As Sony announce Until Dawn 2, they also reveal release dates for multiformat games including Onimusha: Way Of The Sword, Silent Hill Townfall, and Ace Combat 8.
It may have been one of the longest State of Plays ever, at over an hour, but Tuesday night’s showcase was a little short on surprise announcements. There was God Of War Laufey, which took up 20 minutes at the end, but that had been heavily rumoured beforehand – not that that took anything away from the actual reveal.
In fact, almost everything shown, including both first and third party games, looked interesting and the one thing the event did provide was lots of release dates, with games such as Silent Hill Townfall, Control Resonant, Ace Combat 8, and Onimusha: Way Of The Sword finally revealing their schedules.
Tomb Raider: Legacy Of Atlantis was also dated, but unfortunately it confirmed previous rumours that it has been delayed. Either that or it’s trying to get out of the way of GTA 6 in November. It’s hard to tell, but at least it didn’t go with a September release date, unlike seemingly everything else.
Marvel’s Wolverine – September 25
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Surprisingly little time was spent on Wolverine, which may mean there’s a dedicated State of Play coming up in the future. It looked great, just as you’d expect, and extremely gory, with a cameo from Jean Grey and confirmation of villains such as Mystique and Sabertooh. Its release date wasn’t news though, as that had been previously announced.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls – August 6
The release date for Arc System Works’ one-on-one fighter also wasn’t a revelation, although Sony did announce a number of villains for the game, namely Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, and Carnage. We weren’t sure who the character sitting on the throne was but apparently he’s called the Champion of the Universe (aka Tryco Slatterus) and he’s the big bad of the whole game.
Rayman Legends Retold – October 1
There’re almost no surprises in preview events nowadays, with everything being leaked out weeks and often months in advance. The reveal of a 3D remake of 2013’s Rayman Legends was a surprise though, in the fact that it looked really good. There are a few new into-the-screen sections but the gameplay is still mostly 2D and the new 3D visuals look really nice, and seem to maintain the same charm as the original.
Bancho The Chef – TBA
Speaking of charm, we’re not sure it’s a good idea to create a spin-off from not-indie game Dave The Diver that doesn’t maintain the same pixel art style graphics. That made the visuals look rather bland in comparison, but nevertheless there was a good energy to the trailer, with a prequel that shows how Bancho became the talented sushi chef you see in the original game. There was no mention of a release date though.
Kemuri – 2027
One of the only major surprises of the night was the latest from The Evil Within’s Ikumi Nakamura and her new studio Unseen. It seems to be a co-op action adventure, somewhat in the style of Devil May Cry et al. There’s lots of jumping and gliding around, as you fight yōkai and then… turn them into clothes you wear in order to use their powers. Because why not.
Tomb Raider: Legacy Of Atlantis – February 12, 2027
A delay for the (second) remake of the original Tomb Raider seemed inevitable after the rumours began but at least it still looks good, with some impressive visuals and lots of focus on dinosaurs. There was also lots to suggest the game is sticking pretty close to the original story, although we’re yet to see much evidence of how it will handle platforming, which was originally the antithesis of the Uncharted style action from the more recent games.
The Lost Wild – 2027
Speaking of dinosaurs (and there’s few things we enjoy doing more) this new game comes from Annapurna Interactive and is by a new British studio called Great Ape Games. It seems to be some kind of survival games, and a lot more scientifically accurate than most dinosaur media, with a lot of feathered dinosaurs and some gigantic Quetzalcoatlus flying reptiles (pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, ackchyually).
Dune: Awakening – September 22
A survival game and MMO that takes influences from both the books and movies, this has been out on PC for almost a year now. It’ll come to PlayStation 5 this September, bringing with it a new single-player story mode, which we imagine will also be made available for the PC and Xbox Series X/S versions.
Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered – October 1
Not a remaster we look forward to with much enthusiasm but there you go. Like most of these games it’s available on Xbox Series X/S and PC at the same time, although unsurprisingly the State of Play made no reference to that.
No Rest For The Wicked – October
Despite what we just said this is coming to PlayStation 5 first, sometime in October, with Switch 2 and Xbox versions arriving only at a ‘later date’. This will be the final 1.0 version of the game, which will hopefully improve on the slightly questionable impression made by the early access release.
Onimusha: Way Of The Sword – September 25
This release date would’ve been one of the bigger reveals from the State of Play, except it leaked out early too. Either way, Capcom’s Resident Evil-esque zombie samurai game was already one of our most anticipated games of the autumn, as we were very impressed by our hands-on preview last year. Although you can give it a whirl yourself now, as there’s a free demo out today.
Silent Hill Townfall – September 24
For a game set in Scotland we’re still yet to hear a single Scottish accent in any of these trailers, which is weird because developer Screen Burn are actually Scottish. They’re responsible for the excellent Stories Untold and the awful Observation, so we’re not sure what to expect with this one, although in terms of Silent Hill atmosphere everything does seem to be on point.
Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve – October 2
Available in early access from September 29, presumably if you buy one of the more expensive editions, you can see what we mean about September getting very busy. It’s all obviously GTA 6’s fault but we hope this doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Although there’s a pre-order bonus of a port of PlayStation 2 game Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War on offer, to tempt you into making an early purchase.
Stuntman: Hollywood – TBA
It probably says a lot about us that the only licensed car we didn’t instantly recognise was the first one, which is apparently from Fast & Furious. Although apparently that’s not Mad Max towards the end, but the Jason Statham version of Death Race. The game itself is a revival of the old Stuntman series from Driver creator Reflections, which is surprising as the original’s trial and error gameplay made it an acquired taste.
Ill – 2007
There’s no doubting the craft in this first person action horror game but it is a very grim prospect, with some truly horrible imagery and some extremely difficult to kill zombie style enemies. It’s certainly going to scare off a lot of more casual Resident Evil fans but in terms of hardcore horror thrills this is definitely one to watch.
Control Resonant – September 24
A lot of these publishers will be finding out about the release dates of other games at the same time as you, so if they’ve any sense some of them will change them pretty quickly, because at the moment Remedy’s Control sequel is coming out on the same day as Silent Hill Townfall and a day before Onimusha: Way Of The Sword – which isn’t good news for any of the games.