5. There’s a new Bloober Team horror game on the way
(and it’s a Blair Witch tie-in)
Even though I enjoy the movies, the announcement of a Blair
Witch video game wasn’t especially interesting to me in itself - other
than the fact that developing a highly-touted tie-in game for a twenty-year-old
indie horror film seemed like a weird (but quite cool) choice. That changed
when I learned that it’s being developed by Bloober Team, the studio behind Observer
and the Layers of Fear series. Bloober Team have spent the last few
years developing a reputation for producing incredibly effective horror games
with a low difficulty threshold: taking their cues from P.T., there’s
really very little you need to do other than walk and look; and even getting
caught and dying only sets you on a different path, rather than requiring you
to succeed in order to advance. Despite this, the atmosphere of their games is
often so creepy as to make pushing onward a genuine psychological struggle. So
I’m excited to see what they do with Blair Witch: if it’s another game
in the same mould, I’m all in; and the hints of a recursive story loop at the
end of the trailer give me some hope that Bloober Team will be bringing their
signature style to the game. If, as some commenters have suggested based on the
found-footage style of the trailer, it’s going to bear more of a resemblance to
Outlast - a horror game series that involves a little too much forced
stealth and torture porn for my taste - I’ll probably give it a miss. So for
now I’ll be keeping an eye on this one; and I won’t have long to wait, because Blair
Witch will be released an impressively brief 94 days after Bloober Team’s
last game, Layers of Fear 2. Either way, come August 30th I’ll surely be
enjoying a Scary Game Squad series of it, even if I pass on it myself.
4. There might be some spiritual successors to A
Way Out on the horizon
Ever since I played A Way Out last spring I’ve been
dying for more games like it: story driven couch co-ops where your choice of
character and your in-game decisions meaningfully affect how the game plays for
you and how the plot develops. A Way Out won the BAFTA for best
multiplayer game earlier this year, so I’m hopeful that this will encourage
other developers to follow Hazelight’s example. Two games from this year’s E3
have pinged my radar for this reason.
First is Wolfenstein: Youngblood, which I
already knew about, but the confirmation that the game will have multiplayer
(though no word yet as to whether this includes local co-op or will be
online-only) was a highlight for me. I’m also enjoying the refreshing fact that
the creators gave main series protagonist Billy Blazkowicz two children for you
to play, but they’re both daughters, which is a huge subversion of my expectations
from The New Colossus (I felt sure the twins would be a boy and a girl
to give players of the spin-off a gender option). Considering my ongoing
disappointment at the lack of couch co-op in the last big female-driven team-up
AAA spin-off game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, I’m hoping that Youngblood
finally scratches that itch.
Second is Deathloop: this game was announced
at E3, and has a lot going for it. It’s being developed by Arkane, the studio
behind the Dishonored series and 2017’s Prey reboot, so they’ve
got real pedigree when it comes to making excellent character-driven action
games. The two choices of playable character are mercenaries: a man and a woman
this time; and both are of Afro-Caribbean descent, which is still rare enough
in video games to be noteworthy, but again Arkane has a history of creating a
diverse and inclusive character roster. Admittedly, it’s not yet been announced
whether this will actually even be a co-op game: other guesses include an
A-story/B-story scenario like those in the Resident Evil franchise; or
that differences between the characters will impact on your abilities but not
your story-line, like in Arkane’s own Dishonored 2. The two characters
seem to be in opposition to each other with the goals they’re pursuing, so my
money’s on the former if it turns out not to be a two-player experience. While
I’d still like to see couch co-op materialise - and based on the respawning
‘deathloop’ of the title, which sets you back but seemingly keeps you in the
arena with your opponent, I remain hopeful - this game looks good enough that
I’ll surely be checking it out either way.
3. Forza Horizon 4 got a completely unexpected
LEGO DLC
I don’t play many racing games, and when I do they tend to
be either quite cartoony (e.g. Mario Kart) or just ludicrously violent
(e.g. Guts and Glory). Forza Horizon 4 is a bit of an exception
in that it’s a realistic racing game that I enjoy, mainly for its
representation of the British countryside. The game was made by a studio in the
county where I live: a friend’s husband was on the design team, and she
actually appears as an NPC in the game, alongside a number of landmarks and
locations from our area; so for once I was swept up in the awesomeness of a
game because it resembled reality, and in a way quite personal to me.
Sure, you can catch a glimpse of the Hogwarts Express at one point, but other
than these little Easter Eggs the game seems to be taking itself reasonably
seriously. Or so I thought, until they announced the LEGO Speed Champions DLC.
As I say,
I’ve only ever played a handful of racing games; but I’ve played a lot
of LEGO games. In fact, they’re some of my favourites. So while news of a LEGO
DLC wasn’t universally well-received by players of Forza Horizon 4, for
me it was actually quite an affirming moment. This game was secretly a bit
silly all along! It’s about having fun! You can leave the stern-faced
serious business of simulated professional racing to the Forza Motorsport
series; here at the Horizon spin-offs, we’re going to play with our
LEGOs!
