Sony E3 2014 PlayStation liveblog!
With the Xbox One taking center stage this morning at Microsoft’s press conference, Sony’s trying to own the evening with its own PlayStation-focused event tonight. What’s in store from the folks behind the PlayStation 4? We’ll find out soon enough, but allow us to venture some educated guesses: a new God of War? Perhaps an update on the long-in-development The Last Guardian? A PlayStation Vita/PlayStation 4 bundle? We’ll find out starting at 9PM ET!
With the Xbox One taking center stage this morning at Microsoft’s press conference, Sony’s trying to own the evening with its own PlayStation-focused event tonight. What’s in store from the folks behind the PlayStation 4? We’ll find out soon enough, but allow us to venture some educated guesses: a new God of War? Perhaps an update on the long-in-development The Last Guardian? A PlayStation Vita/PlayStation 4 bundle? We’ll find out starting at 9PM ET!
OKAY! It took some doing, but we’re live inside Sony’s massive press conference event.
Our team’s all plugged in and ready to go! We have Ben Gilbert and Tim Seppala on text; I’m on photos and Brad Molen’s across the way bringing you pics from the opposite end!
I’ll be your liveblogger today, along with my very tall colleague Tim Seppala. He’s joining us any minute.
To my left is Joseph Volpe, our photographer is Zach Honig and, just for fun, we’ve thrown in Edgar Alvarez and Brad Molen.
I got my Katy Perry wish here at Sony; it was a mash-up with Nirvana, but I was pretty okay with all of it.
A sea of MacBooks over in the blogger camp. As always.
Like Microsoft’s ultra-green arena earlier, Sony’s is decked out in PlayStation blue. There are floating PlayStation symbols on a massive wraparound screen.
This year we’re back in the LA Memorial Sports Arena, which is still a MASSIVE venue. It’s about the same size as the Galen Center, where Microsoft’s event was earlier today. Make no mistake: Sony and Microsoft like spending a ton of money on large venues.
A pic from afar of myself, Ben GIlbert, Joseph Volpe and Zach Honig all the way to the right, all courtesy of our photographer Brad Molen. It’s a good thing I look good in blue! However, I also look like I’m towering over Mr. Gilbert. It happens. http://t.co/IbDVz33c82
Unlike last year, there aren’t any game developers on-stage playing their own games while we wait for things to start. Instead, we’ve got mash-ups of classic songs and THUMPING BEATS. Such is life.
Since things aren’t so exciting at the moment; Zach’s amusing himself by taking awkward photos of people. It’s truly delightful, but we can’t share those images because we’re not total jerks.
Though we are partial jerks.
Anyway, what do y’all expect to see tonight? Get at us on Twitter! I’m @RealBenGilbert, Tim is @TimSeppala and Joseph is @jrvolpe. Lavish us with your guesses!
As it turns out, Justin Timberlake mixed with Daft Punk isn’t a good idea. Not two tastes that taste great together, unfortunately.
Sony has forgotten that Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories came out last year; “Lose Yourself to Dance” and “Get Lucky” were playing outside and now a mash-up of “Get Lucky” and JT’s “Suit and Tie” is on.
The lights are dimming; the music has stopped; people are clapping: THE SHOW IS ABOUT TO BEGIN.
As the Joker once said, here we go.
We’re starting with a trailer — nay, a montage — of the world of PlayStation. That world involves a lot of circle, triangle, x and square symbols.
Okay, we’re out of montage-land and moving quickly into trailer territory. We’ve got a handful of astronauts on Mars, in “present day, and they’re looking at a crazy orb floating in the sky. We’re talking about Bungie’s next game, Destiny (er, we think).
“Great cities were built on Mars and Venus. Mercury became a garden world. Human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles.” Yup, this is Destiny.
A gravelly narrator speaks of the fall of human civilization, centuries after humanity’s “golden age.”
As it turns out, Destiny is a game about saving the world from humanity’s end. From “darkness.” Apparently, once more, “You are Earth’s last hope.”
This game looks better every time I see it. Can’t wait until September.
The good news is that Destiny continues to look fantastic. Space? Check. Shooting alien dudes? Check. Going to the freakin’ MOON? Double check.
SCE head Andrew House is out now and he’s welcoming us all to the show. Why thank you, Andrew.
Today’s presentation is centered on showing why PlayStation 4 is the “best.” House has already taken a shot at Xbox, by pointing out that resolution on PlayStation 4 is “best.”
House says we’ll get Destiny on PlayStation 4 first on July 17th. That’s a beta. BUT WAIT, there’s also an alpha and that’s THIS WEDNESDAY. How about that!
