Sony has finally announced its summer video game showcase event, which will take place next week. In a tweet, PlayStation confirmed an hour-long showcase that promises to reveal ‘new creations’ from its first and third-party studios, targeted for release on the PS5 and PS VR2. The event will be livestreamed across PlayStation’s official YouTube and Twitch channels on May 25 at 1:30am IST in India, and May 24 at 1pm PT in the US. The update comes in the wake of Geoff Keighley confirming the publisher’s inclusion in his Summer Game Fest lineup, which is slated to kick off in June. PlayStation previously pulled out of this year’s E3 event, alongside Xbox and Nintendo, ultimately leading to the cancellation of the summer video game expo.
For now, it’s hard to speculate what titles could be shown at the event, but Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 won’t be a surprise, given it’s nearing its fall/ autumn release window. The Venom voice actor for the game Tony Todd previously claimed that Insomniac Games’ next title will release in September, with big advertisement campaigns coming in August. The studio is also working on a standalone Wolverine game, so hopefully we get an update on that as well. Another major PlayStation heavy hitter is Naughty Dog, which previously confirmed that The Last of Us multiplayer game was in development. Based on concept art, it seems as though the title will be set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco and will toss players into a brutal experience featuring a new narrative and cast.
As mentioned before, some new IPs will also be shown at the PlayStation showcase — the company’s first, full-blown video game presentation since September 2021, where Spider-Man 2 was announced, alongside trailers for God of War Ragnarök and the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake. The latter underwent a developmental shake-up last year, changing developers from Aspyr Media to Saber Interactive after an internal demo left partners Sony and Lucasfilm unsatisfied. So, we can rest assured leave the KOTOR remake out of expectations. Then, of course, everyone wants a Bloodborne remake or remaster for PC and PS5, but we haven’t heard a peep about that from official sources. Death Stranding 2, on the other hand, is a big possibility — after Kojima Productions dropped a lengthy cinematic trailer during The Game Awards 2022. Its founder Hideo Kojima has been teasing meetings with Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) on his Twitter.
Earlier this month, Microsoft confirmed timings and other details for its Xbox Games Showcase, scheduled to stream on June 11. The event will present first looks and ‘surprises’ from Xbox’s internal and third-party studios, followed by a Starfield Direct event airing immediately after. Ubisoft was another major publisher to pull out from E3 2023 — after initially showing interest — and will host its own Ubisoft Forward Live event on June 12. The COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide lockdowns were the catalysts for major game publishers to host showcase events via an online digital format. It was bolstered by Keighley’s successful Summer Game Fest event, which proved to be a viable way to market products while saving money on physical E3 booths.