(Epilogue: Despite that early grumbling, now that the DLC is
out it’s getting strongly favourable reviews as far as I can see. As some
commentators pointed out, video games are just expensive toy boxes for
grown-ups when all’s said and done, so why not embrace that?)
2. The Sims 4 is getting mermaids and beach
holidays, witches and wizards, and LGBT+ Pride
Usually The Sims section of the EA conference isn’t a
big deal at E3, so either this year’s crop of The Sims announcements
were unusually interesting, or the rest of E3 was unusually uninteresting. Or
perhaps both - I venture no opinion. What is particularly interesting is that
the creators of The Sims went all out on announcements this year. The
current generation of the franchise, The Sims 4, receives new content in
four different ways: expansion packs (large paid add-ons that have been with
the series since the original game); stuff packs (small paid add-ons that
started with The Sims 2); game packs (medium-sizes paid add-ons that are
new with The Sims 4 - and, for my money, the best ones this time
around); and free updates, which frequently sweeten the time you have to wait
for Origin to install this month’s bug fixes by giving you some new cosmetic
items along with the patch. In the past, if The Sims has merited air
time at E3 at all it’s been to announce a popular new expansion pack (in 2018
they announced Seasons, which along with Pets and University
is always one of the most-requested expansions in each new generation). This
year, they took a different approach and just announced one of each type of
add-on, which depending on your point of view was very exciting (it’s extremely
rare to know what The Sims team are working on so far in advance) or a
let-down (none of them are University, which seems to be the only thing
left on the gestalt fandom entity’s wish-list before The Sims 5 presumably
starts the process all over again).
To round
up: the new expansion pack, out on June 21st, is Island Living, a
spiritual successor to The Sims: Vacation (or On Holiday if
you’re a nasty Brit like me), The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, and especially The
Sims 3: Island Paradise. To be honest I never really got into Island
Paradise, probably because it came quite near the end of TS3’s life
cycle when my interest was waning because, no matter how cool the new concepts
were, they didn’t justify the game’s 30-50 minute load times. No matter; I’ll
certainly be giving the concept another go via Island Living: if nothing
else, it’s bound to be cheaper than an actual trip to Polynesia, even at EA’s
full expansion pack prices (and, to be real, I always get round to the
expansions eventually).
The new stuff pack will be called called Moschino
(it’s a fashion line, I had to Google it), following in the footsteps of
real-world clothing brand tie-ins The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff and The
Sims 3: Diesel Stuff. (I can’t be the only one to notice that they seem to
go more up-market every time?) I’ve been more willing than ever to let the
stuff packs pass me by in The Sims 4 era; the only possible draw Moschino
Stuff has for me is that it adds a new career track (part-time
photographer, which doesn’t sound all that thrilling, but I’m a bit of a
completionist when it comes to having access to all possible in-game careers).
The only TS4 stuff packs I currently own were bought heavily discounted
during one of Origin’s intermittent sales, so maybe that’s how I’ll finally
make that coveted Max Caulfield expy Sim my very own.
The Sims 4: Realms of Magic is due out in the autumn
and is, for me, the most exciting announcement. As a newly re-converted Harry
Potter fan I’m keen to add some witches and wizards to my game, especially
since my existing pool of IP-violating vampire characters (added with the help
of the Vampires game pack from a couple of years ago) are getting lonely
being the only supernatural kids on the block.
Finally, the June 2019 update for The Sims 4 celebrates
Pride month with a small but sweet (and, crucially, free) number of LGBT+
Pride-themed objects and clothing items. Highlights include t-shirts designed
in collaboration with real-world NPO the It Gets Better Project; and a truly
staggering variety of pride flags in build mode that cover even some of the
lesser-known identities that make up the “+” in LGBT+. The only major omissions
I noticed were the Intersex and Polyamory pride flags - possibly because the
game mechanics don’t actually allow for the latter; but also the creators seem
to have shied away from including any flags that have non-geometric pictures on
them, so that may turn out to be the explanation - and there are actually a
couple on there that I’ve been unable to positively identify as yet. Gender
neutral toilets are the big boast of the update, though quite how this is going
to work is a bit of a head-scratcher - weren’t the toilets in The Sims always
gender-neutral? (One has to assume they mean doors for community lot public
toilets, with gender neutral signage and appropriate access coded in.)
