Everything Everywhere Once A Week (5/26/2023)

Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This week had previews and showcases and all sorts of other things to keep us busy and talk about, so let’s not waste time and jump into the biggest stories of the week.

The First PlayStation Showcase in Two Years

Over the years, I’ve asked various people who would know why Sony seemingly dislikes the traditional gaming showcase model so much. They parachuted out of E3 before the plane’s engines gave out, they backed out of Paris Games Week, PSX, etc. In the era where game announcement streams became the replacement for the major event presentations, PlayStation has always seemed not quite avoidant but certainly not embracing of the concept and I was curious why.

The answers I got never really made for a solid, single answer. Some people told me it’s less expensive and clearly successful to do it the way they currently do, which is a fair answer. One person suggested that bureaucracy would prevent any major structural changes so why push for something that doesn’t seem necessary? There was also more than one person saying they want certain game reveals to feel like events and not just be another announcement in a list next to a CG trailer.

But all eyes were on their showcase this past week if only because they have their coming out parties so rarely these days. All those eyes on their event this week and still the reaction was decidedly mixed. I personally dug the show as several things shown — Dragon’s Dogma II, Spider-Man 2, Granblue Fantasy Re:link. Metal Gear Solid Delta — were things I am looking forward to playing. A lot of other people were hoping for a series of bangers that defined the PlayStation’s remaining generation.

I don’t think it’s wrong to want that, but I think the reasons we didn’t get that were partially strategic.

They Dug a Reputational Hole

PlayStation is fighting a war on several fronts, but one of the most prominent is the ongoing case against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Sony has been arguing through the entire process that buying Activsion-Blizzard would give any platform holder a monopoly over the exclusive video game market, while Microsoft’s counter to this has always been that Sony’s exclusive software stable is so bulletproof that it doesn’t matter what they do from the back of the line.

While I’m unsure this was the entire motivation, I can definitely see a line of logic in pulling some big things — hypothetically, a new Uncharted or a new Ghost of Tsushima — to prevent the appearance of an overwhelming wave of first party content. Those hypothetical games will still come regardless of when they’re announced and one of Microsoft’s arguments against a monopoly is not strengthened due to announcing games too early.

Just a theory.

Game Development is Catching Up to Sony

The types of games Sony makes and publishes now are different from the quirky and often experimental house they were in generations prior. They’ve carved out their place as the purveyor of the biggest, highest-budget AAA single-player games out there and they deliver on that promise both critically and in sales. They seem content to keep doing exactly this, too, with additional diversification into GAAS titles with Bungie acting as the Worldwide Studios tastemaker.

I don’t see them ever giving up that crown, but I do think they realized a few years ago that it is only going to take longer and get more expensive to keep doing this. It’s entirely possible that they plan to hold off showing single-player titles until they’re closer to release but announce GAAS games further ahead of time to recruit employees, get word out about betas, etc.

You can’t push out the kind of games they make every few years, as much as people think a five-year-dev cycle is an indication that something is broken and not just a sign of the times.

Dragon’s Dogma Was Great

If you never played Dragon’s Dogma, Hideaki Itsuno’s 2012 fantasy action-RPG, you might have looked at the trailer for Dragon’s Dogma II with some bafflement. Others who are familiar with the game but not obsessive with it might just be thinking, that was it? That just looks like Dragon’s Dogma!

Which, yeah. Hell yeah. I’m glad that they’re not trying to smooth Dragon’s Dogma into something else. That thing was weird as shit and had its own identity that they’re seemingly leaning all the way into. There’s also hints in that trailer that they’re following the original game’s actually batshit ending, which I couldn’t be happier about.

Metal Gear Solid /\

Finally announced this week was a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake titled Metal Gear Solid Delta. Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, so I’m excited about this, but also apprehensive for those same reasons. I had heard about this remake years ago and am surprised it has taken so long for it to surface, but again, games take a long time.

Playing Resident Evil 4 and other reimaginings recently have given me some thoughts on the various paths remakes can take. Final Fantasy VII Remake, for example, is a game made by a mix of fans and leads who worked on the original game wanting to shake things up. To them, a shot-for-shot remake was boring to make. Resident Evil 4, also not a shot-for-shot remake, was made by fans of the original game inside Capcom who saw how it influenced the shooter genre for the last two decades. The game they made was a love letter to the original by bringing it to a modern era.

I don’t know if there’s anyone on Metal Gear Solid 3 that worked on the original, but it’s obviously not going to include Kojima. For better or worse, that means it is going to be missing something. I say for better or worse because Kojima’s influence does affect the games he makes, but also that guy just went fully off the rails after MGS3 in a way that I wonder if a remake of the game under his guidance wouldn’t make a few turns for the worse.

It’s hard to say. I guess the best I can hope for is that the people remaking the game now are as reverent of the original as RE4 Remake’s developers were of its source.

The PlayStation Project Q Seems Dumb

I don’t really get it. I’ll probably buy one.

Other Things:

• New Materia Possessions this week! We talk a lot about Zelda. Like, a lot.
• Conan O’Brien’s been doing a readthrough on his podcast of a lost Hans & Franz movie he wrote in the early 90s and it’s been great. Highly recommended listening.