So next I check out the Black Voices in Game Showcase for the next batch of game announcements. The Black Voices in Gaming is something that helps support Black People. They had some game announcements but it wasn't really much, the majority of the show was interviewing the devs in what got to them to make their games.
The first of three games announced was Breeze in the Clouds which is a 2D Action Platformer with cute adorable puppy characters. The gameplay and in-depth interview with the dev showcased the combat and also the platforming elements that the game is going to offer.
The second game to be showcased was RollerGirl, it is a game where you have to pay for repairs to your cars and you do this roller skating around the town and doing jobs for people. Little was shown for the game but the game does showcase the day and night cycle as well as changing music on the in-game phone which when playing music in the background causes the colour of the game to change which affects the mood which is interesting.
The third and last game to be shown was a fighting game called Coreupt, the trailer shows a decent fighting system with flashy combos that you can pull off. During the interview they didn't really reveal too much about the game or what characters are going to be available for the game. Still, it looked pretty cool though.
So that was the Black Voices Gaming Showcase, it wasn't a big showcase but it was only long because they spent a fair amount of time with interviews with devs and talks about how they can support the devs and so on. It's fine that they are getting the support they needed but the announcements weren't much. They could have pulled off more announcements and I did think that some of the talk went on for a little longer than it should have but still it wasn't too bad of a showcase.
Next showcase I watch is the Dames 4 games showcase, it is a showcase where women come up and talk about their independent games they are working on. For the most part the showcase mainly focused on female devs talking about how they got into gaming and so on.
There were game announcements but not really much, so far, the only one I cared about is the wrestling game that was shown off. The Wrestling game they showed off was called Wrestle Story and it is a story driven turn based RPG set in the wrestling world. You are able to customize what your wrestler can look like and the combat system uses a timing button press much similar to Mario & Luigi to inflict the most damage to the opponent. It looked incredible and the people showed off some of the gameplay.
The other announcements were uninteresting and just didn't seem worth talking about. So, the showcase wasn't really good, full of talk about how some of them got into gaming with announcements that just didn't seem all that interesting.
So, the next showcase I would watch is the Guerrilla Collective Showcase which had a very short showcase of game announcements but had its own announcements that were kind of worth showing. Here are the announcements I liked throughout the show.
First was one for the game Iron Meat which looked to be a throwback to the old Contra games with different power ups that you collect to face off against dozens of enemies on screen and it can be played in CO-OP with a friend.
ScariFire is an RPG that is a throwback to RPGs from the 90s and the battle system looked really good and also features Motoi Sakaruba the music composer known for works for Tales of Series and Star Ocean.
Quest Master looks like a Zelda throwback game but you get to make your own dungeons and the gameplay, especially the puzzle solving aspect, is really incredible.
Abyssus is a rougelike FPS game where you use adaptive weaponry and enhancing powers against mutated guardians. It does look pretty cool and I think also it has CO-OP.
The last game announcement I liked was one for Demon School which is an RPG that reminds me of a lot of the Persona games in a way. The turn-based combat looks cool, the setting looks nice and I think it looks really good.
So those were the announcements I liked in the Guerrilla Collective Showcase, it was a short showcase but many of the game announcements didn't look all that interesting but still I found some I liked at least.
I watch another showcase as part of the Summer Games Fest 2023 and I take a look at the Capcom Showcase stream for their next game announcements. While sadly they never showed any new Resident Evil related or said anything about Resident Evil 4 Remake getting the Seperate Ways Campaign but they did remind us that the VR Mode for Resident Evil 4 Remake is available now for PlayStation VR2.
Also, Capcom's 2023 Showcase celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Capcom and later on they announced a website called Capcom Town where you explore around, check out the museum for artwork from each game, play a few of Capcom's titles for free and participate in an election as well.
Regardless Capcom had a really good showcase of game announcements and I really enjoyed watching it through and seeing what new stuff comes up. So, let's do a quick run of what got announced in the show.
First off Capcom showed off a new hack & slash game called Kunitsu-Gami Path of the Goddess. In it you play as a Samurai warrior who has to fight off demons through fast paced action. The gameplay shown for it was pretty good.
Next was a new Mega Man game called Mega Man X Dive Offline which is a game coming out only for Steam and iOS devices. It focuses on the Mega Man X timeline and has you playing as old and new characters including ones who were never playable in a Mega Man game before. It has you playing stages from all of the Mega Man X so many players will see dozens of familiar locations from the Mega Man X universe. It might be enjoyable but it could be ruined with dozens of Microtransactions which is a thing with those mobile games.
