Road to E3 2017: Sony

Don't hate me. Do not hate me if you are curious and before you start reading you will go and check how long this article will be. Don't hate me if I will speak as a journalist, but also as a fan in love. Don't hate me if you share my words and the wait will become more exhausting than it already is. No you hate me, don't hate Sony with the dozens of content it could bring to that stage in Los Angeles. Love it. Love us even if after everything I write maybe something will be missing, because after all Sony he does things so big that even the most painstaking scribe could miss details among the hundreds of sheets. Sleepless as never before, we will be accompanied on the night of June 13 by expectations, curiosity, and a great desire to find out what awaits us this year. Last year the curtain rose majestically, complete with live classical music to accompany it, and it was the prelude to one of the most intriguing conferences in the history of the Japanese company. This year the questions are many more, and the unknowns that play hide and seek with the show's forecasts follow one another in a catch-all made of dreams and hopes. At 3:00 sharp, the curtain will go up again.

It is now at least three years that the waltz of the most important videogame conferences in the world is approaching the X dates arm in arm with rumors, previews, leaks, and everything that can load the spring of hype beyond belief. Many think it is good, not to accumulate too much news in a single day (especially with competitors) and spread all that is good between before and after. The other side of the coin necessarily requires that the importance and the charm of the surprise inherent in the conferences be distorted in the wait, making them wither. And in these weeks we can say that for Sony these voices have ceased to exist? Absolutely not, and they range without too many frills from triple A titles to real consoles, passing through desired remakes and various repropositions. Let's start from the hypotheses: we are in a historical period where, for better or for worse, nostalgia manages to pursue any player, and consequently there are many software houses that for our good (and for the gold, of course), are proposing us again more or less useful remastered or remake, some of which are loudly called by the public themselves. This is the case with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which after having earned an honorable space on stage during the last conference, is ready to arrive on our consoles at the end of June ... and if an announcement of return of a “racing” chapter dedicated to the marsupial? My mouth is watering already.

In the last two weeks, however, equally loud rumors have followed one another, due to an image leaked on the net, which among the many mascots of the new Sony titles ... also showed Spyro The Dragon! If everything we hypothesized a little while ago is true, the hopes of seeing the purple dragon appear out of nowhere on the Californian stage does not seem so far-fetched ... The succession of rumors, however, did not only cover the nostalgic aspect of expectations, but also the much more brutal one, which concerns the hunger for new challenges and new titles to be fleshed out alive. Continue the soap opera of Gran Turismo Sport, which hitch after hitch just doesn't seem to want to arrive on our consoles. A couple of months ago a rumor appeared on the net that wanted the game to be released in April, but it was soon denied, thus distorting all the hopes of the fierce drivers who were waiting in pole position. We don't know if he will burnout on the E3 stage too, but let's hope for the best. Who instead made us damn much more, making us dizzy even if it were a King novel, it was From Software, which after a few hours made us hypothesize the presence of Bloodborne 2 on stage in Los Angeles. Apparently, however, the rumors run fast, and an insider has instead declared the arrival on the stage not of the highly anticipated sequel to the exclusive PS4 (which, among other things, it is hypothesized to arrive next year), but of a totally new IP call "Phantom Wail". Could this really be the case? We may find ourselves in a vicious circle, and certainly these unconfirmed rumors only add to our sense of confusion.

Most likely, Michel Ancel's new PlayStation 4 exclusive will be able to carve out a small space on stage, that is Game, a title currently under development which in recent months has been shown with some images. Big absent instead of the American event will be Shenmue 3, which apparently sees its developers working hard even in this period, and consequently came the hard choice of not clocking the clock. Remaining on purely Japanese issues, this June could finally be the white smoke that will define the release date of Ni No Kuni II: The Revenant Kingdom to the public, which as we know has shown itself several times with new videos during the last semester. With the next title, however, I will go on to talk about a title that many will have lost along the way, either because so little traces have been seen in the last two years, or because the details have been so few as to remain in part only a shadow. with a name: Dreams Potentially one of the most fascinating titles planned for the PlayStation 4, it could be one of those titles capable of splitting the critics and the expectations of the public. The game is scheduled for this year, but doesn't have a release date yet: let it be the right time for Media Molecule (Little Big Planet and Tearaway) to shed some light on the story and get to know the game more closely?

