And now, Sony is about to show us the next wave of PS5 software. For far too long, PlayStation fans have complained about Sony’s silence, and how the company won’t share what’s in the pipeline for the $500 machines they have just bought on faith – the good thing is, now Sony is about to show us what’s behind the curtains, with their upcoming PlayStation event.

Obviously, it’s hard to know exactly what we can expect from this show, but there are some predictions we can make – based on rumours, educated guesses, precedence, and just plain old wishful thinking at times. Honestly, if even half this list shows up at Sony’s even, we’ll be satisfied – if they manage to pull through with all of them, we’ll be ecstatic. So, without further ado, here’s what we expect.

HORIZON: FORBIDDEN WEST

Horizon: Forbidden West got a huge State of Play back before E3, and it’s spent the last few weeks in the news cycle, with the confirmation of the official release, date, as well as pre-order details, and the snafus associated with Sony’s boneheaded cross-gen strategy. But what we haven’t gotten in a while is a new look at the game itself – which we probably will at Sony’s event. To be honest, we probably won’t see a lot of it, and Sony will presumably not want to linger on it too much, since it has been in the news cycle (and since Sony will probably want to talk about stuff we don’t have as much details on), but Horizon being there is a pretty safe bet. Hopefully we get to see more of a look at how Guerrilla plans on evolving their well-received, but flawed, first attempt at an open world action RPG.

THE LAST OF US REMAKE

From recent, well sourced reports, we know that Sony is supposed to be working on a remake of the seminal The Last of Us. Whether or not this is a considered decision is now water under the bridge – no matter what one thinks of whether the excellent 2013 game which still holds up needs a remake, it is, apparently, getting one. And if it is, we might get to see it at this event. It’ll be really interesting to see what changes, if any, the game has over the original – The Last of Us is one of the most beloved games of all time, and out single handedly defined Sony’s entire first party approach from there on. It also holds up remarkably well – so what will the remake bring to the table? Are we looking at it adopting Part 2‘s amazingly realized sandbox style encounters? Will there be any changes made to the story? We’re pretty excited to see what comes of The Last of Us‘s remake at this point, and we hope Sony brings the goods.

THE LAST OF US PART 2: FACTIONS

Of course, The Last of Us Remake will probably not be the only new entry in that franchise we see at this event. Sony and Naughty Dog have been teasing the multiplayer component to Part 2, which was expanded in scope to be a standalone product, for a while now, and we still haven’t seen anything of it. We’ve barely had official acknowledgement for it. So, the time has come – if this thing is still happening, this PS event is where Sony should take the curtains off and finally reveal how The Last of Us multiplayer will be evolving in the next generation. Personally, given how mechanically sublime The Last of Us Part 2 is, I can’t wait to see what a multiplayer game based off of it will be like.

FORSPOKEN

Final Fantasy 16 is not going to be at this show – as much as I’d want it to be, Square Enix pretty much confirmed earlier this year that it’s unlikely to be shown off for the remainder of 2021. But we already know that Forspoken, the new game from the development team of Final Fantasy 15, is supposed to release before Final Fantasy 16 – so perhaps we get a new look at that? There are a lot of questions about this game, which is promising to deliver an open world action RPG unlike any Square Enix has ever attempted in the past – and maybe a deeper dive into what the game might deliver will help stoke the fires of hype.

GRAN TURISMO 7

This one is honestly a bit of a crapshoot as to whether or not it shows up at the event. Gran Turismo games are notorious for having protracted development cycles, something that 7 is probably especially struggling with given COVID-19 is still a thing, and that apparently the PS4 version for it was added later in development. Past GT games have often skipped showings at events until nearer release – depending on the state of the game right now, there’s a possibility that Gran Turismo 7 is a no-show here as well. However, presumably we will get something for the game here – a short trailer or a gameplay demo around one track, perhaps? Like I said, it’s hard to nail this one down. But Gran Turismo is Sony’s oldest active franchise – and I am sure there are many who would be delighted to see it.