Capcom unfortunately decided to delay the next anticipated game from the company Pragmata but they have expressed their feelings for their fans over it with the trailer that comically shows that they are delaying the game. Giving Capcom an excellent track record of excellent games they have been making through the years Capcom needs to take all the time they need to make Pragmata a very special game that fans want.
The next announcement was a game that was previously announced on a Nintendo Direct stream, that game was a remaster of Ghost Trick Phantom Detective which is coming soon not only to Nintendo Switch for PlayStation & Xbox consoles and also for PC. It is a puzzle game where you use “Ghost Tricks” to solve puzzles and also to navigate the land of the living in a ghostly form.
More Ace Attorney games are being brought to HD on consoles and PC with Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Trilogy with three more games in the Ace Attorney series being remastered and brought to a new generation of gamers.
Next was more information on Exoprimal a shooter that had a successful Open Beta Test back in Match thanks to the feedback given to them by players, now the game will have another Open Beta test which will offer up some story-related missions. They also covered the storyline and also content that is available in the full game as well, which looks incredible.
The last game to be showcased on Capcom's showcase is Dragon's Dogma II which Capcom went into detail about what is to come with the sequel and gameplay features. These include making your main character as well as having other players characters which you can have as your pawns which can join in your party. It showed an incredible battle system with different ways that you can utilize against enemies. It looks really good and Capcom is taken what made Dragon's Dogma such an incredible Action RPG and the sequel is looking to really do really well.
So, Capcom had a really good showcase of game announcements and their show was really good, it was a short show with deep informative announcements just the way I like it.
Now I move on to the Ubisoft Forward Showcare as part of the Summer Game Fest 2023. Ubisoft hasn't had much good in their conferences and this year their conference from them was problematic with a moment where the screen going black for a few seconds to also moments where the sound would just get cut off making the show almost unwatchable. I was at times enjoying what was going on till then the sound was cut off every now and then throughout the conference, which was annoying.
But there were still some announcements showcased in the Ubisoft Forward Stream with also some in depth look from the developers as well talking about each of the games in full at the end of the conference show.
So, Ubisoft started the showcase off with yet another announcement of a Just Dance game which is the 2024 edition. Same deal, same game, nothing to talk about and it is getting seriously old just seeing a Just Dance game appear in their conferences every year.
The next to be showcased was Avatar Frontiers of Pandora with devs and James Cameron going into detail about the storyline setting and gameplay which will be in First Person. Look I can say the game does look really nice but the issue is that do we really need an open world Avatar game let alone one in First Person? Avatar is also not really a thing anymore and the Avatar movie sequels keeps on getting delayed. Well at least the first Avatar sequel got released after a whole series of delays but still with this new game there is still chance that it could ruin the Avatar series as a whole.
Ubisoft's online game XDefiant has had a successful closed beta launch and it is announced that it will go into open session with launch on consoles. They also planned a road map for it and so far, it is looking solid.
There was more gameplay shown for Prince of Persia The Lost Crown and they were able to show off the time mechanic which makes a return alongside great platform and fast paced combat. The screen went black during the reveal which was really bad.
Next to be shown was a new animated series coming to Netflix called Captain LaserHawk A Blood Dragon Remix which is an insane over the top funny action series. Something like this should have been saved for its own podcast or show instead of being on a gaming showcase.
They did throw in a quick video showing what is coming to previously released games, new DLC for Mario & Rabbids Spark of Hope including a new planet and also Rayman becoming a playable character. A new session for For Honor is coming, Roller Champions is getting a collab with Jet Set Radio and Master Chief & The Arbiter from the Halo Series are coming to Brawlhalla.
A new The Crew game is coming out in the form of The Crew MotorFest. The new race tracks and cars look pretty good.
Ubisoft did announce some new Assassin's Creed games coming soon including an Assassin's Creed VR game with Assassin's Creed Nexus and also an Assassin's Creed game on mobile with Assassin's Creed Codename Jade. An Assassin's Creed game in VR sounds cool but a mobile Assassin's Creed isn't really something to look forward to.
