PlayStation Conference Recap - E3 2016

In stark contrast to the Ubisoft conference earlier in the day, the Sony PlayStation showcase begins with a somber orchestral score complete with men’s choir and brass section. If it’s really the theme song of some Sony game I don’t recognize it. It gets stranger as a blonde woman starts hitting a Celtic drum and grunting into a mic. This leads into a trailer that soon reveals the distinctive form of Kratos, so it must be God of War. The live orchestra continues playing to provide music. The gameplay trailer shows Kratos following a boy around in a forest as they hunt for deer.

Kratos eventually runs into a group of enemies and starts pummeling them with an axe and then his fists. The combat looks closer to modern over-the-shoulder third person action than traditional God of War. Eventually, a larger beast shows up and Kratos instructs the boy to shoot at it with a bow while he engages the beast. It looks to be a fast and tense fight as the player dodges around to avoid attacks. The fight over the pair move on and explore a bit, conversing all the while. Eventually they find another deer and the boy is able to bring it down. The game is simply titled God of War, so it appears to be a series reboot.

Shawn Layden from Sony takes the stage following the lengthy gameplay clip. He follows Ubisoft’s example and says a few words about the Orlando shootings as part of his formal opening remarks. This leads into another trailer for a game from Bend Studios. The opening narration is over shots of a forested community. It looks to be a game about a biker/drifter/mercenary/bounty hunter. The details of the gameplay and general design are unclear, though it’s titled Days Gone.

This transitions directly into another trailer, this time for the Last Guardian. We see a few short clips of the boy and the giant Griffin though nothing remarkable is shown. The big reveal is a release date: October 25, 2016. This rolls into yet another trailer, this time for Horizon: Zero Dawn (for real this time). In it, we see the red haired woman seen previously running around in what appears to be an open world. She runs into some bizarre crab-like robotic enemies. After scanning for weak spots, she shoots an arrow at a key location and takes off its shell but the robot remains operable until she kills it. We see the user interface as she puts down some traps. Pressing on, she takes down a dinosaur like beast before talking to a man who tells her about a demon. We also see the map, which appears to be a standard open world map with icons everywhere.

She traps a horse-like robot before hacking it so that she can ride it. Her trot reveals a few more interesting animal-like robots as she moves to a village where she engages in a lengthy battle with a larger robot. This ends the Horizon trailer and the next one cues up men talk about Androids plays. This leads to another scene where a character tries to stop a man jumping from the roof with a girl. Apparently there will be lots of decisions and consequences. The trailer ends with a bunch of different outcomes to the scenario with the man and the girl on the roof. It is for Detroit, the game announced last year from David Cage.

Another trailer starts immediately, this time for a PS VR game. It shows a man picking up a ringing phone and being warned to get out before “they kill you.” The sound design is impressive as you hear the player's boots creaking on the floor as he explores a pretty disgusting and creepy house. It is clearly some kind of psychological horror game. It turns out to be Resident Evil VII surprisingly.

After that endless string of trailers, Shawn returns on stage. The game will be coming to PS4 and also PS VR next January. The PSVR kit will debut in the United States on October 13 of this year. There will be fifty VR games available for the device from launch to the end of the year. More PlayStation VR games up next. The first begins depicting a man holding a gun on a desert planet. The way the player moves indicates it will be some kind of on rails shooter, titled Farpoint. Next up, a Dice/EA game, Star Wars music plays so presumably something Battlefront related; indeed, it is a VR-specific spinoff called Battlefront: X-wing.

Next up we hear the distinctive voice of The Joker. Batman Arkham VR is the name of the project, being developed by Rocksteady and coming in October. The next trailer is from Square Enix and shows a man riding a giant bird… turns out it's Final Fantasy XV. In VR? Seems that way, one of the characters is wearing a PS VR headset. The full title is Final Fantasy XV VR Experience.

The next game shows the player walking around a space ship and opening a Galaxy Map similar in appearance to the one in Mass Effect before getting into a smaller fighter ship. We then get some glimpses of space combat as the player chases enemy fighters among destroyed space ship debris. Eventually the player gets out and starts fighting enemies on foot, using a grapple hook to move around in the low gravity environment. As the player goes inside and gravity returns, it starts to look more like a typical shooter. Turns out its Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. This is followed by a trailer for the Modern Warfare remaster.

Shawn is back back, but with the distinctive shadow of Crash Bandicoot trailing him on stage. The original games are being remastered, but for now we just get a glimpse of Crash in the upcoming Skylanders game. Next up, Lego Star Wars. The trailer depicts scenes from the new movie but with Lego characters! Some pretty big spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie. The game has a demo available now and will launch in two weeks.

Andrew House from Sony now takes the stage. He then welcomes Hideo Kojima to the stage as the logo for his new studio shows behind him. He quickly introduces a trailer for something running in “real time.” We first see a bunch of dead crabs strewn over the ground, then bloody hand prints; they belong to a naked fellow who is wearing handcuffs and is attached by umbilical cord to a baby. The man has the face of Norman Reedus. The baby vanishes, and the man stands to find himself on a beach with dead sea creatures surrounding him as some mysterious figures appear in the sky. The project is titled Death Stranding.

The next trailer is for something from Insomniac, that turns out to be a Spiderman game, an open world one by the looks of it. Few details emerge beyond the gameplay that shows Spiderman swinging around a city. Shawn returns for closing comments, introducing a final gameplay demo from Days Gone, which was revealed earlier. We see the character from the first trailer ride a motorcycle into a sort of military camp looking for someone. He scavenges some parts and eventually encounters some weird children like monsters that walk on all fours. He eventually finds the man he seeks, climbs onto a roof, and reveals a horde of zombies below. The man tackles him, they fall off the roof and a zombie chase ensues, with hundreds of zombies absorbing bullets from the player. He finally finishes the mass, but looks down to see hundreds more closing in. The trailer ends here, as does the conference.