Between all the announcements made during the Summer Game Fest and Future Games Show (the latter happily sponsored by yours truly), and a traditional influx of industry news before the summer slowdown, there’s quite a lot of info to dig through! Read on for June highlights curated by the Mana team ✌
Summer Game Fest announcements that made us violently inhale in full unison:
First of all, THIS interview with Todd Howard, where IGN had the Bethesda exec spill some long-awaited beans. Starfield's main quest will be longer than anything else the studio ever made; and while we're at the game's grandeur, Atlantis, one of the main cities, is also the biggest dwelling in Bethesda's history. Plus, expect a 1,000 different planets! And here we were thinking Skyrim had a lot of caves to explore... Howard also confirmed Starfield being heavily inspired by FTL and MechWarrior, but with absolutely unique combat system. Once it comes out in 2023, we're going to spend the first year on character creation.
Aliens: Dark Descent – quite different from the brilliant Isolation (we’ll circle back to that one, read on!), Aliens: Dark Descent isn’t about creeping around solo in the dark, confined areas of an almost-empty space station. Instead, we’ll command a squad of tough-as-nails Colonial Marines and try to squash a massive Xenomorph infestation. If you’re a fan of the second movie, we’ll say less.
Stormgate – imagine the geniuses who worked on Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 went and started a new studio, and then sat down to make the next iconic RTS… that’s exactly what happened when the Frost Giant Studios came to life. Blending a futuristic setup with some familiar fantasy elements, Stormgate is said to be the first utterly social RTS with every game mode playable with friends.
The Callisto Protocol – here’s for another space jam spooks! Instead of Xenomorphs, we’ll face fellow inmates as they turn into monsters in a maximum-security prison located on, you guessed it, Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons. Promising to be much more non-linear than Dead Space and deliver ample amounts of fear at once with not only fights, but also immersive narration, The Callisto Protocol is the title we can’t wait for.
Goat Simulator 3 – it’s about goats and there is no Goat Simulator 2. You don’t need to know anything else.
Nightingale – first-person, open world, PvE survival title with a Victorian fantasy setting (instead of a Norse mythology one)? Count us in! There’s something wildly addictive about this genre of games – perhaps it’s the scraping to stay alive, perhaps it’s the crafting (and the Minecraft love talking)... Nightingale seems to bring a unique take on the world, throwing us into various Fae-but-also-steampunk-ish realms.
Gotham Knights – a little tear fell down some eyes when the first thing we heard about Gotham Knights was “Batman is dead”. Thankfully, the Bat-fam (including Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin and Red Hood) is there to put the baddies (and apparently cops?) in their place. The game looks like a darn intense action-RPG with co-op options and the vast city of Gotham to explore freely. And it’s coming out on October 25!
In other news:
Star Citizen and Starfield will go head to head in 2023. Both heavily anticipated, both about to deliver the greatest space adventures we've ever had in gaming! We're incredibly curious how those two, despite Starfield being an RPG and Star Citizen an MMO, will approach shared themes and features. There's a market allowing a successful coexistence, though: gamers more interested in storytelling and character progression will probably opt for "Fallout in space", while fans of sandbox multiplayer (and realistic simulators!) may stick with Star Citizen. We, for one, are going to enjoy both!
Charizard leads the 6th Pokemon GO anniversary! From Wednesday, July 6, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday, July 12, 2022, at 8:00 p.m. local time, expect tons of fun and games, among them a special Field Research, Weekend Battle, and rarely encountered Pokemons showing up more often. And don't forget Pokemon GO Fests, this year starting in Berlin (July 1-3), then heading to Seattle (July 22-24), and concluding in Sapporo (August 5-7)!
People behind Alien: Isolation are working on a new sci-fi FPS! As our buddies from Games Radar report, Creative Assembly has been working on a brand new and completely mysterious title since 2018. As much as no beans were spilled and there’s no indication it will have any scary flavoring, we’re still excited.
Another hint at Mortal Kombat 12 was made. Andrew Bowen, the voice behind the broest of bros, Johnny Cage, in a now-deleted tweet thread showed himself working on something in the Warner Bros. lot. In January this year, Jonathan Andersen from NetherRealm Studios uploaded a screenshot of his desktop that was very telling (and promptly deleted).
Fallout 5 is confirmed and will be released after Elder Scrolls 6. Todd Howard himself reassuringly told IGN that “Fallout's really part of our DNA here”, but considering that Starfield was announced back in 2015, and Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production, Fallout 5 might come just in time to spice up our retirement, but…
Fallout: London, a thick, DLC-sized, fan-made mod to Fallout 4, may just sweeten the wait! A new (and really promising) trailer arrived on YouTube, and the game is to be released next year. Need more convincing that Fallout: London will rock our socks? Bethesda actually hired one of the mod writers as a quest designer.
Elden Ring speaks gibberish. If you thought the game is channeling dark arts in an ancient language of civilizations lost as you’re sweating in that 40-something boss attempt, well, you’re wrong. Pretty much all the lyrics were computer-generated and mean absolutely nothing, as confirmed by a student of Latin. Maybe it just makes perfect sense in the face of ER’s nihilistic atmosphere.
Capcom “reawakening”, not “remaking” Resident Evil 4. Whatever difference the Japanese developer is pointing at here we have no idea, but they had us at the promise of the game being “much darker” than the 2005 OG.
Dragon Age 4 finally got a title reveal at the beginning of June. If you’re a fan of RPGs so solid they instantly became legendary at the release, there’s a big chance Dragon Age Origins is your long-time favorite. 🎶 It’s been a looong time 🎶 since DA: Inquisition saw daylight (8 years, to be exact), but at long last, we got a) the title – Dreadwolf, referring to the biggest Inquisition a-hole, b) a promise to find out more about the game in the upcoming months. BioWare, we’re ready for the release. Like, now.
Nintendo Direct Mini announced Persona and Portal games coming to Switch – along with a multitude of other third-party titles. Nier: Automata, Return to Monkey Island, and RAILGRADE are just a few examples of treats Switch players can expect this year; what’s more, some brand new games were revealed as well, Super Bomberman R2 or Harvestella among them.
July PlayStation Plus games were just revealed: you’ll get to play Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (PS5 & PS4), The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan (PS4), and Arcadegeddon (PS5 & PS4) at no extra cost if you’re a PS+ subscriber!
And with that, we're kicking off the deliciously laidback summertime! What news you heard in June got you the most excited?