Sony PlayStation E3 2016 Press Conference: All The Announcements

The Sony Press Conference started with a rollicking performance by an all-male choir, a full orchestra, and a female soloist. All of that led up to the premiere of an all-new God of War. Kratos is old, and has what seems to be a son. The son’s mother has recently died.

He has a beard, and is trying to teach his son to hunt. Some kind of demon jumps out and screams at them, but Kratos, with magic infusing into his axe, makes short work of them. As they run along, more jump out, and suddenly a giant emerges from the ground. He screams about Valhalla – Kratos is taking on the Norse pantheon. As Kratos fights the giant, he gains Spartan Rage, and goes APE on the giant.

When Kratos has the thing almost dead, Kratos tells the boy to kill it, and he fires his arrow after hesitating – and shoots Kratos in the shoulder. He deals the death blow to what we learned is a troll.

Dauthamunni discovered comes across, written like Norse runes. Yes, the boy calls Kratos “Father.” They continue hunting the deer, and this time his son hits it dead on. Kratos tells his son to deal the killing blow with the knife of his mother, and he again hesitates. Kratos helps him guide the knife in.

“Now you are ready,” Kratos says. “For what?” asks his son. “A new beginning.” It pans out, and a dragon flies by them. God of War is coming from Santa Monica Studio.

Shawn Layden came out on stage, and that was a live demo. The composer, Baron Creary is conducting the orchestra and choir tonight.

Layden took a moment to offer thoughts and wishes for more peace, tolerance, and love for the Orlando tragedy.

He called the Shrine auditorium a “temple to creativity and all that means,” and was glad to be back.

Next up was a game from Bend Studio. “I remember when our homes and our towns turned into graveyards. When the wilderness became our only hope for survival,” the narrator says. We see quarantines, body bags. “I remember when living meant more than surviving. I remember how it all went down. Now I don’t give a damn about any of that.” He’s saying all of this to his dead girlfriend/wife. “Those days are gone. Now I’m a drifter, a bounty hunter, a mercenary, and for me, the broken rode is all that’s left. But I’ll always remember.” The game is Days Gone, the trailer reveals.

We went directly into another trailer, showing expansive landscapes, and beautiful scenery – and a giant creature, and a small boy. It’s The Last Guardian, in all its glory. October 25, 2016. It’s coming out! for real! This year!

The trailer parade kept going. “The world of the old ones ended long ago.” The female lead of Horizon: Zero Dawn goes hunting for Machine animals – machines have evolved as animalistic species in this world. She uses some kind of energy slingshot, nut unlike Ezra’s in Star Wars Rebels. As some kind of corrupted machine beast chases another human, she takes it down with her bow. She talks to the guy, who says there was a demon that drove these robots, the “watchers” mad. He tells her they need to run from it. She says no, and he runs away saying “You’re crazy!” The map is shown, and it’s pretty huge. Arming the Ropecaster, she anchors a bull-like machine beast to the ground. She jams her staff into it, and it overrides the machine. Now, she can ride it for a speedier way through the world. Giant Giraffe-like beasts are seen, and some others that appear to be grazing – are they partially biological? She gets to the corrupted village, and finds a spider-like machine that’s corrupting a watcher. Check that, more scorpion like, wiht a tail. She can detect that it’s vulnerable to fire by analyzing it, and sets up a fire trap, shooting it with her fire arrows to make it explode. She whistles for her mount, and jumps onto it seamlessly, all the while continuing to attack the Corrupter. It attacks, killing her mount. She tries anchoring it to the ground with her cables, and it stumbles. She takes it down, finally.

“This machine looks ancient. Where did it come from?” she says. That’s it.

Quantic Dream was up next. An android enters a hostage situation; his name is Connor. Another android named Daniel has gone nuts, and is holding a little girl at gun point. He says “I spent my life taking orders, now it’s my time to decide” and jumps. There are many different ways it could have gone, though, and we start to see various options and the consequences of those actions, with several outcomes where Connor saves the girl, but some where he dies, some where Daniel dies, tons of possible situations. “My name is Connor. This, is our story.” Detroit: Become Human is the name of the game.

“Full PS VR experience” said the next trailer. “Before KITCHEN…” A phone rings. A man wakes up on the floor, and we’re seeing the world from his eyes. “If you don’t get out of there, they will kill you. Get out of there,” says the voice on the phone. It’s a delapidated room, and there are weird armless manicans in it. He goes down the stars, something is clicking from the wind. The whole place is run down, bugs crawling around, food left rotting on the table. Someone walks by a doorway (and the crowd screams). The player follows him, not very smartly. Entering a room, there’s a TV on with just snow on it. He finds a tape and puts it in the vcr attached to the TV. He sees someone else’s horrific experiences in the house, ending in death.

It’s Resident Evil VII, it’s coming out next January 24, and the demo is out RIGHT NOW on PlayStation Plus.

