Kratos, Spider-Man and a remake nobody expected at Sony's E3 briefing

With the PS4 Pro and PS VR already out there in the wild doing their thing, people were expecting games, games and a few more games at Sony’s E3 conference. 

While only the most optimistic gamers were anticipating a glimpse at massive exclusives like Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding or The Last of Us Part 2, most had their fingers crossed for some more information on the upcoming Spider-Man game. 

And then there’s VR. Sony’s first headset has already had some incredible experiences in Resident Evil 7 and Rez, but those who have made the early jump into gaming’s latest innovation were eagerly awaiting news of what was coming next.

So what did team PlayStation reveal? Read on to find out what pricked our ears. 

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

We kicked off with a fresh look at the upcoming Uncharted 4 DLC, which ditches mainstay protagonist Drake to focus on the duo of Chloe Frazer and renowned mercenary Nadine Ross, as they seek to find and protect an Indian artifact. 

Make no mistake though; this is very much an Uncharted game, which means ridiculously beautiful vistas, scaling perilous rock faces, tomb raiding (ahem), puzzling and swiftly clearing rooms of bad guys who outnumber you tenfold. Now the proper series has concluded for good (probably) we’re chomping at the bit for any and all spinoffs Naughty Dog want to throw at us.

Days Gone

We had a long look at Bend Studio’s upcoming take on the zombie apocalypse game, Days Gone, which is shaping up very nicely indeed. 

Starting with a motorbike ride through a foreboding-looking forest, the six-minute trailer then goes on to show us the main dude stalk his way around an enemy camp. It’s clear that a sneaky, methodical approach to gameplay will be as important as all-out action here, but isn’t variety the spice of life?

There’s definitely more than a hint of The Last of Us to the game, but when we see a disturbing horde of slap-headed undead tucking into breakfast – all the time supplemented by understandable muttering about the bleak situation our protagonist finds himself in – it’s clear that Days Gone has its own thing going on.  

The demo finished with the sudden arrival of a zombie grizzly bear wrapped in barbed wire, which frankly makes Leo’s foe in The Revenant look cuddly. 

Shadow of the Colossus 

Nobody was expecting this. 

Just casually dropped into Sony’s quick-fire reveal of new games was a trailer for a ground-up remake (think Ratchet & Clank) of beloved PS2 classic Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a game that features highly on the all-time lists of pretty much anyone that played it for the first time over a decade ago, so this predictably drew huge cheers.

Bringing down the big guys in sparkly 4K is going to be even more traumatic, though. 

Skyrim leads a lineup of new VR titles 
 

You have to hand it to Bethesda. Despite their esteemed RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim being nearly six years old, they’re managing to relaunch it on two new platforms this year: the Nintendo Switch (complete with Zelda fancy dress) and now PlayStation VR. 

Ready to lose hundreds of hours of your life to this all over again?

That wasn’t the only title announced for Sony’s headset either. We were treated to a little sizzle reel of upcoming games, which you can watch the trailers for below.

God of War

The God of War reboot, or as the internet likes to call it, Dad of War , was shown off for the second year running. In a new video we saw Kratos having deep father/son chat with his young boy, before giving him a first-degree lesson in slaughtering monsters. Clearly babysitting isn’t a big thing in Norse mythology. 

The game looks, as you’d expect from one of PlayStation’s biggest hitters, absolutely stunning, and combat appears to be more gorily visceral than ever. The demo’s dramatic conclusion sees the Kratos and Kratos Jr. come face-to-face with a giant, terrifying sea snake that apparently just wants to help them out. Hmmm.

Out early 2018. 

Detroit: Become Human

We got a new trailer for David Cage’s slick sci-fi game, Detroit: Become Human at the Sony briefing.

It’s a world where humans are clinging onto their enforced authority as the androids simultaneously plot their uprising. Essentially, the same thing you worry about every time Siri gives you backchat. As the player progresses through the story they’ll have to choose between employing violence or pacifism to get what they want.

Spider-Man

Watch Insomniac’s upcoming Spidey game in action and it’s impossible not to be reminded (and we mean this 100% as a compliment) of Spider-Man 2 on the PS2. No game has captured the sheer thrill of zipping across the New York skyline like that one, and if this PS4 exclusive just nails the web-slinging we’ll probably be perfectly satisfied. 

But it looks like it’ll have a lot more going for it than that. The city itself is beautifully rendered and will hopefully make good use of the PS4 Pro’s processing grunt. Our hero looks like he has plenty of web-based moves up his sleeve, and there’s something distinctly Batman: Arkham about the way he stalks his prey from above. Learning from the very best in the business, then.

The game moves at a breakneck pace, and while quicktime events (QTEs, where you have a small window of time to execute button presses as they appear on screen) can sometimes break your immersion, they make everything look that bit more cinematic here. 

If you can’t tell, we’re well up for this one, and we have no intention to stop humming the Spider-Man theme tune anytime soon. 

We’ll be covering every major press conference throughout the week. For a lot more E3 content, head over to http://e3.game.co.uk/