Daily Briefing: Monday 7th March

A State Of Play Due This Month

With the release of PlayStation’s first two major titles of the year, Horizon and Gran Turismo 7, a State of Play is allegedly coming as soon as this week to highlight the near-future of the platform. However, it’s claimed it may be delayed until the end of the month due to the industry’s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine. Ghostwire: Tokyo, God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 are their next major exclusives, and they may be gearing up to announce their PlayStation+ overhaul, so expect information on any and all of these - and maybe anything we don’t know about.

• We have a lot of unknowns from PlayStation and their partner studios, like Naughty Dog, Deviation, Insomniac, Housemarque, Sucker Punch, Bend and many more - at any point, a major set of exclusives could be announced, although we suspect God of War will take priority for the rest of this year.

Forspoken Has Been Delayed To October

Two months before launch, Square Enix’s first major release of the year has been delayed until October 11th, citing the need for additional polish. The impact this will have on the rest of Square Enix’s portfolio is unclear, although it likely means Final Fantasy 16 won’t be released until next year, after Forspoken has had time in the wild.

• Square Enix seem to be having a mixed time of it recently - is this a rapid response to Babylon’s Fall’s poor reception or a pre-meditated delay? Either way, delays are good for games so more of them, although a May release looked ideal in terms of competition. Now, Forspoken will be closer to the expected end-of-year onslaught from God of War and more.

Glover Is Being Released On Steam, But People Are Unhappy

N64 ‘cult classic’ Glover is being released on Steam on April 20th by Piko Interactive - the game is “completely redone from the original source code (N64 version of the game), and improved for modern PCs.” However, Piko Interactive have an alleged poor history of preservation and IP ownership. They’ve apparently sold emulators without permission, used legal threats to remove listings of prototype ROMs they claim to own the rights to, and hoard old game IP & ROMs without making use of them - until now. In a phrase from a Twitter user: “They buy the rights to old stuff and unfinished games to make a quick buck.”

• I think we’re going to have to investigate these claims and make a video on it, because this is... interesting. It’s well within their rights to buy IP and do whatever they want with it, but if it’s expressly for the purpose of taking down fan restorations and investigations of unfinished prototypes, it comes across as behaviour we don’t want in the industry. Proper game preservation has a hard enough time as it is.