September’s packed schedule
Plus: Star Fox’s new attitude
The most extraordinary element of yesterday’s big PlayStation showcase wasn’t the show-closing reveal of a new, undated God of War game featuring the post-death exploits of Faye, the wife of series protagonist Kratos.
It was the number of games that the showcase made clear will be cramming themselves into a slender release window.
We’ve known that Marvel’s Wolverine, a first-party PS5 exclusive, will come out on September 15.
We learned that massively multiplayer game Dune Awakening is coming to Xbox Series and PS5 on Tuesday, September 22
And Remedy’s third-person thriller Control: Resonant claimed Thursday, September 24. (Or September 22 if you want to spend $70 on the game instead of $60 and have a PS5; only the 24th for Xbox and PC)
Konami also slotted first-person horror game Silent Hill Townfall for September 24.
Capcom, which has little trouble selling games these days, claimed Friday September 25 for its Onimusha revival.
It’s tempting to read this all as a rush to avoid the blast radius of Grand Theft Auto VI, which is slated to land on November 19. There are currently no other big games announced for November (apologies to Crymelight.)
A less-discussed factor is Tokyo Game Show. That public showcase is often the final promotional stop for the fall’s Japanese-published games, with numerous games shipping right after. TGS this year runs from September 17 through September 22, just ahead of the aforementioned new games from Japanese publishers Konami and Capcom.
Sure enough, that post-TGS timeframe has releases from more Japanese publishers, including Natsume’s next Harvest Moon game and SquareEnix’s Switch 2 edition of Dragon Quest XI S, both on September 24.
(Just a week later, on October 1 and 2, respectively, we’ll get a remaster of Dynasty Warriors 3 from Koei Tecmo and Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat 8).
Warning: September could get even more packed. There are still more big game showcases in the coming days. Plus, Nintendo at some point will begin announcing games and dates for its Switch systems’ titles; the prolific publisher hasn’t dated any releases beyond July.
Some takeaways from Sony’s State of Play:
Marvel’s Wolverine game is so violent, so full of bloody dismemberment, that it’s a news story that the usually family-friendly game-maker Insomniac will provide players options to tone down the blade-handed hero’s goriest moves.
The announcement of God of War: Laufey, a full-scale sequel set in a fantastical death world full of gods from multiple pantheons, triggered a cascade of clarifications about Sony Santa Monica’s work: namely that Cory Barlog, longtime God of War developer and game director of the series’ acclaimed 2018 revamp, is now considered creative lead of the whole studio. Santa Monica veteran Ariel Lawrence is directing the game. And, rest assured, they said, more Kratos-led adventures are coming. Barlog also thinks there are more stories to be told about the character Sindr . Hmm.
Absent from the showcase were any new live service games from Sony’s studios, just a glimpse of the new season in Bungie’s Marathon. Instead, Sony’s other game announcement was for 2027 teenage horror sequel Until Dawn 2, from Firesprite, a first-party studio last seen making a PSVR2 game.
Item 2: In brief…
🎮 Last Friday produced some drama about logos and a controversial mea culpa from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.
The short version: veteran Xbox game content boss Matt Booty said on the official Xbox podcast that day that, during its upcoming game showcase, Microsoft would show logos for whichever platforms each featured game will run on. Microsoft has done this in recent years; rivals Nintendo and Sony do not.
After complaints on Twitter/X from hardcore Xbox users who said Microsoft should prioritize its own brand, Sharma responded to one such user calling the logo announcement a “miss.” She added: “We are talking about how we adjust for future XBOX shows.” (That remark then elicited criticism over whether Sharma was putting too much stock in social media backlash).
On Tuesday, Sony stuck to its approach of only showing PlayStation logos, meaning you’d need to Google or read pieces like this to learn or be certain that third-party games such as the new Control and Onimusha are also slated for Xbox and PC.
🚫 PlayerUnknown Productions, the studio led by PUBG lead creator Brendan Greene, said today it’s laying off workers and halting development of survival game Go Wayback, which had launched last November, Game Developer reports.
✏️ Pearl Abyss plans to patch the story of its early 2026 hit role-playing game Crimson Desert, Forbes reports.
From the developer’s roadmap: “To further strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff’s journey and to make it more engaging, we are working to refine and improve the coherence of key scenes.”
In May, Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young told investors: “I partially empathize with the disappointment users feel regarding the story. I believe it would have been better if we could have handled it better… The development team tried to fill in the gaps in the remaining time, but ultimately, we focused on strengthening the gameplay, which is what we do best."
🇺🇸 212.3 million Americans between age 5 and 90 play video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association’s latest annual survey of U.S. gamers.
The survey counted 205.1 million U.S. gamers a year ago.
Item 3: Fox McCloud wants to get paid
Star Fox, the June-slated Switch 2 remake of 1997’s Star Fox 64, plays so faithfully to the original on-rails space-ship shooter that my 29-year-old muscle memory kicked in last Friday, when I tried the new version at a Nintendo demo event in New York City.
I knew when to turn, when to shoot, when to anticipate that an enemy would arrive to chase Slippy toad. I loved the game back in ‘97 and was pleased to play it again.
The graphics are light years more sophisticated than the original.
What I wasn’t quite prepared for were the significant changes to the game’s script. Mid-mission chatter is a bit different, but the overall set-up of the game has a much different tone—our hero is more clearly a gun for hire.
Compare the original version’s initial mission briefing dialogue between our hero Fox McCloud and military commander General Pepper :
And here’s the script for the new one (I couldn’t capture footage of it, so I just have the words)
ROB: Incoming hail from General Pepper. Priority 1 communication. Patching him through now.
Pepper: We need your help, Star Fox.
Fox: Hey there, General. You seem a little on edge.
Pepper: Andross’ invasion has found its way to our doorstep. His forces are laying siege to Corneria as we speak. The Cornerian Defense Force is spread too thin. I need your team to get down there and launch a counter-offensive.
Fox: That’s no small ask, General, but as it happens, my team’s available to deploy immediately.
Pepper: Andross’ forces have already occupied numerous worlds throughout the system. If they take Corneria, then and all hope is lost. Save Corneria. Liberate the Lylat System. And you can name your price.
Fox: You’ve got yourself a deal. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, General. [To his team:] Prep the Arwings. We’ve got a job for you, Star Fox. We’re going to take the system back from Andross, one planet at a time.
Speaking of comparisons, I wanted to share the old version and new version of the line reading of Peppy exhorting Fox to “Do a barrel roll!” The late Rick May’s performance of that line was one of the most famous early pieces of video game voice-acting. But, again, no capture allowed and I couldn’t get the okay from Nintendo to share the audio I recorded of it. So I’ll just tell you. The new Peppy sounds a tad younger, but the line is otherwise pretty close to the original.