Oh, and apparently there’s a “glacier white” PlayStation 4. It arrives on September 9th alongside Destiny, and it comes with a free 30-day membership to PlayStation Plus.
Next new property that will be available only on PS4. It looks shadowy, and possibly survivalish. There’s a heavily armed gent sneaking through a shadowy room.
The game looks very creepy, lots of neat lighting filters and effects. Remember Resident Evil 4′s film grain look? It’s sorta like that.
It’s The Order!
As it turns out, The Order: 1886 is super, super creepy? Who knew?!
And now there’s a horrific monster that literally just transformed and got even scarier after our protagonist stopped its feeding.
Thrown through a window, it looks like the game shifts between pre-rendered cutscenes and gameplay pretty fluidly (like The Last of Us did).
The lighting and detail are extremely impressive, though we’re a bit worried about how much of this is cinematic versus playable content.
Now the gent is crawling, wounded pretty badly, gritting his teeth and running from that same creature.
The creature looks like an overgrown Gollum, covered in blood and not charming whatsoever.
The gunplay looks “heavy,” and the demo ended with said beastie jumping at our unnamed protagonist.
Up next, something a lot lighter. As in, a polygonal goldfish and bird saying hello to each other. A pale sun sits behind them, and then they take off on a romp together. It looks a lot like the art style of That Game Company.
The Order: 1886 still hasn’t had a lot of details announced about it just yet; hopefully that changes this week. I’m personally super excited for it.
The game is called “Entwined,” and in terms of gameplay, it looks like Rez.
The game is a new title from a company named Pixelopus, which is internal to Sony.
Entwined has a sort of Panzer Dragoon mixed with Flower look and feel about it.
The world looks wildly different, some abstract and some based in nature. It looks calming and pretty!
If you’d like to get a better idea of how it is, you can go to the PlayStation Store right now on PlayStation 4 and buy it for $10. It’s coming to PS3 and Vita as well through cross-buy. Hey! Alright!
I’m really cool with all of the announcements we’ve seen today that give access to what was just announced being available right now.
And now, for some standalone Infamous Second Son DLC. It’s cold and in the winter, apparently.
It looks like it’s centering on the girl who gave you the neon power in the game, Fetch. She’s being interviewed by a therapist.
Could this explore the backstory with her brother?
It’s called Infamous First Light, available this August.
LittleBigPlanet 3! That’s apparently a game!
The folks from Media Molecule are up on stage and they’re introducing new mechanics through a new character named “Oddsock.” Sure, why not?
Oddsock runs like a dog, and it’s just about as adorable as you can imagine.
I don’t think it’s possible for anything Media Molecule makes to not be charming. Seriously. A smile just reflexively spread across my face when LittleBigPlanet 3 popped on stage.
There’s another new character, and his name is…Toggle? Toddle? Tuggle? They all have very British accents; we’re doing our best here.
Birds and socks! In a game! And you can play with them!
The third new character is named “Swoop,” and he can fly. It looks like Sackboy’s got a little gang going now, eh?
Nothing is safe from this roofing-nail-laden hinge-trap.
Live demo, folks! The team on-stage is working together to get through various platforming objectives. Things are going well enough, but, ya know, there’s some intermittent deaths.
The concept with the four characters isn’t just to add more adorable sackpeople, but also to alter the standard gameplay of LBP.
But let’s be honest, they’re all pretty adorable.
I just hope this does enough to shake up the “collect all the balloons” goals.
Sackboy’s having some trouble, but thankfully Swoop can pick him up and lead him to safety. Progress!
And that’s that — the quartet of cutesy characters completed the level, taking off in a cardboard spaceship. As you might expect, LittleBigPlanet 3 is coming to the PlayStation 4. Hurray!
We’re seeing a trailer of it right quick and it’s got some uplifting, vaguely international music playing. We dig it! Sackboy’s threads have never been clearer.
The game arrives this November. So that’s one of the games coming to PlayStation 4 exclusively this holiday, eh? Sweet!
Sony Worldwide Studios lead Shuhei “Shu” Yoshida is out now. He’s got a big smile and he’s talking LittleBigPlanet. He says that, when LBP3 launches, “You can just go online and play” any of the levels from previous games. The graphics will even look better!
But forget about LBP — Shu’s introducing “a completely new IP from one of the industry’s most respected game developers.”
The game is called “Bloodborne.”
Hidetaka Miyazaki is behind it, the man behind Dark Souls and the president of From Software.
It’s dark, a very gothic feeling starting form the top of the city down to a dungeon, very medievaly.
