After watching the Xbox Conference, Sony had to bring their A game to truly shine against what was announced. Did they nail it? In my opinion yes. They counter attacked hard with more game releases that are known and unknown to us. Time to have a look at my full thoughts.

First, Shawn Layden’s beard. It’s a pretty solid beard if I say so myself, well done Shawn. But facial hair to one side, The Last Guardian was the first game to be shown on stage which shocked people that were there. Of course there was a big worry about the games development but it is so good to see it back and looking just as good. It still looks beautiful and this time shows off some more gameplay showcasing the combination of both ICO and Shadows of the Colossus.

The developers behind Killzone shadowfall, Guerilla, had a new IP to show called Horizon: Zero Dawn. This is one game I definitely want to see more about. A pseudo post apocalyptic environment where humans are now hunting down animalistic mechs in order to survive. The combat and diversity here is really on point and the story seems quite intriguing as well with some slight Viking influences. I definitely want to see more of this as a new IP, I think it could do well on the PS4.

The demo of No Mans Sky was insanely impressive, to the extent where I really underestimated how large the games size truly is. There are literally so many planets that one of the developers said that you may never explore all of them. The other interesting factor is how he said the planet he randomly selected may never be found ever again after this presentation since the universes scale is so big. That alone has coloured me interested and I am now looking on to see how everything plays out in time along with a possible release date come 2016.

Of course there were two massive shock reveals that I think no one was expecting. Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III. The return of Cloud Strife in full HD, 60FPS has been a dream for gamers of the original for years and now Square Enix have unveiled that they are finally fulfilling our dreams. The scenes alone looked incredible and leaves a lot to the imagination as to how fantastic the game would look on a new age console. But it does have a lot of expectations behind it so I am hoping for full commitment from the developers. As for Shenmue III this was another cult classic which we thought would be as rare to come back as Half Life. However the original creator himself came out on stage to begin the official kickstarter for the project. Already as of writing this, the game has surpassed its original two million dollar goal and is now heading into the bonus content. Another large expectation is here but I think we are all psyched to see what Shenmue is going to look like on PS4.

All this and more were revealed during the Sony conference so be sure to watch the video for my full thoughts and let me know what you think in the comments.

by Dominic Coles | June 16th, 2015