Summary of Summer Game Fest 2024

GameCentral looks at the most interesting titles from this year’s Summer Game Fest and what they mean for the future of the industry.

The Summer Game Fest 2024 livestream felt very much like a glimpse of the future. Not only because dozens of new and upcoming games were shown, but also because the nature of those titles was very different from other non-E3 events of the recent past.

After briefly acknowledging the 10,000+ job losses the sector has suffered over the past year, presenter Geoff Keighley talked about how gaming is ‘evolving and changing’, with indie games becoming increasingly prominent and more than one game featured on the show is. made by just one person.

A more cynical mind would argue that this was just an excuse to explain the fact that there were relatively few big name reveals, but Keighley had warned that this would be the case before the event started, underlining that we now live in an era in which triple-A games are much less common than they used to be.

The question is whether this is a temporary state of affairs or the new normal, but that’s not something that would ever be answered at an event like this.

Instead, you got the usual conveyor belt of trailers, interspersed with the occasional developer appearance on stage. None of these were particularly illuminating, however, and it was disappointing that so many of the trailers were clearly pre-rendered, but unfortunately that’s not surprising.

What also wasn’t too shocking is that all the big game reveals were leaked in advance, including Sony’s quirky Lego Horizon Adventures, Civilization 7 and Slitterhead – although the latter two were the fault of the game makers themselves, who both managed to keep their updates up to date. to work. websites/YouTube channel too early.

The entire event lasted two hours and was followed by the Day of the Devs event and then Devolver Digital. Since Summer Game Fest for Britain started at 10pm BST, it was clearly not aimed at anyone outside of North America.

Nevertheless, we recommend checking out the whole thing, at least in the background, as there have been over 40 games in total, and we’re certainly not going to cover them all now.

Many of the bigger budget games only appeared as short, pre-rendered trailers Quidditch champions getting a release date of September 3, Star Wars Outlaws teasing that Lando Calrissian is in the game, Black Myth: Wukong the unveiling of the various collector’s editions, and Dune: Awakening revealing that the story revolves around a what-if scenario in which Paul Atreides’ sister is born instead of him.

Recently announced VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow was also only pre-rendered, but given a fall release date and confirmation that the villain is the Rat King, who appears to be a new character – either that or existing supervillain Ratcatcher has had a promotion. Returning to the Arkhamverse is very welcome (although Suicide Squad was technically in it too), but the absence of voice actor Kevin Conroy is painfully palpable.

Metaphor: ReFantaziofrom the team behind Persona, got a demo on stage and… looked a lot like Persona, with a similar art style and regular people transforming into fantasy warriors once again – although this time it was presented while doing Final Fantasy style changed jobscalled archetypes. It looked good and it’s always nice to see a company use its success to launch new IP.

Capcom had a big presence at the show, with a brief look at Monster Hunter Wilds gameplay is the penultimate reveal; there was also the intriguingly strange Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess sand new DLC fighters for Street fighter 6namely M. Bison, Elena, and Final Fight’s Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui.

Fatal Rage: City of Wolves also got a separate trailer and an early 2025 release date despite being another fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be released on October 11.

One of our favorite moments of the evening was the reveal Blumhouse Games. We haven’t seen many of their films in the past, but they seem to have dabbled in gaming in the most interesting way, with multiple indie titles that are all radically different from each other.

Fear The Spotlight is the first to be released and looks very much like a lost PS1 game, with very basic 3D graphics that still look extremely creepy.

The demo reel of other games includes everything from a fun Stardew Valley-style game that turns evil to what looks like some sort of first person shooter, a very meta game where you play as a developer, and the promise of a collaboration between Immorality’s Sam Barlow . and Brandon Cronenberg – son of David Cronenberg.

Among Us Developer Inner sloth also had a lot to show, and not just a clip from the new TV show Among Us. They’ve created a new publishing label called OuterSloth and signed a number of indie games to help other developers who, by their own admission, haven’t been as lucky as they have been.

Despite never having seen an episode of the show, we really liked the look of it too Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, which is a purposefully retro scrolling beat ’em-up mixed with some gorgeous-looking 3D levels with old-school sprite scaling. It appears to be part of a new label called Hasbro Retro Arcade, so we’re really hoping this means a future Transformers game in a similar vein.

Not all bigger budget games had pre-rendered trailers, as there was a different take on medieval action role-players Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2announcing an October 25 release date for Sonic X shadows generations (which has also been pre-leaked), a short and painfully unfunny trailer for Skate. the announcement that playtests will begin this summer, and the first DLC for Alan Wake2.

Alan Wake 2’s DLC is called Night Springs and features three different scenarios and player characters, connected by the game’s pastiche, The Twilight Zone. It all seems terribly self-indulgent, with Rose the shotgun-wielding waitress, Control protagonist Jesse Faden and Shawn Ashmore – star of Quantum Break – apparently playing himself. The latest surprise is that the DLC will be released today, June 8, and physical editions of the main game will follow later this year, including a $200 collector’s edition.

Remedy’s Sam Lake also got an appearance on stage, but even more time was spent on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 versions of Riot Games’ first person shooter Valorant. However, very little of substance was said, with no release date – just a closed beta which you can sign up for here.

Given the recent revelations about how much it costs to participate in Summer Game Fest, we can only imagine how much that publicity cost Riot, or how much the Chinese company S-Game paid for it. Phantom leaf 0 be the last game of the evening. Apparently it was shown at a previous event, but we have to admit we don’t remember it at all, but it seems to be an interesting enough Souls-like action game, reminiscent of a fantasy version of Stellar Blade.

There were plenty of other interesting looking indie games including Neva from the makers of GRIS, it speaks for itself Deer & Boy from Lifeline Games, a one-man developer Killer BoonFrench mountain climbing sim Cairn (not to be confused with the French mountain climbing sim Juant), the intriguing Hiking stop from the creator of The Stanley Parable, and real-time strategy Fight aces from new studio Uncapped Games.

It may be the de facto replacement for E3, but Summer Game Fest has become a very different experience, not in format, but in the types of games on display. There were plenty of interesting revelations, but also plenty to still worry about when it comes to the health and sustainability of the triple-A games business.

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