Of course, they talked about the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage and even showed some new gameplay for it. It will abandon the RPG aspects and it will focus on being more linear with focus on stealth and parkour, it will have the Black Box design which was introduced in Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed Syndicate as well as Eagle Vision to scout for nearby enemies. It looks amazing and I am glad to see that it is returning to its old roots but still doing things to keep players on their feet.
A previously announced game Skull & Bones has a Closed Beta coming in August but this is a game that is going to have to do a lot of things to be able to do decently especially for a game that has been delayed long enough.
To end the conference of we got a first deep look into the upcoming Star Wars game with Star Wars Outlaws, it will be an open world game telling the story of outlaw scoundrel Kay Vess and the game taking place between The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. The gameplay shown off showcased Third Person cover based shooting alongside the use of stealth and also the use of her little companion friend who will pick up items for her. It also showed off vehicle driving and also space battles alongside branching dialogue which allows you to pick how the storyline plays out. The game also uses a wanted system where if you are caught doing things, you'll end up attracting attention from the Imperial Empire and have to escape from them otherwise the more you cause trouble for them the more reinforcements and other methods will be used against you. So, it is a good-looking Star Wars game and I'm sure Star Wars fans are looking forward to more from this game.
On top of the technical problems their Beyond Good & Evil game once again remains missing in action again. Either they are still working on the game or don't care much at this point but they would need to do some serious work with that game with all the next gen consoles out.
So, while the games they showed were good the technical problems really left the Ubisoft Forward Showcase to be a messy showcase and what a shame it was Ubisoft.
So, the next conference I watched was the PC Gaming Show which had over 2 hours and a half worth of game announcements which were incredibly long and I was really getting bored sitting through a couple of announcements. Still there were good game announcements in there even if the vast majority of them didn't have release dates and were spreading to also come on selected consoles.
Rather than talk about every announcement because it would take too long, I'll only talk about the announcements I liked the most and give a few words about them.
The first game announcement I liked was one for Kill It with Fire 2, yep, the spider squashing simulator is back for a sequel with more spiders and it will not only have more spiders to squash but also some really big spiders and also many new tools that you can use at your disposal to keep squashing them.
The second game announcement I really liked was a Metroidvania type game called Ebenezer and the Invisible World which is a take on a Charles Dickens A Christmas Story novel where Ebenezer Scrooge has to enlist help from ghosts and use them to fight off against monsters and save the people of London. The gameplay shown for it looks amazing and the graphical artstyle is outstanding.
The third game announcement I enjoyed was a game called Sulfur which is a First Person Shooter that combines Role Playing elements where you can choose what play style with what weapons you want and upgrades you are going far when going against enemies. It helps to give out deep customization options for choosing how you play the game and everything shown for it so far was great.
The fourth game announcement I thought was great was a 2 vs 2 fighting game called Diesel Legacy The Brazen Age. It is a fighting game where characters fight off in 2 vs 2 matches and fights can also play out in multiple planes similar to SNK's Fatal Fury series where fights take place on two separate planes. At the moment only four characters have been confirmed with more characters coming soon.
The last game announcement I liked was one for Fortune's Run which is like one of those First-Person Shooter classic throwback games with the 2D art sprites alongside over the top carnage and blood and body parts being splattered all over the place. You do get to use a Samurai Sword and tear enemies apart much like the overlooked and forgotten FPS classic from 1997 Shadow Warrior.
So, it wasn't a bad showcase of games but however there weren't enough PC exclusives as many of the games were confirmed to be coming consoles as well. Also the showcase went on for far longer than it should have and there were plenty of games with no release dates.
I then move next to the Future Games Showcase for the 2023 Summer Gaming Fest with that showcase having two hours' worth of game announcements. It was an okay showcase of new announcements hosted by voice actors Yuri Lowenthal and Laura Bailey. Without going into detail on each announcement I will talk about the announcements I like the most, the disliked the most just to make things easier for myself.
So, let's start off with the goods, the first announcement I liked was Head Bangers Rhythm Royale which is going to be a musical rhythm Battle Royale type game, the trailer for it looked very funny.
The second announcement I liked was En Garde a swashbuckling action game where you play as a woman who goes around fighting enemies with combat that looks great and it is comical at times where you blind enemies by tossing a barrel on their heads.
The third game announcement I liked was during the VR games announcements they showed off a trailer for a new Wallace & Gromit game in VR for Meta Quest in Wallace & Gromit The Grand Getaway which looked sweet. I remember watching Wallace & Gromit plenty of times a child and while they have been Wallace & Gromit games in the past it is nice to see one in VR.
