Well folks, we made it. The PlayStation 5 was officially unveiled today during a two-hour livestream event, wherein we all learned that its design is a lot more, uh, interesting than many of us (read: me) anticipated, and that Sony is still leaning heavily on the whole “console exclusive” thing to make its case for PlayStation ownership.
That said, Sony still showed off a hell of a lot of stuff to get excited about today, including some genuine surprises from PlayStation history that I wouldn’t have predicted. Most of these games have ambiguous release dates, with some stretching as far into the future as 2022 and others having no set date at all, so don’t expect to have this whole list at your disposal come launch. And speaking of launch, we still have no idea when that might happen beyond sometime this holiday season, or how much either of the PlayStation 5 models (with disc drive or without) will cost.
Anyway, here’s all the new games that were announced during today’s proceedings, listed in alphabetical order. I’m leaving out stuff that’s been previously announced for PlayStation 4, like Cyberpunk 2077, as well as Grand Theft Auto 5, because that game came out in the late Cretaceous period. This is a post for new games on a new console.
For the purposes of this list, “True Exclusive” games will only ever appear on the PlayStation 5, based on the information currently available. “Limited Console Exclusives” will eventually move to platforms beyond the PS5 and PC at some indeterminate point in the future. A couple of these games are also coming to PlayStation 4, so I’ve marked those for your convenience as well. Stay safe!
Astro’s Playroom
[Launch / True Exclusive / Japan Studio]
Just as the PlayStation 4 launched with a pre-installed suite of augmented reality games starring the lovable robot Astro, so too will the PlayStation 5 launch with Astro’s endorsement, only this time there’s no AR stuff because Sony and Microsoft’s joint initiative to put cameras on all of our TVs failed miserably. Astro’s Playroom mostly looks like a showcase for the new DualSense controller’s haptic feedback stuff, and like all good controller gimmicks this will probably be one of the only games that makes interesting use out of the feature.
Bugsnax
[Holiday 2020 / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / Young Horses]
The Octodad people are back with a game about eating bugs made out of food. The trailer’s humor doesn’t really land, and it’s sort of unclear what you actually do in the game (beyond the aforementioned food-bug eating), but I’m on-board with the strong Pikmin vibes. That hamburger spider is hilarious, and hey, Kero Kero Bonito did the theme song! I love them!
Deathloop
[Holiday 2020 / Limited Console Exclusive / Bethesda, Arkane Lyon]
One of two games unveiled today based on being stuck in a time loop, Deathloop is a first-person shooter wherein the player is the sole piece of prey on a Most Dangerous Game-style resort island of people hunting. Can you kill your way to freedom before the island’s resident assassin — who might be another real player if you’re playing online — takes you out and resets the timeline?
Demon’s Souls
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Bluepoint Games, Japan Studio]
Remember when the YouTube rumor mill promised you that Sony Japan Studio and Bluepoint Games were working to port Bloodborne to the PC? Well, this is what was actually happening. It’s Demon’s Souls, baby! The true birth of the Souls genre, once lost to history as a PlayStation 3 exclusive with dead servers, now coming back to life at some point in the future as a PlayStation 5 exclusive with living servers. From Software’s name isn’t anywhere on this reveal trailer, so it doesn’t look like they involved, which is a bit odd. This makes it difficult to know what mechanical changes, if any, we can expect from Demon’s Souls 20XX ver., but hot damn does it look spectacular.
Destruction AllStars
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Lucid Games, XDEV]
Hey, remember Twisted Metal? What if it was Fortnite this time? (Jokes aside, the part where that lady turns her car into a knife and then cuts another car in half with her knife-car was pretty rad.)
Ghostwire: Tokyo
[2021 / Limited Console Exclusive / Bethesda, Tango Gameworks)
Originally unveiled during last year’s E3 by the incomparable Ikumi Nakamura (who was Ghostwire: Tokyo‘s Creative Director at the time, but has since left Tango Gameworks), this is our first air-quotes “gameplay” look at Ghostwire: Tokyo. You can see ghosts and they seem pretty unhappy about it!
Godfall
[No Release Date / Limited Console Exclusive / Gearbox Publishing, Counterplay Games]
Remember this thing? Godfall was actually the first PlayStation 5 game shown publicly, way back in the before times during the December 2019 Game Awards. As the teaser trailer implied at the time, this “gameplay reveal trailer” (a phrase that really holds a lot of weight coming from Gearbox) confirms that Godfall is an action-RPG loot game heavily focused on melee combat. Where it falls on the Devil May Cry/Dark Souls spectrum remains to be seen.
