The Last Guardian

Could you start a press conference any bigger than by showing off a demo of a game people assumed was dead? The Last Guardian has been one of the most highly anticipated, hotly debated, oft mourned games of the past five years. Now, we finally get to see what they’ve been working on, and it looks beautiful. The mechanics are of a symbiotic relationship between a boy and his creature friend that resembles something like a mix of a cat and a bird. The two friends have to progress through ruins together, helping each other through areas, and often out of danger. In this short video, you can really feel the growing bond between these two and it strikes a chord due in no small part to the very familiar mannerisms of the creature. At times acting like a dog, at times acting like a cat, but always acting like an animal and never acting out of place. It’s beautifully executed and this game is at the top of my list for anticipated titles in 2016.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

A new action adventure IP made its debut in a really impressive way. Horizon takes place after the apocalypse when the remnants of mankind are living in a world controlled by nature and animal-like robots. We take control of Aloy, one of the few huntresses of the robots to gain resources. Using a boy with different types of arrows and cunning, Aloy sneaks through tall plants, surprises robots, and kills them to take their resources. Clearly a bigger robot has a problem with that and is keen to fight. Aloy’s more than willing to oblige. The combat system is smooth, arrow switching is quick, and the ability to slow down time seems well placed. You can shoot parts off the robots to use against them. In this case, a blade shooter is procured to slice off protective parts of the robot’s armor to expose it’s core, then get taken down by explosive arrows. This looks to be a really interesting, beautiful game and something new to the post-apocalyptic game setting. Keep an eye on Horizon: Zero Dawn, it’s one of the most promising new IPs this year.

No Man’s Sky

This demo was probably my favorite, if only because the dev was so candid. He was upfront about how much time he had and what he wanted to show, so he briefly touched on space combat, then dove right in to exploration. He showed the scope of the universe and it’s definitely hard to grasp. Almost infinite, like our own universe. A countable, but difficult to imagine number of planets all with their own unique stuff. The dev even went to a random planet live on stage. That shows a lot of confidence. He showed off categorizing flora and fauna as well as the destructible environments that exist on all planets. No solid release date, but he says there will be one soon. Color us excited!

Dreams

Media Molecule, the studio behind Little Big Planet and Tearaway, are back with a new concept, and an ambitious one at that. Dreams has you interacting with and creating dreams with players. From adding elements and characters to the environment to animating your creations, they give you the tools create and bring dreams to life. It’s an incredibly ambitious project and there aren’t many details, but we trust you, Media Molecule. Can’t wait to see the tools and what the community does with them!

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Even writing the title to this section made me well up inside. And the sly devils revealed it so slyly. A quick showing of some machinery. Some soldiers. A girl sliding down a slide. Wait, don’t I know that slide?… Some more machinery. Cut to yellow flowers on the ground. Wait, that’s not… Cut to the slums, pan down to a group walking. Large man with a gun for his right arm. OH NO. ARE YOU SERIOUS. Blonde man with buster sword. THEY’RE DOING IT? Final Fantasy VII meteor logo. THEY’RE DOING IT!!!

That’s what happened. There’s no more information on it, but there doesn’t have to be. Square Enix is making dreams come true today. Suddenly, everything is possible, even the most far fetched things…like.

Shenmue 3

Exactly like Shenmue 3. Fans have been begging for this game for over ten years now and hope had all but died out. However, Sony already showed this is not a press conference to take lightly. It’s one to make dreams happen.

The creator has been wanting to make Shenmue 3 for years, but didn’t want to without the proper budget. Now, thanks to crowd funding, Shenmue 3 is in the hands of its fans. Shenmue 2 left fans wanting more, and 14 years later, they’re now given the opportunity to grab victory. As of writing this, Shenmue 3 has nearly $2.9 million on Kickstarter. that’s almost a million dollars over the asking budget and only in 24 hours. Simply incredible. Fans have wanted this game, the creator has wanted this game, and now thanks to Kickstarter, it’s happening. It’s all happening.