Ghost Of Yōtei – definitely out this year, probably (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
The Monday letters page feels that being a game developer is no longer a desirable job, as a reader is upset the PS5 version of Forza Horizon 5 is digital-only.
Exclusive news
I see there’s not much in the way of new games scheduled for March and after the Sony State of Play I’m still not clear if they’ve actually got any exclusives planned for PlayStation 5 this year at all. I know that the Returnal sequel isn’t this year, but I don’t think they said that Wolverine was 2025, did they?
I know I’m not the only fed up with Sony’s attitude but this year they don’t even seem to have big third party exclusives like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or Stellar Blade. Asleep at the wheel doesn’t even begin to cover it, as far as I’m concerned.
I think the other reader talking about just giving up and switching to PC is probably right. Unless the Switch 2 is something better than I’m expecting. I haven’t been impressed so far but if the April reveals are good then I may have to Switch to Nintendo, just to have some decent exclusives to play.
Renton
GC: Ignoring Days Gone Remastered on April 25, the next exclusive is The Midnight Walk on May 8 and then Lost Soul Aside on May 30 – although neither are by internal first party Sony studios. Ghost Of Yōtei is but it doesn’t have any release date, just sometime this year. Wolverine doesn’t have a date or year.
Any old format
If barely half of PlayStation 4 owners have upgraded to PlayStation 5, I really don’t see any reason why Activision would make Call Of Duty current gen only, or EA with EA Sports FC. It’s such a small leap in graphics anyway, I wonder if we could end up seeing games being released across three whole generations.
Maybe Call Of Duty 2028 will be out on PlayStation 4, 5, and 6! Doesn’t seem too ludicrous to me, especially as technically GTA 5 has already done it. I think in a sense that Xbox are right and the format you are playing on is becoming increasingly unimportant.
I’m sure the Switch 2 will have plenty of support even though it’s barely more powerful than a PlayStation 4. We’ve reached a level of graphics now where anything better is just a luxury, one that the sort of people that play Call Of Duty won’t care about.
Pitacran
No future
I don’t get why Microsoft isn’t giving a physical release to Forza Horizon 5. The only possible reason I can think of is that they want to keep the Xbox version seeming special, but that goes against everything else they’re saying at the moment.
Given the recent PSN outage I am more committed than ever to buying physical wherever possible. Even though I know, in my heart of hearts, that it’s pointless. If I turn my console back on in 40 years, and try and play something from today’s era, it’s never going to work properly without updates that by that point will no longer be available.
It’s so strange to know that games being released today are going to be unplayable in a few decades, but I’ll always be able to plug in my old NES Mega Man cart and have it work.
Grant
The greatest era
I’m loving the look of that new Terminator 2 game.
The 16-bit is my favourite era and I look back on it fondly. Having said that, due to licensing issues and time constraints the movie tie-ins all felt a bit slapdash and the results where mediocre to not great.
I look back on games like Super Mario World and think that’s as good as platforming could have got due to the console limitations at the time.
Games based on movies? Not so much.
It’s an interesting concept to take on an old franchise from that era and turn it into a game that fits the time, so gaming dinosaurs like me can say to ourselves, ‘I wish this game was available when I was a kid’. Right the wrongs so to speak.
I hope it turns out as good as it looks, and I really do wish them the best of luck with it.
The reader who mentioned RoboCop, that’s a great shout. I had it on the Game Boy, it was OK but I was willing it to be so much more.
Here is to hoping Terminator 2 turns out to be a good game and they make enough money to start turning their heads to other franchises of that era.
freeway 77
No condemnation
It’s a shame to hear about Monolith Productions. Especially upon reading that they made the F.E.A.R. games and Condemned. Who can forget that bear chase in Condemned 2 and that game was so crazy to play through. I regard F.E.A.R. and Condemned as being part of a high point in gaming among the first person shooter genre, as around that time there was those games as well as The Darkness, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Doom 3, etc.
And as an Xbox Series X owner reading the stats on gaming time I can state I have never bothered with live service games, unless you count GTA Online as one. Nope, I have only stuck with single-player games mostly.
Icelticghost
GC: GTA Online is definitely a live service game.
Thankless task
Long time fan.
It is really disheartening to hear that many readers don’t seem to value the people who dedicate their lives to building their games.
I work in IT as a data analyst. Although I do some programming, it’s nothing compared to the unbelievably complex works of art that games developers produce.
For many, games developers/designers are the topmost talent in the programming world. They really are masters of their craft, having to create realities, characters and stories from raw data, using the most intricate coding and problem-solving skills. They appear to work crazy long hours, needing medical attention at times, to be rewarded by hateful comments on social media, pay that can never keep up with their work hours, and finally redundancy – most often due to the ineptitude of their management executives’ choices.
About 13 years ago, I once met a developer in Guildford who had been working for Codemasters on their racing games. As an F1 fan, I was gushing about how amazing it must be to be one of the chosen few who could actually build top tier games. Looking agitated, he immediately countered that he wanted to leave the industry for a less stressful job with shorter hours, as he was being worked to the bone. He was looking at many non-game programmer roles.
With this knowledge, I would never recommend anyone become a games developer. The risks far outweigh any reward. In fact, if my children ever bring up this career path, I’d persistently dissuade them.
At this rate of decline in numbers of game developers, I fear that games will become boringly bland copies of older games made by AI, lacking anything new… never mind the human cost.
Gamers should probably be careful what they wish for.
BFG
Anything but Castlevania
Thanks for the review of Ninja Cop. I’ve always known about this game but never saw it in shops when it was out and then it became too expensive to get second-hand.
I’ll probably get the remaster, especially if it’s in a sale, but I wonder why Konami took till now to release it? It’d be neat if they were going to do a sequel. Although that’d be even weirder if they did that and still no Castlevania. I’ll take it though.
Arnie
A new challenger
I agree with GC viewer Tony T. that the Elder Scrolls 6 may be released too late, as the recent releases of sandbox type games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 show just how good they can be compared with Bethesda and CD Projekt Red’s games.
The streamers I have seen playing the game have heralded it as a big win for Warhorse Studios and Deep Silver. It’s amazes me as to all the stuff you can do in the game and the variety of places to visit. Another important point is the characterisation and the handling of them all. So many interesting and funny conversations are experienced here, in what surely has set a bar for The Witcher 4 and The Elder Scrolls developers.
Reading the messages on X, from some of the developers behind the project, shows just how proud they are of the talented team that they were a part of and how it all came together. I would love to see a documentary of the game’s development and the ideas behind it all and the artwork that inspired them.
So when finally the next Witcher and Elder Scrolls game gets released, it’ll be nice to have another contender and possibly a new role-playing style to enjoy, as we wait for the more well-known developers to release their products in the future.
Alucard
Inbox also-rans
I really do not get the appeal of Monster Hunter Wilds. I’m not sure I’d even take a day off for it, if I knew I had to play it the whole time.
Focus
I would so love Half-Life 3 to be a Nintendo Switch 2 launch game. Only problem is I think there’s about as much chance of that as the reveal event being hosted on the moon.
Laxmate
Games Inbox: What is the next big PS5 exclusive?