Goodbye Volcano High
[2021 / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / KO_OP]
Sad animal people have feelings about high-school and you’re going to hear all of them!
Gran Turismo 7
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Polyphony Digital]
It’s been an entire console generation since Gran Turismo 6 came out on the PlayStation 3 in 2013, and people don’t seem to have lost any enthusiasm for cars in the interim so I guess it’s time for another one of these. Gran Turismo 7 has no release date, but it does have a good framerate and some really fantastic looking cars from what the trailer shows. It also has Sarah and Rupert, two sentient pieces of clip art that are very excited to tell you about the game’s lifeless map and various car parts, respectively.
HITMAN 3
[January 2021 / PS4 + PS5 / Not Exclusive / IO Interactive]
Agent 47 is back to do a bunch of slapstick murders, only this time his collar is popped and he’s got a grudge to settle of some kind. I’m including this game in the list because it was debuted during today’s presentation, but this isn’t a Sony-exclusive jam, even in the Limited Console Exclusive sense, so you’ll be able to throw fire extinguishers at capitalists on your Xbox consoles as well, presumably. Hitman 2 was every bit as good as the first was, so more of That™ won’t be a bad thing. It’ll be interesting to see if IO Interactive works to bring all of the content from the first two games into Hitman 3, as it brought Hitman 1‘s content to Hitman 2.
Horizon Forbidden West
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Guerrilla Games]
Horizon: Zero Dawn protagonist Aloy is back for a sunny vacation in the burnt-out, reclaimed ruins of San Francisco, where she meets a giant robot turtle and is still a white lady with dreadlocks. The evil red plants from Steven King’s Dreamcatcher are here to kill all the cute animals, including a fox, and Aloy is the only person brave enough to free-climb a mountain in order to stop it them! I guess! I didn’t play the first one so there might be some context I’m missing here!
JETT : The Far Shore
[Holiday 2020 / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Exclusive / Superbrothers]
Canadian design firm Superbrothers returns to video games for the first time since 2011’s Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP with JETT: The Far Shore. Based on the trailer, it seems like humanity is totally boned (accurate) and must find a new planet elsewhere that isn’t ruined yet. As far as the actual video game part goes, all we’re shown is a few shots of rockets flying over landscapes from an isometric perspective; whether that’s all there is to JETT remains to be seen.
Kena: Bridge of the Spirits
[No Release Date / Limited Console Exclusive / Ember Lab]
Every new console generation needs a Dreamworks Animation-lookin’ action-adventure game, and thus we have Kena: Bridge of the Spirits. Save your highly merchandisable forest friends from the evil, not-cute parts of the forest and return life to nature by yelling. Also it looks like there’s some Pikmin stuff in here too? Those goobers are a little too focus-test cute for my liking, but one of them has a frog on its head at one point so that guy is cool in my book.
Little Devil Inside
[No Release Date / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / Neostream Interactive]
It’s euro-chibi Monster Hunter in a really expressive aesthetic that feels like a French short film for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, with some classism undertones to boot, so I’m here for it. Well, I’m here for everything except the part where the protagonist shoots that bear in the butt. That bear probably didn’t do anything to deserve getting shot in the butt. (This is also true of bears in real life.)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
[Holiday 2020 / Might be on PS4 too, hard to tell / True Exclusive / Insomniac Games]
Insomniac has heard the will of the people and is producing a Spider-Man game staring the correct Spider-Man, Miles Morales. All eyes will be on Insomniac to see how it handles a game set in New York City starring a Black protagonist in the wake of this year’s unbridled police violence against BIPOC in New York City, during what would otherwise have been peaceful solidarity protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for nine minutes last Memorial Day.
The end of the trailer specifies that all of the footage was “captured on PS5,” which seems like a weird thing to specify if the game were only coming to PlayStation 5, which makes me think a PS4 port is also in the works. Since the trailer doesn’t specify, however, I can’t say for sure.
NBA 2K21
[Fall 2020 / PS4 + PS5 / Not Exclusive / 2K, Visual Concepts]
Basketball is back and sweatier than ever.
Oddworld Soulstorm
[No Release Date / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / Oddworld Inhabitants]
Holy shit y’all, remember Oddworld? Never in a million years would I have expected a new Oddworld game at any point in the future, let alone during today’s high-profile reveal showcase. Based on the trailer, it looks like Oddworld Soulstorm is picking up the long-dormant series where it left off, embracing the darker tones of the original PlayStation Oddworld games, Abe’s Oddysee and Abe’s Exodus, with a return to the series’ 2D platforming roots. There’s no release date, so who knows how long we’ll have to wait to find out if there’s a fart button in this one.
Pragmata
[2022 / Exclusivity Unknown / Capcom]
This is probably my favorite trailer of the whole bunch, so it pains me to tell you that I don’t think this game is ever going to come out. Capcom loves to debut incredible looking, mysterious trailers when it’s time for a console launch, and then just kinda … never mention them again. Remember Deep Down? I’m worried that Pragmata is the Deep Down of a new console generation. Alternatively, 2022 is far enough in the future that when this does eventually come out, it may not look anything like this — remember that first trailer for Metal Gear Rising? Granted, that was Konami and not Capcom, but I’ve been hurt before, is what I’m trying to get at. Right now it just doesn’t feel like the world is kind enough to give me a game where I’m an astronaut parent to a little girl on a space station that may or may not be a robot and also there are hologram cats.
The trailer doesn’t say anything about this being a PlayStation exclusive, console or otherwise, but it also doesn’t list any platforms at all — another strong indicator that Pragmata is a lot further out than one and a half years from now — so who knows. I want to believe.
Project Athia (Working Title)
[No Release Date / Limited Console Exclusive / Square Enix, Luminous Productions]
Are you ready to question truths and doubt your devotions? Because it’s time for an action-adventure game from a Square Enix studio with no release date, and that means it’s time to question the fuck out of some truths.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
[No Release Date / Might be on PS4 too, hard to tell / True Exclusive / Insomniac Games]
My oldest sister Erin will be very pleased to know that Ratchet and Clank are back! Hot damn she loved those games. Anyway, this trailer contains the worst jokes and most yelling out of today’s trailers, but Clank’s reflections look really accurate so I guess that counts for something. Rift Apart also ends with a “captured on PS5” disclaimer, so again, it’s possible this one is also coming to PlayStation 4 too. There’s no release date listed in the trailer and the YouTube description is empty, but if it’s a cross-generation title one would assume that it’ll be out sooner than later.
Resident Evil Village (but the “Vill” in Village is actually VIII, the Roman number for eight)
[2021 / Not Exclusive / Capcom]
People are going to call this game Resident Evil 8 and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, and indeed, in order to optimize all future posts about this thing, I’m going to have to keep typing “Resident Evil 8.” I just want to make perfectly clear, though, that the game is called Resident Evil Village. I will always be right about this. Anyway, Resident Evil 7 protagonist Ethan Winters is back with another dead wife, as is series mainstay Chris Redfield, who once again looks completely different from every other time he’s shown up in one of these games. I’m digging the bleak, desaturated euro-folklore vibes in this trailer and am very excited to learn more about Lady With Big Hat, so here’s hoping that Capcom can continue RE7‘s trend of bucking series norms by doing something fresh.
Returnal
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Housemarque, XDEV]
We finally arrive at today’s other game based on being trapped in a time loop, Returnal. In this one you’re an older woman (awesome, love to see it) trapped in a time loop on an alien planet (perfect, keep going) that presents itself differently every time she dies and wakes back up (beautiful, nailed it). It’s also a roguelike and a third-person shooter (oh no)? The first two thirds of this trailer feel like an incredible adventure game that I would absolutely love to play, but then the shooting starts any my enthusiasm deflates. Sony says that “players can switch instinctively between firing modes by using a single adaptive trigger and can get right back into the action after dying,” so it sounds like there’s a heavy emphasis on the combat. Hopefully it feels great and I’ll end up loving it anyway!
Sackboy A Big Adventure
[No Release Date / True Exclusive / Sumo Digital, XDEV]
Sackboy is back, and this time Media Molecule doesn’t have anything to do with it! And also no, officially there is no colon in the title, so it’s just Sackboy A Big Adventure.
Solar Ash
[2021 / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / Annapurna Interactive, Heart Machine]
One of two Anapurna published titles shown off today, Solar Ash is a new game from the makers of Hyper Light Drifter, with a familiar vibe and heavy undertones of Sonic the Hedgehog, weirdly enough.
Stray
[2021 / PS4 + PS5 / Limited Console Exclusive / Annapurna, Blue Twelve Studio]
More like Anapurrrrrna, right? Eh? Sorry. Anyway, it’s the future and everybody is sad robots, except the cats, who are still cats. Or are they?? (There is no indication in this trailer that the cats are not just cats.) One of the cats has a smart little vest on, and Vest Cat is trying to escape a “long-forgotten cybercity” to find their way home. No clue on what kind of a video game it is or what playing it looks like, but I’m on-board with the premise.
And that’s it!
That’s video games, baby!
