer Game Fest

Summer Game Fest was the first major showcase hosted by Geoff Keighly who is commonly known as the Dorito Pope. In the lead up to the event Geoff messaged to fans that they should lower their expectations for this year’s event despite charging participants an alleged $250K USD per minute.

The show kicked off with Lego Horizon Adventures. A LEGO game based in Sony’s Horizon universe. Surprisingly the game is coming to Switch along with PS5 and PC.

A new game for you snitch loving potheads out there. Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is coming from Warner Brothers.

Blumhouse, the studio behind films such as Get Out, Insidious, The Purge and so, so many others have thrown their hat into producing videogames. Their first lineup of 6 games is a diverse list of horror adjacent titles. The final game announced, known as Project C is developed by Half Mermaid Productions who are working with Sam Barlow of Her Story fame and film maker Brandon Cronenberg.

Innersloth, developers of Among Us are using their success to create a game fund called Outersloth. The announced titles include Australia’s own Mars First Logistics and a new game from the Thirsty Suitors team, Outerloop Games, which is a cooking game where you pilot a mech currently called Project Dosa.

Do you enjoy Civilisation like millions have?  Well here’s some good news. Th new one is coming out and is called Civilisation 7. Not much is known yet but there will be a gameplay showcase in August.

Lastly Alan Wake 2 will be getting a physical release at last and the first of their major DLC was announced based on the fictional show inside the game, Night Springs.

Devolver Direct

Devolver Digital rarely disappoint with their showcases. Focussing on entertainment over showing off their upcoming games. This year focussed on the 15^th birthday of everyone’s favourite, totally real video game character, Volvy.

Among the celebration 2 notable games from well regarded developers were revealed.  From Sébastien Benard the lead designer of Dead Cells came Tenjutsu, a top down, roguelike, martial arts… city planner? And Heart Machine of Hyper Light Drifter fame announced Possessors, a stylish side scrolling action game.

In Aussie Devolver related news there is an upcoming update for Cult of the Lamb. On August 12 the free Unholy Alliance update will be released which will add local co op to the 2022 hit.

Ubisoft Forward

Ubisoft announced a new Anno game, Anno 117. There were updates for most of their current franchises and did a deep dives into the new Japanese based Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Star Wars Outlaws.

Prince of Persia has become a focus for the publisher with the The Rogue Prince of Persia, story DLC announced for The Lost Crown and confirmation that the long awaited and troubled remake of The Sands of Time is still coming with a planned release of 2026.

Xbox Games Showcase

And to wrap up our brief coverage we have Microsoft and they came in with all guns blazing. We got a deep dive into Black Ops 6 and assurances that there will no longer be any platform exclusive content when the game launches on Xbox, PC and Playstation on October 25. The game will however require an internet connection for single player due to streaming textures which they claim will keep install size down.

DOOM: The Dark Ages was announced taking our armoured demon slayer into a medieval inspired setting with some truly creative weapon designs shown off.

Mixtape was announced by Australia own Beethoven & Dinosaur with 90’s kids listening to music and feeling ways about stuff. It really takes me back. Speaking of feeling things, Life is Strange is back and so is the first game’s protagonist Max Caulfield in Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Dragon Age: The Veilguard was officially shown off for the first time with some gameplay along with the new Perfect Dark, Fable and Avowed.

The Show finished off with the announcement of Gears of War: E-Day. Taking the series back to the beginning with the original emergence of the locust and playing into the series more horror roots .

There’s far too much to cover in this bulletin. You can go to gamesrecap.io see links to all trailers and conferences including the always entertaining  Wholesome Direct.

Upcoming Game releases

Taskmaster VR (Quest 3, Quest 2, PC), Monster Hunter Stories (PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin (PlayStation 4), Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC) – June 14

#BLUD (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC), Still Wakes the Deep (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – June 19

Dicefolk (Switch), Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 (PlayStation VR2) – June 20