E3 2018 – PlayStation Press Conference Preview

Sting had a saying, “The only thing that’s for sure about Sting is that nothing’s for sure”. This perfectly sums up the thoughts and feelings of long-term PlayStation gamers in the build-up to PlayStation’s E3 2018 press conference. Shawn Layden seemingly reduced the expectations of PlayStation gamers by suggesting that the press conference may be more along the lines of PlayStation Experience 2017’s PlayStation Presents.

Regardless of what PlayStation’s plans were for E3 2018; they have to react to Xbox’s press conference (full coverage of Xbox’s show will be provided in the post-E3 2018 review) as they statistically had their biggest press conference yet. Therefore, we will see if PlayStation is happy to ride the crest of a wave they are currently on or if they will pull out all the stops to provide the best show for their fans as the case should be at every press conference as fans travel from every corner of the globe to support their favourite franchises, developers, publishers and platform holders.

The only thing that is known is that Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, Insomniac’s Spider-Man and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us: Part II. Rather unbelievably, this will be Spider-Man’s third consecutive E3 outing on PlayStation’s stage with a lot of the gameplay having showcased the same villain to a point that they need to bring something fresh such as hopefully confirming that there are as many villains, areas, chapters and missions as Batman: Arkham Knight.

The Last of Us: Part II’s Paris Games Week trailer was violence for the sake of violence; resulting in controversy from gamers and critics, so Naughty Dog needs to bounce back with an excellent gameplay reveal that regains momentum for the sequel to one of the highest rated games in history. Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding is desperately reaching a point in which a gameplay trailer is unquestionably required because if yet another press conference comes and goes without gameplay, then gamers may begin to question if it is a PS5 launch game.

The most exciting of the big four first-party exclusives has to be Ghost of Tsushima due to how long it has been since Sucker Punch released inFamous: First Light, how long it has been in development for and the total shift in subject matter between inFamous to Ghost of Tsushima; therefore a gameplay reveal is the most anticipated part of PlayStation’s press conference.

Outside of the big four exclusives that we already know about; PlayStation needs to overcome the repetition their E3 2017 show suffered from in which it was essentially the 2016 press conference with different trailers. But what could gamers realistically see announced at PlayStation’s E3 2018 press conference?

PlayStation have created a new development team situated in San Diego that is rumoured to be developing a continuation of Uncharted as one person based in San Diego had been working with Naughty Dog on a new Uncharted game. A matter of weeks later came further big news for the studio as former Naughty Dog team member Quentin Cobb revealed that he had joined a secret team on May 30th 2018, while his LinkedIn profile teased that he is working in the Greater San Diego area; therefore there is a possibility that the new San Diego based studio could be about to make their E3 debut.

Most realistically, PlayStation VR has to be in the spotlight given that despite PlayStation VR being the best selling VR headset leading into E3 2018; there are significantly more PS4 gamers in comparison to PlayStation VR gamers. While Tetris Effect, Zoink Games’ Ghost Giant and Beat Saber has already been announced for PlayStation VR during the build-up to E3, alongside PlayStation Blog announcements for The Playroom VR inspired puzzle platformer Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Rocky inspired boxing game Creed: Rise to Glory and a full locomotion first-person shooter named Evasion. However, despite the pre-E3 2018 announcements; there has to be some big announcements of release dates such as Blood & Truth, updated gameplay trailers and new games. It was anticipated that Bethesda would announce Fallout 4 VR for PlayStation VR, especially given the success of Skyrim VR, so it would be a great step forward for PlayStation VR to have a Fallout 4 VR port that is of the same high standard as Skyrim VR. Elsewhere, there could be ports of Insomniac Games’ virtual reality games from other platforms and Manchester Studio’s debut VR game could be revealed.

Rumours are gaining serious momentum that Resident Evil 2 Remake could be revealed with gameplay and a release date at PlayStation’s press conference. Firstly, the Devil May Cry 5 domain was registered at around the same time as the Resident Evil 2 Remake domain with the Devil May Cry 5 reveal having taken place at the Xbox press conference, while various Japanese retailers are listing a Leon S. Kennedy R.P.D. jacket for a late October 2018 release to seemingly tie-in with the release of Resident Evil 2 Remake. Rumour has it that Resident Evil 2 Remake may possibly run on the Resident Evil 7 graphics engine and may even include full PlayStation VR compatibility.

Beyond that anything else could be announced because PlayStation should feel the need to react to Xbox’s press conference and the other emerging virtual reality platforms. Bloodborne II, Colony Wars, Crash Team Racing Trilogy, Deep Down, God of War expansion, Killzone, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale 2, Pursuit Force, Resistance, Syphon Filter, The Agent and the list goes on…Surely PlayStation won’t repeat the majority of last year’s press conference with different trailers as they did in 2017 when they almost entirely repeated 2016’s E3 press conference. Please surprise the PlayStation gaming community by giving us at least one surprise announcement of a big game that we have asked about for quite some time.

You can officially stream the PlayStation press conference live from E3 2018 at http://playstation.com/e3 from evening into night time on Monday on the West Coast of America at 6pm PDT, 9pm EDT on the East Coast of America, very early morning in the UK at 2am BST and 3am CEST in Europe.