Early June is a very important time indeed for the gaming calendar; it’s when the big companies host their presentations, showing off all the things they’ve got on their upcoming slates.
Depending on your perspective, this summer gaming season was either a slam dunk or a washout. The big publishers did indeed hold showcases, but whether or not they held anything particularly exciting is another matter.
Let’s embark on another look at the week in gaming news and see what’s been happening in our favourite hobby this week!
Like a Dragon is coming to TV
We’re not sure whether you should call streaming series “TV series” any more, what with the on-demand streaming revolution that’s taken over the industry and everything.
Either way, Yakuza, which is now known as Like a Dragon in the west, is getting a TV series (or streaming series) on Amazon Prime later this year. To be precise, three episodes will air on October 25th, and the remaining three are coming the week after.
Like a Dragon: Yakuza (confused yet?) will star Ryoma Takeuchi as Kazuma Kiryu and will be set across a ten-year period between 1995 and 2005.
It’ll be directed by Masaharu Take, and it sounds like it’ll be adapting the story of the first game given the period in which it’s set, although Amazon does say the show will feature an “original story”.
Suicide Squad sounds like a messy story
It’s not often we shout out other journalists and outlets on this site, but we have to give props to Jason Schreier, an investigative reporter who’s been working in the biz for a while now.
Schreier’s latest report for Bloomberg was released this week, and it takes a look at the inside story of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a messy flop that cost Warner Bros a lot of money.
If Schreier’s reporting is correct, Suicide Squad went wrong largely thanks to a culture of “toxic positivity” that discouraged criticism, as well as a sense that everything would coalesce towards the end of development.
Sadly, that doesn’t seem to have happened, especially if Suicide Squad’s disastrous commercial performance and weak critical reception are anything to go by.
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard
This week, EA and BioWare announced that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is undergoing an identity shift. It’s now called Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and we’re finally getting to see gameplay soon as well.
We’re not entirely sure that we’re on board with the new name, but it’s nice that Dragon Age is finally coming out of hibernation, or so it seems. Whether it’ll please Dragon Age fans remains to be seen.
Apparently, the game will feature seven companions, all of whom will have “deep and compelling” stories for you to discover. You’ll be able to romance any of them, too.
It’s not clear whether any past Dragon Age characters will be returning yet, but at the very least, you can almost certainly expect everyone’s favourite roguish dwarf Varric to make an appearance.
Summer Game Fest 2024: Guerrilla Collective
The Summer Game Fest showcases kicked off this year with the Guerrilla Collective presentation, which showed off some impressive-looking indies and slightly bigger projects.
Maligned platformer Yooka-Laylee is getting a remaster, complete with some improvements that might make it a little less frustrating to play (as well as a visual upgrade, of course).
We also got to see indie darlings like Antonblast, Echo Generation: Midnight Edition, and Demonschool, as well as a ton of other indies that make us wonder why we even need the AAA sector at all.
Summer Game Fest 2024: Summer Game Fest Live
The next major showcase on the schedule was Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest presentation, during which we got to see a ton of games, some of which we didn’t know about.
Keighley had already done his best to set expectations before the show, and indeed, this year’s felt decidedly more muted and low-key than previous years, with less of an emphasis on major new blockbuster titles.
However, we still got to hear about some impressive new projects like Lego Horizon Adventures, which takes Aloy and friends to the blocky world of Lego, as well as reveals for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII and Alan Wake 2’s Night Springs DLC.
Take a look at the Summer Game Fest 2024 show here if you want to relive it in all its glory.
Summer Game Fest 2024: Xbox Games Showcase
Next up in the showcase calendar, it’s the Xbox Games Showcase, which, as you’ve probably already guessed, is all about games heading to PC and Xbox in the future.
We have to admit that we thought the Xbox show was probably the best of the bunch this year, even if it wasn’t particularly exciting considering that we didn’t actually learn that much we didn’t already know.
Still, we got to see reveals for Doom: The Dark Ages, a ridiculous-looking medieval shooter, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which looks…well, it certainly looks like a new direction for the series.
You can check out the Xbox show in its entirety here.
Summer Game Fest 2024: Ubisoft Forward
Ubisoft’s upcoming slate of games includes Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Star Wars Outlaws, and a remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and we got to hear about all of them during the showcase this week.
The Sands of Time isn’t coming until 2026, which honestly feels completely absurd given what should be a fairly limited scope and the lengthy development time of the project, but at least Ubisoft is managing expectations, we suppose.
We also got a reveal for a new Anno game in the form of Anno 117: Pax Romana, a very interesting-looking Ancient Roman city-builder that will let you live out your dreams of building a Roman metropolis.
Here’s the Ubisoft show in full.
