When you buy through affiliate links in our content, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn Sony Playstation’s State of Play‘s games showcase played live to a global audience today, offering reveals and teasers about the future of PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR 2.
The live stream, available to replay below, portrayed the year ahead for the PS5 and Sony’s virtual reality offerings.
During the presentation — watched by more than 200,000 people on YouTube — we saw the multiplayer first-person-shooter Concord, the first VR Alien game (yes, that Alien series), a return to Silent Hill, and the dress-up world of Infinite Nikki, among many other things.
Join us as we explore the first look at the games that are going to light up consoles and VR headsets for 2024 and beyond…
Watch Sony PlayStation’s State of Play May 2024:
Concord
Asad Qizilbash, Head of Product at PlayStation Studios, introduced Firewalk Studio‘s PlayStation-exclusive Concord, showing a hi-def multiplayer universe.
It’s an upcoming game that everyone compares to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but until the game is released, we find this comparison a little reductionist — there’s room in the universe for more than one banter-filled, robot, and engineered-mutant combo team, in this case known as the Free Gunners.
Either way, it looked glorious, surely pushing the PS5 to its limits. Think Fortnite but turned up to the max.
The team promised balanced gameplay and “opportunities for improvisation”, with storylines that will be revealed via cutscenes released weekly.
It is coming as a beta in July and will be available widely on August 23, 2024.
Alien Incursion
Color us terrified because Alien Incursion on VR 2 is not for the faint-hearted.
Stepping into the gloriously terrifying movie ‘Alien’ franchise dreamed up by H. R. Giger, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher (the third film was not that bad), the first gameplay showed us exactly what your worst nightmares might show — sneaking around a space base as a xenomorph stalks you.
The first next-gen Alien VR game, Alien: Rogue Incursion is a single-player, action-horror game featuring an all-new storyline.
Sony positioned it as a “high tension shooter developed with Unreal Engine 5, where players will need to stay frosty as they explore an overrun facility on the inhospitable planet Purdan”
To this we have to say: In space, no-one can hear you scream… But in your living room, wearing a virtual headset? Everyone’s going to hear you.
If this measures up even halfway to 2014’s Alien: Isolation game, we have a hit on our hands when the holiday season hits.
Silent Hill
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Silent Hill”
Staying within the horror and thriller realm, the Silent Hill saga is back, and it’s a fog-shrouded town that needs no introduction for those who have lived through a couple of generations of PlayStation.
Our teaser was short but not without gore. Prepare for jump scares galore, bent-necked creatures, and tension you can cut with whatever you can get your hands on.
Infinity Nikki
Let’s go a little lighter, with Infinity Nikki, an open-world dress-up adventure, coming to PS5 — with beta testing in Q3 2024.
The Nikki series is a collection of dress-up games that have evolved over the course of 12 years. In the fifth installment, dress-up gameplay merges with the open-world genre and the world of Miraland.
Infinity Nikki starts with Nikki and her friend Momo arrive in a Miraland that’s from an alternate timeline.
We are promised that “a great world lies before them, bringing infinite possibilities and more challenges. However, Nikki’s resolve remains unwavering as always.”
The game’s trailer shows Nikki switching between outfits to utilize their special abilities.
Floating Outfit: Nikki becomes lighter and can effortlessly float over obstacles.
Purification Outfit: Nikki releases magical orbs to save creatures that have been corrupted by demonic energy.
Gliding Outfit: When navigating through a large stone forest, Nikki wears this to glide through the air on a flower she summons.
The PS5 levels blend puzzle-solving, collecting, and platforming, including mine carts, miniature worlds, and ghosts.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins
Dynasty Warriors has a history stretching back to 1997, and now we get an electrifying new entry into the series.
In the game that pitches 1 vs. 1,000 battles, the developers promise “the largest armies ever seen in the series”.
Developers Omega Force say that, for the first time in Dynasty Warriors franchise history, “we will depict the chaos of the Three Kingdoms from the eyes of a ‘nameless hero’.”
We have a little while to wait until battle commences, however, with Dynasty Warriors slated for release in 2025.
Ballad of Antara
If the above felt a little heavy on reboots, franchises, and old favorites, then Ballad of Antara may tickle your fancy. The action RPG is a new IP and will be free to play.
The Ballad of Antara is a vast world — in fact two of them.
In the ‘normal’ version of the world, common folk reside. In another version, peculiar sightings and encounters await.
Gamers are promised the experience of two intertwined fates through exotic landscapes with multiple playable characters, switching between two worlds “of normalcy and unimaginable”.
The game offers multiplayer support for up to three players and, via the developers TipsWorks Studios, “has been a huge undertaking for the last four years”.
We look forward to it, too, as well as a future announcement of the first open beta.
While we wait, it is well worth watching the 30-minute presentation above. If all of these games deliver what they promise, the future of PlayStation is assured.
