E3 might not be happening this year, but Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest has stepped in to provide the fire hose of hype-filled trailers and game announcements that would usually happen during an E3 week.
Don’t have two hours to spare to watch the livestreamed kickoff event. No problem. simply skim through this page to catch up on all the announcements.
Aliens Dark Descent showed off a heavily cinematic trailer that featured the titular aliens and strongly evoked James Cameron’s movies. Brief gameplay scenes showed a squad of marines shooting at Xenomorphs from an isometric perspective. Coming in 2023 to Xbox and PlayStation consoles as well as PC.
The Callisto Protocol was the first of many Summer Game Fest games to bring up strong Dead Space vibes, right down to the camera angle. A brief trailer and gameplay demo highlighted the “extra gore” including ghost-like enemies and the protagonist getting chewed up by the blades of a giant fan and a motorized gear. Coming December 2 to consoles and PC.
Flashback 2 is a sequel 30 years in the making, bringing the original 2D puzzle platformer from 1992 to a new generation. The game was announced last month, and a very brief teaser showed hard-to-parse scenes with a lot of careful walking to the right and a 3D motorbike section. Coming to PlayStation and Xbox consoles as well as PC in winter 2022, followed by the Switch in 2023.
Fort Solis features the vocal talents of Troy Baker as a medical officer in the titular fort, where something horrible is happening on a lonesome planet where assistance is not close at hand. The thriller is described as “Dead Space meets Duncan Jones’ Moon” with a focus on discovery and many different modes of traversal. No announced release date yet for this Steam release.
Stormgate pre-rendered cinematic trailer featured a lonely archeologist finding a powerful shield on a seemingly deserted planet. But when she’s attacked by huge, winged demons flooding through a “stormgate,” she needs to hide behind that shield while receiving some assistance from a soldier in a railgun-equipped mech suit. A developer of the free-to-play real-time strategy game promised “no play-to-win,” and players can register now for a planned 2023 beta.
Highwater comes from the makers of Golf Club: Wasteland, and takes place in a similar world ravaged by climate change. The “narrative-driven isometric survival game” will feature a protagonist taking a motorized raft through the ruins of civilization, taking on armed guards in turn-based combat as they try to sneak onto a rocket to a better world. Coming in 2022.
Goat Simulator 3 is not a typo; that’s the name of this first sequel to the ridiculous 2014 breakout hit. A cinematic trailer for this follow-up sees multiple goats causing absolute chaos behind a jogger on a boardwalk, firing rocket launchers, and driving vehicles. Coming in fall 2022 to the Epic Games Store.
Midnight Fight Express stood out from the Game Fest crowd as a game developed by a single person: a father from Poland. The isometric action featured the requisite brawling, dodging, and shooting in some stylish environments. A demo is live now on Steam ahead of a planned August 23 launch.
Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero are anime-infused action RPGs coming to the “Hoyoverse.” The short trailer seemed reminiscent of games like Genshin Impact and Nier Automata, with a lot of lore that will likely make sense to people who are already immersed in the world of these games. Honkai: Star Rail is already available in beta, while Zenless Zone Zero has just started development.
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1860076