Another one has come and gone (mostly – a few smaller shows may still appear around the place): though the name of the period may change, the last 4-5 weeks have unmistakably been the match of any classic E3 period for bedazzling game reveals, gleefully inconsistent presentations and feverish chatter. Because no time of year is more conducive to wildly unfair oversimplification, let’s sum up the fun via a strained list of quickfire winners and losers.
Winner: The Big Three Showdown
It took the better part of half a decade, but 2023 finally gave us a showcase season where Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all showed up with full, uncompromised presentations bearing their top branding – just like the old days. Whether those presentations lived up to that top branding – or whether they even needed to – are entirely different topics, but it’s certainly worth noting that this was a treat in a post-E3 world where the very possibility of an old-school first-party showdown seemed like a pipe dream.
Loser: Scattered Third Parties
It’s the first set and we’re already exaggerating a bit here, but the craft of the traditional third party participants was a tad lacking this year. EA and Square Enix didn’t have shows in 2023, Ubisoft’s return was mixed at best and Capcom returned largely to 2021 form, where the entire point of staging a showcase got lost in the glow of recent game hype. One of the best shows of the whole month-long festivities was technically only third parties, but it wasn’t beholden to the output of just one. Which brings us to…
Winner: Live Geoff Keighley
You would be forgiven for being apprehensive about Geoff Keighley’s decision to bring his Summer Game Fest kickoff show into the chaotic world of live-in-person events, a space of course shared by his famously ad-driven and bloated annual Game Awards extravaganza. But it turns out a couple years of experience, a keen ear for feedback, and a sprinkling of genuinely great game announcements (plus Nicolas Cage) add up to an event well worth watching.
SGF Kickoff Live was hardly a perfect show – certain reveals felt distinctly contractual and it was an absolute sausage-fest – but the mix of trailers and jovial on-stage interviews felt more like nostalgic fun than dull pace-droppers, and that was due in no small part to Keighley’s deft touch with the microphone. The moment when he playfully shooshed the crowd after mentioning “Final Fantasy” – knowing full well the bombastic Rebirth finale he had in store – summed it up for me. You just could not wipe the smile off the guy’s face all show and it was infectious to watch.
Loser: Live Ubisoft
Coming off an ocean of game delays and the quietest year in its recent history, Ubisoft was poised to make a big statement with its own fully-live show backed by enough announcements to re-establish its relevance. But if the SGF-branded affair showed us all the benefits of the live format, this ‘Ubisoft Forward’ reminded every viewer of just how badly a real stage can tank momentum and drain excitement. It was all downhill from the (legitimately fantastic) opening live Just Dance 2024 transition: far too many nervous waffling presenters, a litany of terrible camera angles, and some head-scratching inclusions (uh, Skull and Bones? What’s going on mate?) sent exactly the wrong message about Ubi’s immediate future – even if the company did bring some believably cool games.
Winner: Premium 2D Platformers
2010 has come again and it’s just on time. I for one am ready and willing to meet the next golden age of the big-franchise 2D platformer with open arms, particularly when the summer festivities revealed a salvo that looks this good. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown promises to bring back the glory days of UbiArt projects with a killer soundtrack and a Metroidvania twist, Sonic Superstars looks like an adorable blast in 4-player co-op, and there’s just something that feels quietly seismic about the presence of a brand-new 2D Mario game with markedly forward-thinking art direction from a core Nintendo team. Super Mario Bros Wonder, indeed.
Loser: October, Again, As Always
The main issue with Wonder is its release date, where it will no doubt sell well regardless but will compete directly against Spider-Man 2 on October 20th. And Spidey will have to fight for the free time of players who also want to grind out some Forza Motorsport elsewhere in the month, or take on the impossibly pretty reborn souls-like Lords of the Fallen, or go deep into the Cities Skylines 2 rabbit hole, or return to the roots of a mega-franchise with Assassin’s Creed Mirage, or envelop themselves in one of the best games of the entire SGF hands-on event, Alan Wake II… Once again, October is looking far too packed for its own good, and there’s probably still more to be announced.
Winner: 2024
Plenty of recent E3s/equivalent shows have failed to provide a decent picture of what to expect the following year – either from a (welcome) desire to focus on the immediate future or (more often, let’s be honest) a general fear of committing to release dates, choosing instead to pump hype through vague teasers and even vaguer logos. Not so in 2023, which is well and truly looking out for 2024 with great optimism. That’s thanks in no small part to a truly excellent Xbox showcase motivated by recent optical failures – and I daresay a bit of a wishy-washy Sony show – to mark a roadmap of regular Game Pass content stretching from now to the reasonable horizon.
If all goes to plan, we will see Hellblade II, we will see Avowed, we will see Towerborne, we will see Persona 3 ReLoad, we will see Clockwork Revolution, we will see a brand-new Flight Simulator, and much more besides in the new year – and we’ve seen real gameplay from all of them. Plenty of other publishers naturally brought 2024 promises of their own (what was that odd Princess Peach teaser, Nintendo?), but Xbox is definitely taking the lead in helping pundits paint an unusually strong mental picture of the year to come, even this far out.
