The Sony press conference just wrapped up here at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Opening to a live orchestra conducted by none other than Battlestar Galactica‘s Bear McCreary, we launched immediately into a series of back-to-back trailers and gameplay demonstrations with minimal interruption.

God of War

With the slow play opening, Sony launched without preamble straight into the new God of War, showing an aged and grizzled Kratos taking his young son for a stroll through the woods. And he’s kind of a hard ass. The preview showed seamless cutscenes going into combat and back out again. The new installment of everyone’s favorite godkiller takes place in the far north as Kratos battles the gods and monsters of the Norse. Also, of course, there’s a dragon. Soundtrack by Bear McCreary.

Days Gone

A drifter, a bounty hunter, a mercenary: this is how the protagonist of Days Gone introduces himself. A post-apocalyptic open world game by Bend Studios, an extended clip of gameplay at the end of the event showed just a tremendous amount of zombies on display.

The Last Guardian

Some new footage aired at the press conference, but most importantly: we have a date. October 25 2016 will see The Last Guardian, finally, hit our TV screens.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

A young woman protagonist seeks knowledge long gone in this open world game which was first announced last year. Today, we got to see real, substantive gameplay as the woman heads out into the valley, where she immediately runs into giant robot crabs. She’s able to identify their trails and launches an attack, knocking a cargo pod off the back of one crab and looting items she later turns into two explosive traps. This game looks quite good, reminiscent of The Witcher 3.

An impressive taming sequence showed the woman take down a robot elk, reprogram it, and take it for her own uses. With the added gameplay on display this year, we all have a much better feel for what this game is.

Detroit: Become Human

We saw a new trailer for this Quantic Dream game which bears David Cage’s signature branching narrative style.

Resident Evil VII

The gameplay demo for this first-person horror game that starts in media res, with a phone ringing in a dilapidated room. Answer it, and a voice tells you: “Get out of there now or they’ll kill you.” The player for the demo decided instead to slowly stagger around the place. This is how Resident Evil VII opens, along with the announcement of a release date — January 24th, 2017 — and a demo live now with PS Plus. In addition, the game will support Playstation VR fully throughout the entire game.

PlayStation VR

Speaking of PlayStation VR, we have a launch date for the hardware: October 13, 2016, retailing for $399. Sony expects 50 games available by end of the year, including some big franchises and some small ones. Here’s a quick rundown on some of those VR titles:

Farpoint
- A PS exclusive sci fi VR game by Impulse Gear, Farpoint features enormous terrifying spiders bursting from the ground and stunning vistas on an unknown planet. While not much more was shown, Farpoint looks like more of a fully imagined product than what followed in its wake:
Battlefront: An X-Wing Mission
- Star Wars makes its entry into the VR space with what looks like a VR X-wing fighter simulation.
Batman: Arkham VR
- Being produced by Rocksteady, due out in October 2016, exclusive to the Playstation VR.
Final Fantasy XV VR Experience
- A Final Fantasy XV trailer made its appearance (along with a reminder of its release date, September 30th, 2016), and riding its coattails, the announcement of a FFXV VR Experience, which looked very much like a point-to-move first-person VR shooter with FFXV’s main characters.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

From the bridge of a spaceship of war to the hangars in her belly, where mechs stroll and fighters launch out of tubes, the next installment of Call of Duty looks simply amazing if you’ve ever dreamed of piloting fighters in low orbit, then jumping out of your cockpit to repel boarders with a gun. GRAPPLING HOOKS get you around in zero g combat and a next-gen riot shield also functions as a dead or alive filter for the enemies floating around you in space. After the main event, Activision slipped in a little reminder that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is coming back, in a new remastered edition, in case the space thing doesn’t work for you. (No word on whether this remastered edition remains accessible only to those purchasing Infinite Warfare or whether Activision will let you buy it a la carte after all.)

Crash Bandicoot

Coming back to Playstation! The cheers in the audience were real, but the proceedings became decidedly tamer when it was announced that Crash would first be appearing in Skylanders: Imaginators in October. This latest entry in the toys-to-life franchise is now poised to dominate its niche again now that Disney Infinity has left the market.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The next installment in the grand tradition of Lego’s 1:1 remake of movies, with a little extra Lego humor infused into the proceedings. A taste is available now, with the full game out in two weeks.

Death Stranding

…is the name of Hideo Kojima’s new game. Andrew House took the stage to introduce Kojima with great fanfare. Kojima marked his entrance with two words, “I’m back,” and noted that the trailer we were about to see was rendered in-engine. Then, a William Blake quote showed up on screen and the game was debuted. Norman Reedus found a newborn in the dark sands of some hellscape, but no, that was just some weird trip, and that’s all we know about Death Stranding at this point.

Spider-man

Insomniac closed the conference with the announcement of a new Spider-man game. While what was shown certainly looked good, Spiderman games are a bit like videogame movies — that is to say, the track record doesn’t support this one being any good.

We’ll be following up with our in-depth coverage very soon!

God of War (series)