OneMoreYear// January 8th, 2021
If you are someone who considers themselves a gamer, you may have noticed that The Game Awards recently happened. And if you are anything like me, you were not in it for the awards, but for the game announcements. Unfortunately, there was no trailer, or information for the highly anticipated FromSoftware project ‘Elden Ring’ which is surprising to a lot of us, considering that development on the game began back in 2017 after the release of the ‘Dark Souls III’ expansion ‘The Ringed City’, so to not even see any gameplay by now is a little concerning. Perhaps having the notoriously leisurely George R.R. Martin on board as a co-writer is contributing to this.
That aside, let’s get on to the new titles that were announced at The Game Awards, I will be covering them in order that they appeared in the show
Perfect Dark (Xbox Series X/S – Windows)
The first game to be shown was a reboot of the 20-year-old IP, first developed by Rare, now being made by Xbox’s shiny new studio in Santa Monica The Initiative. The trailer has viewers onboard a drone, flying through a futuristic Egypt, and traversing the hallways of a corporate building, showing a path of destruction presumably left behind by Joanna Dark herself, as we see her standing atop the building, gazing out at a storm raging behind the pyramids. While as interesting as it looks, we didn’t see any gameplay, and seeing as The Initiative is a new studio, there isn’t a lot to say in what to expect. Nonetheless, I am sure this is exciting for fans of the series.
Back4Blood (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) June 22nd, 2021.
I have to admit, seeing this trailer was very nostalgic for me, and was probably the trailer that made me the most excited out of all the new game announcements. In 2011 when I got my first gaming PC, I got ‘Left4Dead’ and played it for hours with my friends. When I saw four people standing together, holding shotguns I thought for a second that Valve had done it; finally released a game with ‘3’ In the title. Then I realized at the end of the trailer that it is in fact being made by a former subsidiary of Valve, Turtle Rock Studios, who were for a time known as Valve South but split apart again after disagreements. The good news is that these are the people who made the original ‘Left4Dead’ game, the bad news being that they are also the people who made ‘Evolve’.
Hood: Outlaws & Legends (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) May 10th, 2021
This is an exciting new title, developed by Sumo Digital, a team responsible for a large quantity of games, including ‘Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed’ ‘Forza Horizon 2’ ‘Little Big Planet 3’ and the recent ‘Sackboy: A Big Adventure’. In the game players will take part in PvPvE, 4v4 multiplayer heists, where you must locate and obtain treasure, and escape with it. From what I have seen so far, the game looks like it is online only, and has four different classes to choose from, each one having unique abilities and weapons. Capturing treasure and giving back to the people, Robin Hood style, will grant you experience and allow you to upgrade and customize your character. It will be interesting to see how much content the game has, and at what price point it will be launching at as I am sure a large cost will turn people off. I don’t want to judge the game too much without knowing a lot about it, so for now let’s wait and see.
The Callisto Protocol (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) 2022
It was very exciting to see Glen Schofield on screen once again, knowing his passion for making horror games. After watching his interview with Ars Technica, he mentioned his desire to make another horror game and, being the creator of ‘Dead Space,’ I have high hopes for this project. The game is being developed by Striking Distance Studios, a new studio made in 2019 as a subsidiary of Krafton, the people behind ‘PUBG’, and actually ‘The Callisto Protocol’ is set within the ‘PUBG’ universe. Schofield said at The Game Awards “Our goal is to make the single most scary game, for PC and Consoles” and knowing his ambition, I am sure he will deliver, although if ‘Dead Space’ is to be taken as any kind of example, expect a lot of jump scares.
Open Roads (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) 2021
There isn’t a tremendous amount to say about this game. The trailer follows a young woman on a road trip with her mother, following clues left in her grandmother’s journal to find out about her mysterious hidden life. Visuals are an interesting blend of a seemingly painted backdrop, but with more cartoonish looking characters. One thing to note is that the game is being developed by Fullbright the people responsible for ‘Gone Home’, a game I happened to play a while back and enjoyed quite a bit. It seems like this will be a nice, indie mystery game that we can delve into sometime in 2021.