2016 is the birth of virtual reality in the home. PlayStation VR coming October 13, for $299. 50 Games will be out in the launch window, from October to December 2016. Wow.

That moved us into full VR gametime. A game from Impulse Gear shows an alien planet. “United Earth Project” says the guy’s gun. They seem to be exploring some brand new planet, mostly desert – until he sees a flying robot or drone of some sort. There’s burning wreckage, a giant spider monster emerges (what’s with Spider-monsters?” It’s called Farpoint, and it’s a PS4 VR exclusive.

Star Wars: Battlefront – VR Mission was next. Fly an X-Wing from in the cockpit.

VR BATMAN. VR BATMAN! Mark Hamill narrates as the Joker Batman Arkham VR exclusive to PS VR in October. Holy crap.

A Final Fantasy XV trailer was next, featuring the Chocobo song, and the cahracter rising one at first. Several moments of fight sequences, some dubstep, and the release date of 9.30.2016 was on there. Um, there’s a PSVR component to the game. You can play a Final Fantasy game in VR. Final Fantasy XV: The VR Experience.

The next trailer showed a ship called the Retribution out in space. “Enemy surging.” We’re watching Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and all gameplay. The graphics are utterly insane. The player gets into a small vehicle, and launches out of the larger ship. This is the Jackal, and there is full space aerial combat. After that, he lands on a ship. He’s got a grappling hook and some slight jets. He used the grapple to pull an enemy in close and pull off his mask, then pulls another one close and sticks a grenade on him. After a firefight through the enemy ship, they exfil and blow it up. November 4, 2016.

That went straight into another trailer, and this one is Modern Warfare Remastered. It looks incredible, nearly same graphical quality of Infinite. Campaign and MP maps, coming free with Infinite Warfare, and you can get the campaign 30 days early on PS4 if you pre-purchase the game.

Crash Bandicoot is back! It’s the original game, remastered for PS4. He’s also in Skylanders: Imaginators this fall! A trailer for Imaginators featuring Crash was shown, and it looks hilarious. All his classic moves, and “that’s just the beginning.” You can draw and create your own Skylander! Hugely customizable. October 2016.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens was next, recreating major moments from the film in LEGO form. Kylo Ren has an emo teenager’s room on his ship. Awesome. Aerial combat – this is a surprisingly epic trailer for a LEGO game! There are also some great signature hilarious moments, including what looked like it was a tribute to Indiana Jones. The demo is available RIGHT NOW on PlayStation 4.

Andrew House took the stage for the conclusion of the press conference.

“Our mission is to make the PlayStation the best place for gamers,” House said. “Welcome one of the most creative talents in the history of gaming” HIDEO KOJIMA!

“Hello everyone. I’m back!” Thunderous applause. I can’t hear anymore. “Today we bring something new we made for you, and this is all running in real time. Enjoy.”

A trailer ran with a quote from William Blake starting it off. Sony Interactive Entertainment, Kojima Productions. A bunch of dead crabs are on an incredibly detailed ground. Hand prints of oil start to appear. A man lies naked on the ground, he’s attached to a baby by an electronic cord, he picks the child up – it’s Norman Reedus. He’s crying, and suddenly the child is gone, but his hands are covered in oil. He has a scar on his stomach, over where his bely button should be. He stands naked on a beach, dead sea life everywhere, and five humanoids are floating in the air in the distance. “A Hideo Kojima Game. Norman Reedus in: Death Stranding.”

Somehow there’s more, another trailer. It’s Insomniac. “People see me and think they’re safe.” It’s Spider-Man. It’s an Insomniac Spider-Man game. He flies through the air, incredible web based combat and unbelievable graphics.IT’S PS4 EXCLUSIVE. #SpiderManPS4. The voice sounded like Tom Holland.

Layden came back on stage. I don’t know if I can take another crazy announcement. “The core of interactive entertainment is play.” Last up is a live gameplay demo of Days Gone.

The biker guy sneaks through a fence, and starts looking through stuff in a tent. A couple wolves are eating a body. “Well, that ain’t him.” he says. There’s an old truck, and he pulls a part out to work as a silencer for his gun. Some little demon-y creature screams at him and runs. He hears a man screaming in the distance, and goes after the scream. The thing jumps on him and the man he’s chasing runs away. There is a horde of those creatures, something like Zombies if not exactly. The other guy tackles him off the roof, and breaks his leg doing it, drawing the attention of the horde. They devour him. They’re literally coming out of the woodwork, and he runs into a building with a metal garage door that he slams shut. It only slows the horde down. Lots of environment pieces can be used to slow them, it seems. He keeps shooting and throwing firegrenades but they’re not stopping. The pulsing music adds to the unease. He seems to have finally killed them all, and a horde three times the size appears on teh screen to go after him.

A sizzle reel recapped everything we saw tonight, and had Attack on Titan in there to boot. A new Gran Turismo Sport was briefly shown, and several smaller developer games. Ghostbusters was in there, and several more VR games. Spider-Man. Kratos. PS VR.