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PlayStation Showcase — the 10 Biggest Announcements
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
When: 2023
Where: PlayStation 5
And it’s confirmed. Following solo adventures in Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, both Peter Parker (Yuri Lowenthal) and Miles Morales (Nadji Jeter) will return for the inevitable follow-up, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Insomniac is interested in making it a co-op adventure, as it calls it a single-player game in the announcement.
But we do already have something to look forward to. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will feature Venom (voiced by Tony Todd, from Candyman) as one of the villains, and the first teaser signals more intrigue. While the heroes will have new abilities and suits to deal with those threats. Marvel’s Spider-Man creative director Bryan Intihar and game director Ryan Smith return in those capacities on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Marvel’s Wolverine
When: TBD
Where: PlayStation 5
In addition to the return of Spider-Man, Insomniac Games is developing another Marvel game with the famous adamantium-clawed mutant (voice actor unknown or undecided), who seems to be his usual grouchy self in the first 40-second announcement teaser that finds him drinking after knocking out a whole bar’s worth of guys unconscious.
Don’t expect Wolverine and Spider-Man to cross over (just yet anyway), with Insomniac calling Marvel’s Wolverine a standalone game. It’s coming from creative director Brian Horton and game director Cameron Christian, who previously worked on Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. No release date on Marvel’s Wolverine because it’s “very early in development”.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Remake
When: TBD
Where: PC and PlayStation 5
One of the best Star Wars games ever made is coming to next-gen PlayStation. Funnily enough, KOTOR was an Xbox exclusive 20 years ago — and its remake will be PS5 console exclusive at launch. A lot of time has passed and hence, developers Aspyr, Sony, and Lucasfilm Games are rebuilding the game from the ground up, to ensure KOTOR’s remake can stand next to today’s releases.
Aspyr is best known for bringing Star Wars games to modern systems, including the original KOTOR to Mac and mobiles. For the KOTOR remake, it’s brought on RPG veterans and members of the original KOTOR development team. The KOTOR remake was rumoured in January this year, and we finally have confirmation on who’s behind it — and what shape it will take.
God of War Ragnarök
When: 2022
Where: PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
Set a few years after the events of 2018’s God of War, the sequel will culminate Kratos and Atreus’ journey in the Norselands, as they search for the old god of war Tyr and try to survive as conflict engulfs the Nine Realms with Ragnarök approaching. And they will have to contend with the wrath of both Freya (who lost her son Baldur) and Thor (who lost his sons and half-brother).
Atreus meanwhile is looking for answers (who Loki is, for instance) but his father Kratos warns him that those answers could lead to a war with Asgard. The God of War Ragnarök trailer has a bunch of gameplay too, showcasing the weapons Kratos will have at his disposal, and the kinds of monsters players will face on their journey through Midgard.
GTA 5 and GTA Online
When: March 2022
Where: PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X
The next-gen versions of Grand Theft Auto V have been delayed, Rockstar Games revealed at PlayStation Showcase, though that does mean PlayStation Plus members can continue to take advantage of the free GTA $1,000,000 in-game money each month on GTA Online’s PS4 version for a few more months now (until launch in March 2022).
We did get a new trailer for GTA 5 on the PS5, which promises seamless character-switching in addition to the other features previously announced in better graphics, performance enhancements, and improved gameplay. And as for GTA Online, a standalone version will be available for free exclusively on PS5 for the first three months after launch.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves
When: Early 2022
Where: PC and PlayStation 5
Following Sony itself leaking Uncharted 4’s coming to PC back in May, the PlayStation parent company confirmed Thursday that the fourth and final entry in Nathan Drake’s adventure, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, was getting a remaster for both PC and next-gen PS5. But it won’t make that journey alone.
In fact, Uncharted 4 and the spin-off Uncharted: The Lost Legacy will be part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection. While Naughty Dog will deliver the PS5 version in early 2022, Iron Galaxy is working on the PC port that will launch “shortly after” the PS5 version.
Forspoken
When: Spring 2022
Where: PlayStation 5
Square Enix’s Project Athia, previously revealed as Forspoken, now has a bunch of new details. Rogue One’s Gary Whitta, Uncharted’s Amy Henning, Allison Rymer, and Todd Stashwick are working on the story. The Walking Dead’s Bear McCreary and BioShock’s Garry Schyman will serve as composers.
And in addition to Ella Balinska (Charlie’s Angels) as the lead Frey, we now know that Jonathan Cake will voice Frey’s sentient bracelet companion Cuff, Janina Gavankar as Athia’s dictatorial despot Tanta Sila, Keala Settle as an archivist Johedy, and Monica Barbaro as a kind, young woman Auden.
Gran Turismo 7
When: March 4, 2022
Where: PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
The GT Campaign mode is back for the next-gen version of Polyphony Digital’s next racing game, and will take players across Europe, harkening back to the roots of the “Gran Turismo” term from the 17th century. Alongside, legendary circuits such as Trial Mountain and High-Speed Ring are coming back too.
Gran Turismo 7 will also expand on designing your car, photographing your car, tuning your car, and, of course, being able to grow your car collection. On the track, Polyphony Digital is promising real-life-driven weather simulations, drawing off tons of meteorological observation data that it has collected.
Project Eve
When: TBD
Where: PlayStation 5
A lone female paratrooper journeys down to a near-future desolate Earth that mankind was expelled from following a battle with invaders called the NA:tives, where you must learn how they attack to be able to counter with “precise timing”.
Parrying and evading is crucial in Project Eve, as that will help you build “Beta Gauge (BG)” which you can then use gain skills like piercing super armour, execute sweeping attacks, or interrupt enemy combos. You can see some of that in the first trailer.
Alan Wake Remastered
When: October 5
Where: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X
The 11-year-old title is getting updated and repackaged for today’s age, with the two story DLCs — The Signal and The Writer — also available in Alan Wake Remastered. Of course, you’ll get 4K visuals at 60fps on next-gen consoles (limited to 4K or 60fps on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X), a major upgrade to what was originally a game for the Xbox 360 era.
Oh yes, it’s also the first time that Alan Wake will cross the Microsoft threshold to be available on PlayStation devices. Some of you PlayStation gamers might have already met Alan Wake though, given he was part of Control’s AWE expansion — yes, both Alan Wake and Control are part of developer’s Remedy Connected Universe.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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