Dragon Age (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5)
Finally, a long-awaited announcement from BioWare regarding the whereabouts of their next Dragon Age game. It has literally been an entire console generation since the last instalment, ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’ which launched in 2014. In fact, I remember buying the game for my PS4 at the beginning of 2014. ‘Inquisition’ is the only title in the ‘Dragon Age’ series that I have actually played. If there is anything, I would have wanted from this next instalment it would be better combat. While I very much enjoyed the world and environments of Inquisition, I couldn’t help but feel like as I reached higher levels with my sorcerer that I was just wet noodling people. The final boss fight in the game coming down to me just standing there hitting the attack button while his health bar slowly chipped away, with very little threat of me actually dying. Not only that, but the world itself felt very shallow, with side quests that felt pretty boring, and a very generic main plot to boot. If BioWare could perhaps pick up on these areas, then there is some real potential for the next game to be a big winner for me, but with no gameplay shown, we have no idea how much longer we have to wait.
Endless Dungeon (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5 Nintendo Switch)
Due to release sometime “soon” ‘Endless Dungeon’ is a rogue-lite game developed by Amplitude Studios. The game boasted a moody trailer, setting the scene in some kind of jazz bar in space. The game certainly looks very beautiful with very clean and colourful cell shaded visuals. In terms of gameplay, you will be able to team up with a squad of up to 3 people and defeat endless waves of enemies. The game is set in the ‘Endless’ universe, but this isn’t something familiar to me, either way it looks like it could be pretty fun.
Crimson Desert (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) Winter 2021
‘Crimson Desert’ is an MMORPG and boy does It look incredible. It is being developed by Korean studio Pearl Abyss; the people responsible for ‘Black Desert Online’. The game had a very long trailer and certainly hyped itself up to be a very epic game, one thing that was surprising is that everything we saw happening was in game footage. In terms of its visuals the game is absolutely stunning; the environments, textures, and lighting being some of the best I have seen since ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’, although I have to say at times it looked a little over the top with all of the debris flying around in the wind, the sparks, and the constant camera shaking and motion blur during combat. Hopefully those features are not too distracting because it looks like something that could be extremely annoying. In terms of gameplay, it looks very ambitious, we saw a lot of combat in various environments from snowy, to desert, to grasslands. There were scenes where the player could be seen swinging from a vine and landing on a cliff face and climbing it Breath of the Wild style, as well as jumping on the back of a huge dragon, and flying through the sky avoiding cannon fire. It certainly looks impressive, but will it live up to the hype? We can only wait and see.
Season (Windows, PS5) 2021?
When the first few notes of the piano struck in this gorgeous trailer, I was immediately taken back to being a child and watching ‘Spirited Away’ for the first time, so this game hits hard on the nostalgia feels. Season looks to be a very lonely open world, exploration game by indie company Scavengers Studio. The trailer is short so we don’t know a lot but, from reading developer blogs, it seems like the core gameplay will be around travelling and exploring on your bicycle to record and photograph things around you before a “mysterious cataclysm washes everything away”. This one certainly looks like the kind of game to help you relax, and unwind after a long day at work, admiring the beautiful scenery and soundtrack.
ARK 2 (Xbox Series X/S) 2022
If the first game is anything to go by, ‘ARK 2’ will be a survival sandbox game set in the time of the dinosaurs, although this trailer had more of an ‘Avatar’ vibe, than a ‘Jurassic Park’ vibe. While I am sure I could have been a lot more interested in the game while watching the trailer, I couldn’t help being constantly distracted by the elephant in the jungle: Vin Diesel. I spent the entire trailer staring at the awkward facial animations and thinking to myself, “why is he in this game?” Either way, this game is still a while off, so we will have to wait until we see some actual gameplay before making any judgements on it, either way I was not impressed by the trailer and it just seemed to be very generic and boring to me.
