And just like that, 2025’s first Sony PlayStation State of Play came and went. The periodical showcase of what the future holds for Team Blue’s console has very rarely been outright terrible, despite all the rhetoric you’ll undoubtedly encounter online. And despite a few gems scattered through each of the State of Play presentations, not one has managed to scale the frankly monumental heights of the June 2020 event that introduced the PlayStation 5 and a slew of then-upcoming games. Sure, some of those were duds (looking at you, Project Athia Forspoken, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Goodbye Volcano High and Bugsnax), others overpromised (Deathloop mainly, but also Godfall to an extent) and a small minority have seemingly gone AWOL (Little Devil Inside and most heartbreakingly, Pragmata). But for the large part, it was bangers after banger.
But enough about the past. Let’s get back to the State of Play that took place a few hours ago. Having a wishlist for these things is something I’ve increasingly found to be a futile exercise; however, I was hoping to see more of Naughty Dog’s upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, some gameplay from Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Yōtei, perhaps a release date for Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and some signs of life from Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s The Wolverine. Alas, neither of these were to be. Instead, what we got, and as the headline indicates, were a few highs, a rather larger number of lows and many mids.
The highs: The three most interesting titles explored in the showcase were Leslie Benzies’ (Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption lead designer) futuristic spy thriller MindsEye, Supermassive Games’ Event Horizon-esque Directive 8020, and the UltiZeroGames-developed and China Hero Project-backed Devil May Cry-like that is Lost Soul Aside. Honourable mentions — largely for their incredible respective art styles — for MoonHood’s The Midnight Walk, Q-Games’ Dreams of Another and Dogubomb’s Blue Prince. As far as highlights go, these were the biggest ones because they all hinted at potentially great experiences beyond mere gameplay.
The lows: The biggest low was the outsized (to my mind anyway) presence of trailers for stuff we’ve already seen before. Of course, gameplay trailers or story trailers that follow announcement trailers are a staple of such showcases, but I didn’t expect the likes of Monster Hunter Wilds, WWE 2K25, Hell is Us, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Split Fiction, Like a Dragon: Yakuza Pirate in Hawaii and Borderlands 4 to take up so much time. The latter is most galling because the Gearbox Software FPS is getting its own showcase in the near future. Elsewhere, I groaned at Splitgate 2 (yet another free-to-play shooter, but this time with portals) and yawned at the RPG Digimon Story Time Stranger (people are still into that franchise, huh?) and shook my head in disbelief at Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (think Mario Kart, but again, this time with portals). Furthermore, the paucity of first-party titles and/or exclusives was quite disappointing.
The mids: Pretty much everything else falls under here, but I suppose it’s best to name a few specifics. A couple of remasters (Days Gone Remastered and Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny) that… well, it’s unclear who asked for. At least in the case of Onimusha, it’s perhaps there to boost their brand-new title in the series called Onimusha: Way of the Sword that’s on its way too. There simply isn’t enough to go on to definitively judge this one right now, just like fantasy action adventure Tides of Annihilation and adrenaline-rush sci-fi FPS Metal Eden.
Some DLC for Stellar Blade, Lies of P and Dave the Diver were also announced. Maybe it’s bias speaking, but the Like a Dragon crossover in the latter does look like it might be fun. But we don’t know yet. And that’s the same for Darwin’s Paradox, a platforming adventure about a plucky octopus. It looks like a barrel of laughs at this point, but I’ll need to see a bit more before I decide whether or not to get excited about it.
And then there’s Warriors: Abyss, that quintessentially KOEI Tecmo offering that looks like a bunch of other KOEI Tecmo games, only this time it’s a roguelite. Thrilling stuff(!) Returnal devs Housemarque are back with presumably another bullet-hell title called Saros, but the cinematic teaser didn’t tell me much either.
Overall, it was difficult to come away with too many strong feelings about the showcase because as pointed out above, it’s best not to have expectations about these things. That said, MindsEye, considering the premise and its creator’s credentials, has certainly filled me with extremely high expectations. You can check out the entire presentation for yourselves below:
