Yesterday was the kick off of the Summer Game Fest, another Geoff Keighley production. Essentially this is “The Game Awards” without the pretense of having to occasionally give out an award. Similarly you are going to hear the “World Premiere” sounder a ridiculous number of times before it is over. Apparently Geoff saw the Zach Synder Cut and was jealous of its length, because the official stream broadcast clocks in at around four hours. You can of course instead watch your favorite YouTube talking head talking over the show, or you could just do what I do… and simply track down the original broadcast and watch that so you can make your own decisions… and jokes.
I did not watch the entire thing, but instead chose to skip around a bit because to be fair… I don’t care about the random conversations in between the game trailers. That said it was sort of humorous to watch Jeff Goldblum awkwardly troll Geoff Keighley in a display that did not seem scripted or planned in any way. Even skipping around like I did, there was an awful lot to unpack and I did my best to catch all of the game trailers. I originally had a totally different post for this morning but instead realized that it is in fact game show season once again… and I will apparently be watching a lot of these over the weekend. It seems that E3 is back on the menu which is not something I expected. I legitimately thought E3 as a concept would not survive the last year given that for the most part it is really easy to do a pre-recorded segment that you can control the release of and most game companies are already doing this.
On to the games I cared about…
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
So essentially the breakout hit of Borderlands… aka Ashly Burch with her Tiny Tina character is helming a brand new game that is effectively the best DLC for Borderlands 2 turned into an entire game? I am down for this. Borderlands and I have a sort of hit or miss past with the games and I never really got into Borderlands 3 in spite of my best efforts, but I am interested in a fantasy looter shooter in the style of Borderlands. That is essentially how Ashly Burch described it and I am certain I will be giving this a spin.
Release Date: Early 2022 – Watch the Trailer
Metal Slug Tactics
This is a game that I most definitely did not expect to see in a genre that I think no one was expecting. Metal Slug is a favorite of mine and I think for the most part I love it because of the art style. It seems like all of that pixelated goodness is porting over to a rogue-like tactics game experience and while that isn’t normally my jam I am going to try it. The trailer was beautifully made, but also spent more time on animated bits than actual gameplay so it will be interesting to see any gameplay videos that come out about how things are actually going to flow.
Release Date: TBA 2021 – Watch the Trailer
Lost Ark
I have been waiting for this damned game since 2014 when I first saw its trailer for the South Korean release. It finally released in 2018… and I have to admit I contemplated trying to buy an account given that you have to have the national id thing to create an account to play on the Korean servers. I thought surely eventually this would come out in the West and last year it was announced that Amazon would be bringing it here. Finally we have a release window and I am super pumped about it. I love hack and slash Diablo style games and I am hoping this is worth all of the wait time. I am trying not to hype it up any more than I already have because I really want this to be a great game.
Release Date: Fall 2021 – Watch the Trailer
Axiom Verge 2
Axiom Verge was a really cool love song to Metroid and I own it on a bunch of platforms. So when the second game was announced it was almost certain that I would give it a spin. What I find intriguing is how different this one seems like it is going to be. In the first game you mostly used ranged attacks and in this one it seems like your character is largely melee based. The trick however is that apparently your character can also hack the mechs you are fighting to change the pace of combat. Additionally in the trailer they talked about how apparently you don’t have to fight any bosses in the game to progress through it. If you just want to run straight through the battle and keep on moving… that is apparently a valid playstyle. Should be interesting to see this as it launches.
Release Date: Q3 2021 – Watch the Trailer
Tunic
I’ve been tracking this game since E3 2018 and am still very interested in it. Essentially it is cute fox Zelda and that is pretty much all the hook I need. I’ve even played one of the earlier demos of the game and it was great… I just want it to actually release. I think this is a single developer project so I am way more forgiving on what has felt like the long development cycle. Ultimately this seems like a Switch game to me but I will likely buy it on multiple platforms to support the developer.
Release Date: Sometime 2021 – Watch the Trailer
Tales of Arise
So I am going to have to admit… I have seen a lot of trailers for Tales games over the years and I am not sure if I have ever actually called one of them out until now. Basically Tales was a series that I knew to be as beloved and complicated as Final Fantasy… but I had never actually engaged with it in any form. That is until now when I have been playing through Tales of Vesperia and have found it super charming and enjoyable and now suddenly care. I have no clue when I will actually get around to playing it but I am very interested in Tales of Arise as a result of this new experience.
Release Date: September 10, 2021 – Watch the Trailer
Elden Ring
This is the trailer that pretty much everyone online seemed to be hoping for… but also at the same time preparing for it not to actually show. Elden Ring is this weird collaboration by red wedding aficionado George R. R. Martin and the fine folks that bring us games that make you want to punch your screen… FromSoftware. I mean I have to admit I held out a slim amount of hope that this would be a very Skyrim like game experience… all the while knowing it was probably going to be another non-Souls Series Souls game like Bloodborne. Based on the trailer footage, it seems like this is very much a Souls game and while I generally am not a huge fan of that genre… I have to admit there is something compelling about it. I am probably going to be a sucker and give it a try since I did make some measure of traction into the Demon’s Souls remake.
Release Date: January 21, 2022 – Watch the Trailer
Of note… there were way the hell more games talked about than I just featured. If you ONLY care about the trailer reveals and want to completely skip the rest of the show… the YouTube channel GameTrailers has ripped and re-uploaded all of the trailers into a playlist form. There are 104 videos in the list so it will still take awhile to chew through it. Probably the strangest announcement is you can play as a Bean in Fall Guys that looks like 2B from Nier minus the mighty butt action. We have once again entered a wealth of new game information and expect my next several posts to probably reflect that.