Sony’s finally revealed the PlayStation 5, along with a pleasant selection of launch-window games. Between massive reveals like Demon’s Souls remake, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Resident Evil 8: Village, Gran Turismo 7, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart came smaller but no less intriguing surprises.
Here are some of our favorites.
Ian Walker — Pragmata
I have no idea what’s going on with Pragmata, but I know I want it. It might have to do with that bulky space suit, or maybe it’s because I wish that holographic cat robot thing was something I could purchase, like, right now. I only hope that Pragmata, which very obviously wants to be Death Stranding, doesn’t end up like the missing-in-action Deep Down, another neat-looking Capcom game that very obviously wanted to be Dark Souls. 2022 is a long ways away.
Ashley Parrish — Goodbye Volcano High
Goodbye Volcano High looks like furry Life is Strange but better. I’m always gonna be down for more non-binary representation in video games, so I’m super jazzed about the protagonist.
Mike Fahey — Bugsnax
The trailer of this game begins with a strawberry that has eyes and walks around making cute noises. Then a fuzzy thing eats the strawberry and its limb turns into berries. Then the fuzzy thing says what sounds like “buttsex” but is actually “Bugsnax.” A happy song from UK band Kero Kero Bonito plays as bugs made out of food prance about the wilderness. There are ribs, burgers, oranges, bagels, and more. The entire thing screams “LOVE ME MICHAEL FAHEY, YOU MAGNIFICENT STUD,” which is embarrassing but I’ll take it.
Mike Fahey, Bonus Round — Stray
You play as a cat. Honestly not sure why they wasted time showing anything else in the trailer for Stray. Beyond “you play as a cat” nothing else matters. The cat looks nice? That’s a plus. Hell, as the owner of five cats I’m just excited to be able to make a cat do what I want for once.
Ethan Gach — Solar Ash
Solar Ash intrigued me the second I saw it was by the makers of Hyper Light Drifter. Then I heard the brooding ambient synth of the one and only Rich Vreeland, aka Disasterpeace, and moved from intrigued to intoxicated, high on the game’s eerie dimension-hopping and mind-bending gravity swaps. Like a lot of the games we saw during today’s PS5 event I learned hardly anything about Solar Ash, except that it’s a PS5 console exclusive coming sometime in 2021 and very likely going to leave me in a moody, soul-searching heap on the ground after I finish it.
Zack Zwiezen — Destruction AllStars
There aren’t enough destruction derby games. So I’m excited to see a big, colorful next-gen stab at this underappreciated genre. And the mix of on-foot action and car combat seems strange but has my interest. If anything, it helps make it feel less like a Rocket League rip-off.
Ari Notis — Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Forget your teraflops and photorealism. Give me orchestral strings, a magical forest, and an army of adorably wide-eyed tree creatures (in other words: some serious Ori vibes) any day. Kena: Bridge of Spirits hits all of that and manages to look ridiculously fun? Sign me up.
Nathan Grayson — Deathloop
In a year where every day has felt like waking up stuck in a slowly degrading Groundhog Day purgatory, Deathloop at least looks like the fun kind of time loop. I’m a huge Dishonored fan, and this new game from developer Arkane, in which you play as a dude trying to escape his chronological captors by killing them all before midnight, looks like somebody pressed fast-forward on my beloved supernatural immersive sim. You stealth some, sure, but then you go nuts with your arsenal of space-time-warping, jerk-bonking powers. There’s also a multiplayer component in which another player tries to assassinate you while you assassinate everybody else, but it’s blessedly optional.