The fourth game announcement I enjoyed was one for Enchanted Portals which is a game inspired by Cuphead where it is a 2D platformer with artstyle is like those old cartoons and the gameplay shown was amazing.
The fifth and last game announcement I liked was one for The Spirit of the Samurai which is a 2D hack & slash game where you play as a samurai who has to go between the human world and the spirit world fighting enemies with a samurai sword and also other weapons like bows. Looks really fun.
So those were my favourite announcements in the Future Games Showcase 2023. It was a really good showcase with the exception that there were plenty of survival focused games similar to other survival games we had in the past, especially craft focused games that are similar to Minecraft. Also, many of the game announcements had no release dates on them as well but at least you can wish list them to keep tabs on them. So good showcase of games announced their Future Games.
I watched the Future of Play Direct 2023 showcase video to see what other new games are coming soon from indie devs. Most of the games announced in the Future of Play Direct were coming only to steam and had no final release dates on them.
Still the direct showcase of game announcements including some that I did like, the first I liked was the announcement of Atomic Picnic which is an Anime looking Third Person Shooter that showed off some great gameplay with shooting and also grappling. The second announcement I liked was one for Demon Spore which is an Top-Down Twin Stick Shooter like Smash TV where you shoot aliens coming at you. The third announcement that I really liked was In Stars and Time which it looked like Earthbound and I really do like the look of it, it is coming out on PS4 & PS5 as well as the Nintendo Switch. The fourth and final game announcement I liked was one for Slopecrashers where it features little furry animals riding down slopes on snowboards as well as also gliding.
Some of the other announcements were alright but the game announcements I didn't like was Love Shore which didn't really have much shown in the trailer and felt underwhelming, it showed a little game console called the PlayDate but however the system didn't look great and the games shown looked poor. Another game announcement Wildmender looked cool but however the sound got cut off. The showcase did have a fair number of Minecraft like games and they weren't too great.
Overall, it was a really good short showcase of indie games that were announced in the Future of Play Direct 2023.
Next, I checked out the Tribeca Games Spotlight video to see what announcements other indie devs have come up with. Some of the announcements were okay if at all nothing too special.
The best of the bunch showcased in the video was a game called A Highland Song which looks to be a 2D platforming adventure game and it looked pretty nice. Another highlight was that there was a new Telltale game announced with a game based on The Expense which for those who enjoyed all of Telltale's games so far will hopefully enjoy the narrative and story changing decisions that affect how the storyline plays out.
The other announcements were okay, Goodbye Volcano High a game that was previously announced at one of the showcases a year or so ago I think is given more talk about and some of the storyline reveal was pretty good. Chants of Sennaar looks absolutely beautiful in its graphics and artstyle, it looks to be an adventure game with puzzle elements based on the myth of Babel and what was shown looked kind of promising. Nightscape on the other hand didn't look too great, the graphics may have looked nice but the gameplay didn't look all that special. Stray Gods is a musical Role-Playing Game where you are able to pick different traits and be able to pick different narrative paths to see how the storyline plays out but it also affects how the main character sings and the style of music comes out. Despelote a game that was previously announced in Day of the Devs a year or so ago has you play as a kid who enjoys soccer, while the storyline and narritive shown for the game was okay they still haven't given out a release date for it yet.
So, it was a short and decent showcase of indie games and I did like some of the announcements alongside some of the talk from the dev teams who are working on the new games announced.
You know what, I think I should talk about the showcases that come out this month now and give small quick opinions on them. These will include what things I liked & disliked in the showcase and what I thought of them overall. So, no big full in-depth blogs covering everything in the showcases just to make my life easier.
So anyway, I watched the Devolver Digital Showcase 2023 and it was a short yet not really good showcase of games announced. Most of the showcase was involved around their mascot Volvy who returns as some kind of robot thing who announces new games.
Of all the games announced I liked that they threw in a trailer for Shadows of the Damned Remastered which was an overlooked crazy Third Person Shooter from Suda51 with Shinji Makami being the producer for it. The announcement for that game looked pretty good. I also liked the announcement of Baby Steps which is a game made by the devs behind the rage game Getting Over It.
Everything else about the showcase had really not so good announcements and they didn't show anything new for the upcoming new Hellboy game. Just some mascot who is going to be included in a bunch of previously released games as new content or something.
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