The 2021 Consumer Electronics Show began today—virtually, of course—and during a video presentation Sony revealed new release date information about half a dozen games. But it didn’t announce these dates as you might expect. Instead, all the new info came from text that appeared at the bottom of the screen for only a few seconds in the middle of the video. But, good news: We have a release month for Square Enix’s mysterious Project Athia.
Sony’s video covered a number of the company’s businesses, going over new products the massive corporation is planning to release in the next year or two. New TVs, movies, etc. But buried in this video is a few minutes dedicated to the PlayStation 5 and Sony’s gaming division.
This segment, hosted by PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan, wasn’t very interesting, mostly focusing on what the company has done with PS5’s launch and the games released so far. But at the very end of the segment, near the 10:39 mark, you can spot the slide that features a bunch of new info on upcoming PS5 games.
- Returnal - 03/19/21
- Pragmata - 2023
- Solar Ash - June 2021
- Kena: Bridge of Spirits - March 2021
- Stray & GhostWire: Tokyo - October 2021
- Little Devil Inside - July 2021
- Project Athia - January 2022
- Hitman 3 - January 2021
- Horizon: Forbidden West - 2021
Some of this is old information we already knew about, like Hitman 3’s release date. But there is some apparent news. As mentioned, we now have a release window for Project Athia, the new Square Enix game that will be exclusive to PS5 for two years. If it does come out next January, that would mean Xbox Series X players will have to wait until at least 2024 to play the still-mysterious game.
Stray, the PS5 adventure starring a cat in a futuristic city of robots, is apparently coming in October. We knew it was going to be released in 2021, but this is the first mention of a month. Same with GhostWire: Tokyo, the ghostly FPS from Tango Gameworks, which only had a vague 2021 release window. It too aims to be out in October.
Finally, Pragmata, that odd-looking game from Capcom first revealed during a PS5 event back in June 2020, seems to have been delayed. It was scheduled to hit sometime in 2022, but is now coming a year later based on the CES video’s info.
Small print snuck into the middle of a random video is a rather strange way to essentially announce a bunch of new PS5 release dates, and I expect these games and their respective studios will be announcing this news more officially with formal Twitter posts and trailers. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the next batch of PS5 games to be revealed at the end of a random internet popup ad or something.