Games Inbox: What games will be in Thursday’s PS5 State of Play?

The Tuesday letters page discusses the drawbacks of digital downloads, as one reader is unimpressed by the recent leaks concerning Xbox.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The big day
So maybe Sony read that Reader’s Feature at the weekend, about them turning things around after Horizon Hunters Gathering, because now we know they’re planning a major State of Play this week, almost as big as a not-E3. I know the advice is never to get too excited about these things but it’s pretty hard not to.

I think they’re definitely hinting at a new game annoucement, so I’m hoping for something new from Santa Monica Studio (God Of War), Bluepoint Games (Demon’s Souls remake) or Bend Studio (Days Gone). But it could be Asobi (Astro Boy) too or maybe Media Molecule (LittleBigPlanet) too.

I think they’ve got some other studios but I think they’re all live service, so let’s hope it’s not that. Although the internet outrage would be hilarious if the mic drop final annoucement is another generic looking online co-op shooter.

Of course, I hope for Bloodborne news, but who could possibly guess whether that’s possible or not, a decade after it came out and Sony immediately started ignoring it, for no good reason.

I also hope for surprises. Good surprises of games and announcements we can never guess at, because they’re the best. Although given how accurate rumours have been lately, I’m not sure we’ll get that chance.
Gauntlett

Just according to keikaku
More than an hour of State of Play? That has got to have something good, right? Even by accident you’d have to have some interesting things in that, just by the sheer length of it. To me it sounds like they are getting ready to announce some thing big, maybe the next game from the God Of War guys? I think the rumour was it wasn’t going to be God Of War either, so a new IP would be great.

I do agree with the complaints about Sony’s output this generation but the problem for them is I think they’ve realised their mistake – that was probably why Jim Ryan left – but it’s going to take ages for all their studios to stop what they were doing and making something else. Plus, Sony would never admit they messed up, so they have to pretend this was the plan all along.

If they start making good from now on though I’m more than happy to forgive them. We all just want to play good games, not moan at publishers all day.
Booner

Curiouser and curiouser
Nintendo is acting really weird at the moment. I know some people have tried to say it’s just their usual attitude, but the lack of news and the choices of Switch 2 games really don’t make any sense to me and I can’t believe they don’t see that.

But now I find out that they’ve done nothing to clamp down on any of the Pokémon leaks and even a lot of the teraleak stuff is still floating around. The Nintendo I know would’ve had that stuff shut down in a microsecond and their lawyers let loose on the culprits.

Not that I want people to get caught, you understand, but it just seems so out of character. Especially as the new leaks do look legit. They don’t give much away, but I’d be surprised if they weren’t real.
Lotus

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Recent development
Just reading through some of the weekend Reader’s Features and noted that Trepsils wrote ‘if there’s no more new live service games announced, or at least an equal number of single-player ones, then maybe the mistakes of the PlayStation 5 era can finally be undone.’

Out of curiosity I had a quick look at Sony’s first party releases this gen, and I can see plenty of single-player titles (admittedly including some remasters and VR games), compared to… two live service games (Concord and Helldivers 2), which surprised me. I appreciate that more were initially planned, but in terms of output, that doesn’t seem to warrant the narrative?
Matt (he_who_runs_away – PSN ID)

GC: Sony’s live service obsession didn’t start until a couple of years into the generation, at which point 12 were planned, tying up almost all their first party studios. Since 2023 they’ve only released one completely new, internally developed, non-VR, non-live service game per year. Two are planned this year: Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine.

Out of service
I’m just playing Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64) via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack.

Hitting the eight switches on the Forever Train level, to send the enemy train off course and blow up, was always one of my favourite 64-bit gaming memories. The Rumble Pak still rumbles like crazy during the explosion afterwards. I’m sure my fellow GC readers who pulled this off back in the day will remember it fondly.
Adams6legend

No access
To the point others were making about digital games and LeeDappa’s mention of disappearing digital media, my internet was down for three days last weekend and I couldn’t play any of the installed games on my hard drive. Granted that’s not dozens and dozens, when they can exceed 150GB and the smallest may only be a measly 20GB , but of the 10 or so installed, Game Pass games and digital purchases, I could play exactly none of them. ‘This game needs an internet connection to play’ being the joyful message I was faced with time and again.

Perhaps I could of played Tekken 8, being my last physical purchase, but it wasn’t installed so I’ll never know, but probably not, or only in a reduced capacity.

So the future sucks, media that can be taken down or removed completely, issues out of your control meaning your purchases (rented properties) can’t be accessed and the fear of ever-increasing prices. Great.

Luckily, I had my Mega Drive Mini, which I got at Christmas, plug in and play, no issues at all and now with the added bonus of saves. So I scum-saved my way to six Chaos emeralds on Sonic 2. Ha ha, one more to go for an easy run to the finish!
big boy bent

Messy leak
All these leaks and rumours about Xbox right now and all it does it make them seem like even more of a mess. They are so obviously just throwing things against the wall, seeing what will stick, and so far nothing has.

They’re making a handheld, and a PC/console hybrid, and beefing up Game Pass, and counting on steaming being the future… it’s just endless stuff and nothing coherent or appealing. As usual, they seem to consider making good games to be a very low priority, behind all this other nonsense.

People say they have their best line-up ever this year, but I’ve never heard that from Microsoft themselves. Their summer not-E3 show better be the best ever or they might as well pack up shop for good.
Cordon

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No shows
State Of Play has been announced for February 12th. An hour long in length, which is the longest presentation ever and the most high risk. They usually run at half that length, but with added length, comes heightened expectations. You never know what to expect from Sony, but people and fans alike continue to buy into hype. Since it is quintessentially a showcase event, perhaps it makes sense to expect heavy hitters and indie delights. But I can absolutely say that Marathon will definitely be there. Since it has an open beta soon, it will be shown for sure.

Not too sure about Marvel’s Wolverine, since it was stated we’d see more in spring. I’ll just say that Kingdom Hearts 4 will not make an appearance. We pray for it time and time again, but Square Enix continues to disappoint. Maybe they could make our night and reveal the third instalment of the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. It would be perfect for me personally, because I’m doing a run of the two games currently, starting with Intergrade and then Rebirth. Absolutely a good next playthrough, after beating Ghost Of Yōtei

But I also hope to see pre-orders go live, for the hotly anticipated Phantom Blade 0. It looks awesome and it’s the perfect event to announce it. I’m not too sure what the final reveal could be, but it’s certainly without a shadow of a doubt, not GTA 6. Many will predict it is, but it is absolutely never happening.

My guess is Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. We’ve yet to see gameplay, or even a cohesive look at the project. Naughty Dog have kept silent for long enough. Hopefully it shows up, but my expectations are very low. I hope for a memorable event, but I always do and I end up disappointed a majority of the time. But I can just feel the mobile and indie game domination coming. It is inevitable.

A final note. Bloodborne isn’t happening boss. No dice.
Shahzaib Sadiq

GC: Many State of Plays are around 40 minutes long. The longest before this week was 55 minutes.

Inbox also-rans
I take the news about hardly anyone working on Horizon Zero Dawn 3 to mean that it is being planned as a PlayStation 6 launch game. People called it ages ago and it always made sense to me.
Skella

Am I the only one that wishes they were starting the God Of War TV show in Greece? If it’s super popular they could’ve led up to the Norse stuff. Seems a bit shortsighted.
Benjy Dog

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