Like any self-respecting show, we left the titles with more media depth right at the end, because this is what they deserve. Let's take a step back: in 2016 the titles that followed one another during the Sony conference were countless, with fewer words, and more games ... yes, we all loved it. This year given the amount of possible contents (and some practically certain), the conference modality could be confirmed the same on stage, and even the big names seen previously will be able to climb again ... but not only! Just think of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy which will arrive on our consoles this August, or to the sensational The Last Of Us: Part II which only came onto the scene during the PlayStation Experience. There are many chances to see both brands sharing the chair, given the skilled hands of N behind the titles. Obviously on The Last of Us we expect much, much more, being a title that in some way could mark the final passing of the baton, maybe the real transition phase that distinguishes the games of now, from those of the future. Without a shadow of a doubt, the two titles dedicated to the The Marvel movies that will blossom (hopefully as soon as possible) on Sony consoles, like lo Spider-Man di Insomniac, which from the premises and expectations is a candidate as one of the best titles ever dedicated to Spider-Man, but also the project dedicated to Avengers di Square Enix (although for the latter, we cannot predict on which stage, since it will probably not be an exclusive).

Impossible to have a full belly, if we have not yet sunk the claws of our greed on 4 other bombshell titles that await us, that we so much crave almost to become manic. Days GoneTo begin with, he seems to want to reinterpret the zombie apocalypse in a totally personal way. The vague details on the plot that have been served to us do not absolutely appease our curiosity, nor did we expect anything else. Yet on the stage that bears the 2017 plaque, I expect to see great things, especially to remind the world that he is there, and that he will be great. However, it would be hypocritical not to try to raise your hand like in elementary school and ask “But Detroit: Become Human where have you been?". Right observation little padawan. The exclusive title of Quantic Dream it is currently "the most unknown of certainties", after the same David Cage has called development a real battle, with an unparalleled calculation of possibilities, and which could somehow give life to the definitive graphic neo-adventure. Will he be on stage? Difficult to say, but needless to say, that is the hope.

"You were not made to live like brutes", but if your name is Kratos, even Dante Alighieri would have his doubts. After being the opener of last year at Sony, this novel God of War could be one of the surprises (but not so much) of this E3. More than news on the title, many clarifications are expected, dedicated in particular to what awaits us in the gameplay (which as we have seen during the year has sparked the skepticism of many fans). Even the plot and the transposition of this new warrior in the Nordic lands will need more than a few explanations, and we will all be there, ready to be satisfied.

Gently and terribly, we could not help but reserve the last piece for Death Stranding, currently in development by Hideo Kojima, defined by many as the absolute genius. As you will remember, it was he himself on the stage of Sony's E3 2016 who presented this new IP, where many others have not even entered (a few words, many games, remember? Ed). Even this title has been talked about a lot in recent months, and in an anomalous way these rumors concerned in particular the cast behind the characters (in addition to the already confirmed Norman Reedus, Mikkelsen and Del Toro). All in all though, the appearance of the title on stage is not obvious: in light of the development times for a project that is still half unknown, most likely Death Stranding is at the moment in an embryonic phase, and at the actual, I do not know what could be brought to the stage if not a new trailer (I think that for now we can forget about the gameplay).

Yet, after about 1660 words we still haven't talked about everything. Closing a circle that had opened with the voices, we return in fact to another hot topic of the last week: in fact, there was talk of hypothetical new Sony consoles currently in development, like a new one portable console or even the much coveted PlayStation 5. We do not hide the fact that the war at the market level has escalated, not so much for malice, but for how much the technology is moving forward and for how the products offered are actually the great gimmicks (just think of the newborn Switch hybrid, or the ultra performing Scorpio which will arrive within the year). This is how hypotheses and rumors of all kinds have been unleashed on the web, which must be combined with the forecasts of some industry analysts who foresee the arrival of a new Sony hardware in the course of 2018. Whether the reveal will come or not, we don't know for now, but if we do a couple of maths looking at all the names you have read in this editorial, we are absolutely certain that the two hours of Sony's E3 2017 conference will be packed with content, and that the real bombs will not be lacking. And who knows ... that revelations will come about new IPs? Among the hopes that are untied from all this, I would like the conference to transport us with great emotions, like when we heard the music start last year, like when we jumped up on our chairs for every single announcement. For this E3 2017 from Sony, I want emotions.