State of Play June 2022 Roundup

It’s that time again folks. Showcase season is upon us, and while we don’t exactly know how many showcases there will be this year, there are some obvious contenders out there. Leading the pack for a slow E3-less trickle of showcases is Sony, which just had its own State of Play showcase with just under 30 minutes of new information and announcements. Let’s dive into the showcase, shall we?

The first announcement, coming on March 24^th, 2023 is a full remake of Resident Evil 4! I think we all saw this coming eventually, especially with how popular the game is. Sony and Capcom revealed a new trailer, showcasing what seems to be a revised form of the story. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I hope the escort sequences are less annoying this time around. It seems that PlayStation VR 2 content is also coming as well for Resident Evil 4’s remake.

This transitioned into a PlayStation VR 2 segment, announcing four games for the platform. The first announced was Resident Evil Village, which will be fully playable in VR. It seems that this version of Resident Evil Village will allow for multiple guns to be held at once, (one in each hand) along with other VR-specific changes.

The second announced game for the PlayStation VR 2 was The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Chapter 2 – Retribution. They revealed the second chapter via a cinematic gameplay trailer that interspersed story voice-over with actual gameplay. You’ll be taking on the zombie hordes sometime in 2022 on the PSVR 2.

Next up, you’ll be able to take your space exploration to the next level in No Man’s Sky. The PSVR 2 version looks pretty solid, allowing you to put yourself in that frontier-exploring ship to take to the stars. There was no release date for this PSVR 2 version of No Man’s Sky.

The last game in this round of PSVR 2 announcements was a spinoff of Horizon: Zero Dawn titled Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain. The game puts you in the shoes of a new character, though you’ll meet familiar faces along the way. The game looks stunning, and I think playing it in VR will be a very interesting experience for fans of the franchise. There’s no release date, but Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain will be a PSVR 2 exclusive.

Guerilla also announced an update to Horizon: Forbidden West which offers New Game+, Performance Mode, the option to reset skills, transmog your gear, and more. The update is available for PS4 and PS5 now and offers the Ultra Hard Difficulty option. With the VR announcements out of the way, there was more to show in the showcase.

Moving right along, we have an announcement that we already covered a bit more in-depth. The Insomniac Spider-Man games (Marvel’s Spider-Man and Miles Morales) are coming to PC! I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, you can read more about the announcement here. However, the Spider-Man games will be coming to PC later this year.

We also got a bit more time with the futuristic cat-Simulator Stray. Annapurna Interactive released a new trailer with a bit of gameplay. The trailer showed off some of the cat-based shenanigans, including platforming, looking for cat badges, interacting with (or hiding from) robots, and more. Stray will release on July 19^th for PS4 and PS5. PlayStation Plus Deluxe and Premium members can play Stray at launch.

Next up came Striking Distance Studios’ The Callisto Protocol. The game has serious Dead Space meets Resident Evil vibes, and I’m intrigued. The Callisto Protocol puts you on the “Dead Moon” trying to survive. It will release for PS4 and PS5 on December 2^nd, 2022.

After that was a trailer for Private Division’s latest game, which is an action sports title. It has the same style of graphics as Sable, which is a little hard on the eyes for me. However, it looks fun, combining roller skating/tricks with gunplay and other action. Rollerdrome will put you up against robots, soldiers, and more when it releases on August 16^th for PS4 and PS5.

The last game in this three-announcement batch was an interesting anime-styled Action RPG where you play as a character who lost part of their arm, having it replaced with an energy sword/arm thing. It is hard to describe, but that’s just one of the characters in this stylish action game. Eternights is one-half Action RPG and one-half Dating Sim, and I am very interested. It releases in Early 2023, and yes, you can romance the guy.

Capcom took the stage again with the highly anticipated Street Fighter 6. I can’t tell for sure, but this one looks like it might have exploration elements in the single-player mode? If so, I’m somewhat excited about that. Also, I’m nominating Ryu for beefcake of the year from this trailer. Seriously though, Street Fighter 6 looks great and will release on PS4 and PS5 in 2023. While no other platforms were announced, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is only a timed exclusive.

After that powerhouse announcement came another highly-anticipated one. Finji’s Tunic is coming to PS4 and PS5! I’ve been hoping for this for a while since the Zelda-like is adorable and I’ve heard very good things about it. Tunic’s PlayStation debut will release on my birthday, September 27^th, 2022.

Previously announced last year, Season: A Letter to the Future just got a new trailer. The game looks gorgeous and carries with it a feeling of really being able to dig in and explore people’s lives as you travel and record information. Season will release this Autumn on PS4 and PS5. I’m very intrigued by this one.

Finally, Naoki Yoshida revealed new information about Final Fantasy XVI! Specifically, there was a new trailer, and we now know that the game won’t release until next year. I hope that we’ll see more information soon on potential party setups, as this trailer focused on action with the main protagonist and combat between Eikons (summons).

It also revealed bits of the story, such as the fact that dominants are vessels for the Eikons, which makes them valuable politically. The Eikons shown were some familiar ones such as Titan, Shiva, Phoenix, and Ifrit, as well as Garuda, a new Wind-Summon tied to a female character. Clive (the protagonist) seems to be able to channel the powers of all the allies he has, using various abilities related to them. There is still a lot to show, but I am very excited for Final Fantasy XVI to release next summer.

That’s all they had to show for the June 2022 State of Play. Are you excited about any of this? I know I am. There’s still a lot more to see though, this week we have Summer Game Fest kicking off on Thursday, with more conferences to come after that. Let us know what you’re excited about in the comments!