And now there’s a slew of villagers and undead dogs (?) and a bloody corpse being dragged. There’s a lot of blood and unskinned people here, folks.
And a man with a very large gun, who’s killing ghouls.
Bloodborne, true to its name, is full of blood. Just tons of blood.
Onto gameplay now, from the looks of it. A gent carrying a large torch is looking over a room of skeletons. And we’re ending the demo with a jump scare and a 2015 release window.
This is very likely “Project Beast,” the rumored next game from Miyazaki. And now, Far Cry 4!
Alex Hutchinson is out on stage talking about it, the creative director. His time on stage is brief though, as we’re already jumping into a gameplay demo. Ajay Ghale is the name of the main character, apparently.
The level is full of prayer flags as Ajay descends a cliffside. It’s very pretty, but also looks a lot like a first-person action game. Plants are clipping through rocks, and the movement is a bit stiff.
Pretty sure the last time I was in the Himalayas in a video game was in Uncharted 2. The setting seems awfully underutilized.
Apparently there’s a grapple your player can use, enabling Ajay to sneak up on… bad guys? We’re not actually clear on why he’s killing these dudes, but we’re gonna assume they did something mean to Ajay’s family or something.
Crossbow bolts to the base of the spine: almost always fatal.
The setting is certainly unique, and we like the little touches. Ajay hijacks an enemy car and it’s full of local flavor, like flowers and bells.
Casually, while driving alongside a mountainside, Ajay jumps from his car into an enemy truck and kills everyone in it. No big. Then he narrowly escapes a rock falling by PUTTING ON A WINGSUIT AND FLYING AWAY. We like action, but this is a bit extreme, even for Far Cry.
What’s not extreme? That awfully adorable elephant that’s shooting water over its back.
The elephant is on a rampage now, taking dudes out. It’s getting very real in the Himalayas, everyone.
Should you need help after descending from the mountainside, Ajay called in a helper in a heli and started raining down bullets on an encampment. WHAT DID THESE PEOPLE DO TO AJAY?!
That elephant though. Seriously.
Adam Boyes taking the stage and that means one thing: indies.
And if all that weren’t enough, Ajay freed an elephant, which ravaged the camp.
Or not? You can invite Far Cry 3 players to join in your game for co-op even if they don’t own the game.
Dead Island is up next. Er, Dead Island 2? Probably that.
This song from what’s almost assuredly the new Dead Island trailer is “I’m the Bomb” by Pigeon John. You might have heard it in Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD, first.
A douchey-looking tanned white dude is jogging along the beach. Unfortunately for him, he’s turning into a zombie as he runs. It’s pretty gross.
But the people behind him getting attacked by zombies are hilarious!
A massive zombie-murder van pulls up and takes out all the zombies. Hooray! This looks a lot like Dead Rising now. What happened to all the seriousness, Dead Island?
In the Diablo Ultimate Evil Edition, enemies like Bloaters and Clickers from The Last of Us will be in the game.
Dead Island 2 is getting a beta, exclusive for 30 days on PlayStation 4. It’s all about the exclusives tonight, apparently.
Now for another Battlefield: Hardline trailer.
Look y’all, I really like Battlefield. This game does not look like Battlefield. It looks like a Battlefield-inspired action game. I wanna be into it. I can’t get into it.
It’s much more controlled than what we saw at EA’s event earlier, but you can apparently grapple up the sides of buildings now, and there’s a lot of car chasing. Again, if this game launches and works well from the get go, I’ll be very impressed.
Adam’s talking Destiny once more. A ton of content is arriving on PlayStation 4 exclusively, including a “strike” on Mars.
More new property, with Paradox Interactive, who makes a lot of RTS and games of that nature for PC.
So, we’re seeing what looks a lot like Death being very lonely around his house. Except he’s wearing a red robe and polishing a staff that destroys everything, even his cat.
Magicka’s back!
The game? Magicka 2. It’s an isometric jaunt.
“Learn to spell, again!” Puns!
The last letter that Adam’s got behind him comes from Sally T., age 10. She’s asking for Tim Schafer’s old games, the man behind games like Monkey Island.
Grim Fandango is apparently heading to PlayStation 4! That’s a classic that’s been locked away for years.
Okay, some big news form Devolver Digital. All of the following will be making PS4-exclusive debuts. BroForce (PS4/Vita), Titan Souls, Not a Hero (PS4/Vita), Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PS3/PS4/Vita), The Talos Principle.
Wow, Devolver Digital’s come a LONG way in the past few years. These games all look incredible!
The latter is only coming to PS4.
AIVAnet 