Loser: Right Now
Let’s not get the wrong idea here; this has already been one of gaming’s truly great years for releases, the remainder of 2023 is positively stacked and there’s plenty to look forward to. But one of my personal favourite things about this time of year is a good sprinkling of meaningful out-now surprises, and 2023’s summer showcase season has been remarkably dry on that front. The only real shadow drops of note were demos for the Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective re-release and the already extremely-close Final Fantasy XVI, with a couple of genuinely unexpected GameCube ports of Pikmin 1+2 thrown in at the very end by Nintendo. That’s about it. Again, this is by no means the end of anybody’s world, but 2023 is the year of Hi-Fi Rush, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and Metroid Prime Remastered, man. The bar was set mighty high from the start and it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed in June as a result.
Winner: Big Bad Sci-Fi
If there is an overall “Game of the Show” contender that towers over all others in 2023 for sheer weight of both promise and self-imposed pressure, it simply has to be Starfield. As far as single-game hype, the jaw-dropping 45-minute Starfield Direct presented by Todd Howard’s team at Bethesda calls to mind no equal in recent memory – this show just kept going and going and going with feature reveals and scale revelations and promise backed by real gameplay proof. And while the thought of another 100+ hour prospect the same year as Tears of the Kingdom makes me physically ill – and I’ve historically bounced off every major western RPG I’ve ever tried – it’s still mighty scary how good this game looks. I daresay a fair few people will become hermits this September.
On the other side of the large spacefaring adventure coin, Ubisoft Massive’s Star Wars Outlaws had a doozy of a debut party too, showing off a level of early polish only a project boasting that many development support teams – and a publisher on the back foot – can deliver. The wide-variety gameplay debut at Ubisoft Forward would have swept up even more accolades in any other non-Starfield year, but it’s got some serious eyes on it now regardless.
Loser: Murky Live Service Shooters
My, how quickly perceptions can change in this industry. I was one of those people who didn’t mind the Playstation showcase that kicked off the de facto hype season in late May, but on the first-party side it sure felt different from the gigaton flexes of old. There’s a reason for that: Spidey (and the return of Helldivers!) aside, the only exclusive presence came overwhelmingly from live-service multiplayer titles without any gameplay to show yet. As well-made as the likes of FAIRGAME$ and the new Marathon are likely to be, they gave serious whiplash to a fanbase that looks at Playstation as the house of the industry’s best cinematic single-player experiences. And even though Square Enix/PS partnership shooter Foamstars came out looking much better at the end of Summer Games Fest once journalists and streamers had actually played it on the SGF show floor, it still picked its reveal moment poorly and its chances of long-term survival are grim.
Winner: Flagship JRPGs
E3 and its various successors tend to be western-leaning events; June hype, after all, firmly lives on the west coast of the US. But that hasn’t stopped the odd Japanese Role-Playing Game from breaking through the LA crowd and making a name for itself over the years, and 2023 brought only the biggest names in the genre. Though the Playstation Showcase helped alarmingly little in this department, the SGF and Xbox shows (along with an overzealous Atlus social media manager) whipped up plenty of hype with new trailers for the mammoth Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, exciting Yakuza successor Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the gorgeous and long-awaited Persona 3 ReLoad, and next step in the Persona development lineage Metaphor: ReFantazio. Then Nintendo and Square showed up at the end to put a delectable bow on everything with a full Super Mario RPG remake. The future of higher-end JRPGs is looking mighty fine.
Loser: Pokemon
…Except maybe for the biggest-name JRPG there is. It turns out the absence of a dedicated Pokemon Presents show this year meant Nintendo could use the ambitious upcoming two-part Pokemon Scarlet/Violet DLC to kick off their own full Direct – and it was an underwhelming choice of opener to say the least. What we saw amounted to little more than an extended director’s cut of the DLC’s debut trailer, showing some new landscapes and buildings via sweeping Dutch angles but not a single glimpse at any of the features or additions that made the Sword/Shield expansions worth owning, or even a release date for the first part. This kind of trailer has its place, but it’s not at the start of a Nintendo Direct.
Winner: Presentations That Have Fun
Nintendo’s show eventually recovered its momentum, and though meaty announcements were the main reason, the assured silliness of the presenters certainly didn’t hurt. Seeing Direct veteran Yoshiaki Koizumi dancing with abandon right after the announcement of a proper sequel to WarioWare Smooth Moves not only mirrored my own feelings on the matter; it added to the welcome amount of whimsical and/or irreverent presenting styles we had seen this season. For example, I could listen to old VA friends Laura Bailey and Yuri Lowenthal gleefully trading lame jokes on stage for hours on end, and the Future Games Show gave us plenty of that to enjoy. Devolver Digital always brings the goods on the wackiness front, but the pinpoint-edited intro segment of their 2023 show had me cackling way too loudly in a hotel room as they told the tale of a fake 1990s gaming mascot. Let’s have even less stuffiness in the showcases next year!
Loser: Stone-Faced Capcom
Oh, sweet Capcom. The Japanese gaming titan has been on a scarcely believable hot streak of fantastic game release after fantastic game release lately, but still cannot quite nail the presentation game. Their half-hour 2023 showcase may have had a couple of fun announcements for die-hard fans (the Phoenix Wright saga is about to be properly complete on modern consoles!), but re-running recent trailers and footage from Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Resident Evil 4 VR, and Dragon’s Dogma II just ain’t the stuff of a great show. And the presenters looked so stiff and serious about everything! You’re about to release a game where a mechanised version of Ryu from Street Fighter can take on a tornado of velociraptors, guys. Surely it’s OK to have a bit of fun with your presentation. The sweet hat worn by Ghost Trick director Shu Takumi is a good start.
Vagrant Rant 