Outriders (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) February 2nd 2021
Outriders is a third person shooter developed by People Can Fly. (formerly Epic Games Poland) the same people responsible for ‘Painkiller’, which makes a lot of sense when you see ‘Outriders’ gameplay. The game looks to be a very fast paced and intense, as gameplay mechanics restrict your ability to heal; healing can only be achieved if the player manages to kill or damage enemies. The game has various RPG elements to it; you can create your own custom character at the start of the game and choose between 4 classes that have their own unique abilities. The game can be completed solo but can also be played with up to two other friends. Honestly it looks pretty fun and could be a great time if you played with your friends, I often miss having good coop games to play such as ‘Borderlands’. We don’t have very long to wait for this one, so if gameplay looks promising, I may just check it out.
F.I.S.T (PS4, PS5) Spring 2021
‘F.I.S.T’ or as I like to call it ‘Overwatch: Trouble in Zootopia’ is an intense, action-packed, Metroidvania style game coming to PS4, and PS5 in spring of 2021, developed by Shanghai based company TiGames. The game certainly looks impressive, showing a wide variety of abilities in the short trailer, and could be a must buy for fans of the genre.
Evil Dead: The Game (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch) 2021
I never expected to see this announced but here it is, a video game based off the ‘Evil Dead’ film franchise. Developed by Boss Team Games, and Saber Interactive, the trailer shows four players standing in front of a cabin in the woods, ‘Call of Duty: Zombies’ style, battling hordes of enemies with a variety of weapons. The game is also set to feature PVP combat, and players will be able to utilize a skill tree to improve their character. Unfortunately, from the trailer the game did look a little bland, and as someone who has not seen any of the ‘Evil Dead’ films, I have no connection to anything I saw on screen, so basing it of just gameplay alone, it doesn’t exactly seem thrilling, it just looks like a strange mix of ‘Call of Duty: Zombies’, or ‘Left 4 Dead’.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Resurrection (Nintendo Switch) February 25th, 2021
Developed by Capcom, this game is a reboot of the old 1980s franchise that was initially released on the NES and in arcades. It certainly looks like it holds up to the spirit of the original in terms of its gameplay and unique visual style. The game looks like a lot of fun and could be a great pick up for Switch owners.
It Takes Two (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5) March 26th, 2021
It’s fair to say the trailer for this game certainly made a good impression on me. Two charismatic lovers are in a rocky relationship, when suddenly it appears that they have been turned into dolls. In order to overcome their problems, they must fix their relationship, and of course the game is completely coop, which in my opinion is something we don’t see a lot of these days, the last coop game I played was ‘Portal 2’. It’s a pretty cleaver premise for a video game, and it is one that certainly has me excited, another reason to look forward to the game is that it was developed by Hazelight the same people who gave us ‘Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons’.
Evil West (Xbox One, Series X/S, Windows, PS4, PS5v) 2021
Did someone say Van Helsing but set in the wild west? I’m in! There’s not a lot known about this game since the trailer showed no gameplay, however the description on Steam tells us that the game has a single player campaign where you can discover new perks and gadgets to improve your character, and an online coop mode which from the sounds of it, seems like a wave survival kind of mode. The game is developed by Flying Wild Hog, the people responsible for the ‘Shadow Warrior’ franchise and is due to drop sometime in 2021.
Mass Effect (To be announced)
And as the last trailer of the show, Mass Effect teases… something. I don’t know what exactly, but as if it is a marvel franchise it simply announces at the end of the trailer “…will continue” I have absolutely no idea what that means, and seeing as no gameplay, or in game footage of any kind was shown, we can expect that whatever the game may be, is a long way from being finished, especially since BioWare tweeted that it is in “early production”. Anything said about this title would simply be speculation at this point, nonetheless I’m sure it is exciting for diehard fans of the series, especially considering how much of a massive flop ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ was, particularly in regard to how it was received by the gaming community.
That just about wraps up this list. What are you looking forward to the most? What crucial bit of information did I miss out by taking way too long to write this article? Let me know by commenting and have a great day.
Thunder's Remnant 