I’ll be honest: usually I’m less than impressed when a big
evil corporation like EA comes out with something like this during Pride month,
when slapping a rainbow across something is often used as a cynical marketing
tool to attract LGBT+ consumers without giving any follow-through on actual
good practice in business. And maybe this is the case with EA; they’re
certainly not a company whose ethical track record I’m about to defend. On the
other hand, I’m only just coming to appreciate how much The Sims
influenced me as a young queer person. In hindsight, it was an early way to
explore my developing feelings about relationships and sexuality in an
environment that never seemed to be judging me for that, making everyone
bisexual from the get-go and positioning degrees of sexual fluidity as standard;
it must have helped me out a lot. Coupled with the fact that they’ve used this
update to raise awareness for a real-world NPO and… could it be that EA have
actually succeeded in warming my heart this chilly June?
1. I predict a tabletop-to-videogame war between Cyberpunk
2077 and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2
“Video games based on tabletop RPGs” is becoming a less
niche interest all the time: with last year’s Call of Cthulhu rumoured
to be receiving a series of sequels despite its moderate performance; a total
of four announced World of Darkness games due out in 2019/20 and more,
it seems, announced every other week; and Cyberpunk 2020 being adapted
as Cyberpunk 2077 just in time as reality overtakes its original
setting. Even though there’s a lot to discuss there, the two titles generating
the most hype - including among gaming fans online, E3 attendees, and in my own
fevered brain - are the aforementioned Cyberpunk 2077 and Vampire:
The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, the long-awaited sequel to the 2004 game
that just happens to be my all-time favourite.
To be
honest, even though both games were presented at E3 we didn’t learn a huge
amount of new information about either. Keanu Reeves has joined the cast of Cyberpunk
2077 as lore character Johnny Silverhand, which is super cool, as is the
long-deferred announcement that the game will follow the lead of both its
tabletop sire and the genre it spings from and include trans and non-binary
character options. V-TM:B2, meanwhile, gave us a new trailer and twenty
minutes of gameplay footage, confirming that while it will be an original story
there’s a lot of very clear harking back to the first game in the new
characters, locations, and story beats. It’s sort of like how TV series based
on movies, like Fargo or What We Do In The Shadows for example,
will spend some time early on essentially re-making and re-working the plot of
the source material, even though the two stories in fact take place in-universe
with one another; and for this reason, because the devs seem to be operating
with Bloodlines in mind at all times, I remain hopeful that we’ll see
some familiar faces cropping up later on in the game.
Both
games have their detractors, of course, but I remain pretty excited for both.
There’s no use denying that after waiting fifteen years for a sequel to my
favourite game ever I’m more excited for Bloodlines 2, but I’ve
got a lot of time for Cyberpunk 2077 and will definitely be playing both.
Unfortunately, though, if it comes down to all-out war, I can see Bloodlines
completely annihilating Cyberpunk. Currently Bloodlines is
scheduled for a March 2020 release date, while Cyberpunk took the
opportunity of having Keanu Reeves on-stage for them at E3 to announce an April
2020 release date: so those of us who are down to play both are still probably
going to end up holding off on purchasing Cyberpunk at least for a few
more weeks, until we’ve bled Bloodlines for every drop it’s good for
after that fifteen-year drought.
Cyberpunk also seems to have an unfortunate tendency
of pissing off vocal groups of fans whenever it opens its mouth: whether it’s
the questionable representation of trans people, or the fact that some
cyberpunk purists feel that all we’ve seen so far is some gritty crime drama in
a dystopian setting, Cyberpunk seems to constantly go either too far or
not far enough for a lot of people. Speaking of trans representation, there’s
also the fact that Bloodlines casually announced trans and non-binary
character options some time before Cyberpunk got around to it, depite
there being more active calls from cyberpunk fans than vampire fans to
introduce this feature, making what could have been a good opportunity to win
back some of the game’s sceptics in the LGBT+ community feel instead like a
follow-the-leader afterthought.
And, of course, there’s simply the fact that a lot of people
- myself included - have been waiting for a decade and a half for Bloodlines
2. Many of us have replayed Bloodlines practically yearly since 2004
while we waited for the return of the World of Darkness in video game
form; while by comparison a video game version of Cyberpunk 2020 falls
more into the “nice to have” category. Of course, Bloodlines 2 is not
without blemish - the early footage shows characters whose dialogue seems quite
bland when compared to the distinctive and compelling NPCs from the original;
and it turns out they weren’t joking when they said they were going to start by
showing us a sewer level (calling back to easily the most unpopular part of Bloodlines,
which is quite a bold move).
Personally, I think it’s important to remember that (1) both
games are still the best part of a year from release, and it’s likely that a
lot’s still going to change in that time; and (2) Bloodlines had a
certain janky charm to it and, if that charm isn’t present at least a little
bit in both Bloodlines 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, I’m pretty sure
we’re all actually going to be a bit disappointed that it’s gone. So, despite
the lack of earth-shattering new information about either game from E3, they’re
still my two most anticipated games for 2020, and I hope that instead of one
overshadowing the other they both succeed wildly and that video game studios
everywhere start adapting tabletop RPGs like there’s no tomorrow (if they
weren’t already).