BLUEPOINT GAMES

Is Sony actually acquiring Bluepoint Games? Who knows anymore? When announcing the acquisition of Housemarque earlier this year, PlayStation Japan’s Twitter account accidentally also shared news indicating Bluepoint had been similarly acquired – but that was quickly deleted, and Bluepoint continues to be independent, with no official acknowledgement of that goof since. Was it a goof? Who knows? Maybe Sony announces Bluepoint joining the PlayStation Studios family at this event. Maybe there is no acquisition, but at the very least we get to see what game they are working on next – whether it be a remake of some other classic Sony property, or something new entirely.

NEW GAMES FROM SONY’S NEW PARTNERSHIPS

Over the last few months, Sony has been announcing new partnerships for exclusive games with newly set up studios, most prominently, Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios. We haven’t seen or heard anything from these new games these studios are supposed to be working on, even though we do know that Sony is apparently relying on their expertise with multiplayer games to compensate for the weakness of those styles of games in their own first party lineup. Once more, if these games are anywhere close to being shown, this Sony even is as good a place as any. Hopefully we see at least one of them soon.

BLOODBORNE REMASTER

People have been trying to will a Bloodborne remaster into existence for almost half a decade now (ever since the PS4 Pro in fact). They have good reason to – Bloodborne is an amazing game, but it suffers from being technically fairly, shall we say lacking. Framerate drops and frame pacing issues are the biggest problems the game suffers from, and a re-release that does literally nothing else except ironing those out will probably be able to charge a $70 premium and get away with it for its contingent of loyal and devoted fans. Bloodborne as a remaster – for PS5 and PC – has been rumoured variously for a while now, though to be fair, none of those rumours really seem to have much backing them. But again, if it’s true that this game is getting a remaster, or re-release, or update of any kind, we should hopefully see it next week. And if we don’t… well, sometimes it’s best to just make your peace with how things are.

NEW FROM SOFTWARE GAME

In the PS3 and PS4 eras, Sony partnered with From Software to deliver a generation defining game each time that would drive core gamers to their consoles – Demon’s Souls for PS3, Bloodborne for PS4. Recent reports indicate they are teaming with From Software again for a hat trick, which sounds extremely exciting – although a lot of questions remain about whether or not there is any veracity to this rumor. For starters, given that all of From has been pulled into trying to get Elden Ring out the door, who exactly is working on this new game? Secondly, given that Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls were both FromSoftware and Sony Japan co-productions (a fact that tends to often be forgotten), who exactly is working with From on this game? Sony Japan is closed now, because Sony in their infinite wisdom decided to shut down their oldest internal development studio. Is there even any truth to this rumor? I really hope so, because as I said, the last two times Sony and From joined forces delivered among the greatest games of all time. I’d love another one of those.

WIPEOUT

Something that somehow feels even unlikelier than a new From Software partnership is a new Wipeout game, and yet, a new Wipeout game was part of a lot of the same reports that reported on the new From title. Unlikely, why? After all, Wipeout was widely loved, and is Sony’s oldest IP. But the thing is, the genre it is in hasn’t delivered a hit in over two decades, the studio that made Wipeout (industry legends Pygnosis, acquired by Sony before the release of PS1, rebranded later) has been shut down, and there is no indication that Sony really has any other studio with the know-how to make a futuristic arcade racing game. Maybe Polyphony Digital could give it a go (and they would probably do it well), but they seem to be all wrapped up in Gran Turismo 7 right now, so… how can this game exist? Why would it even exist, given how poorly Wipeout has done since the late PS1 era? Those questions are not for me to answer, they’re for Sony to. And if this game is real, hopefully Sony answers those questions at this event, and reveals a new Wipeout game worthy of the moniker. 

SPIDER-MAN 2

We literally got Miles Morales not even a year ago, and Insomniac delivered Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart just a couple months earlier this year – so it might seem foolish to expect the studio to reveal another new big budget tentpole game already, given how long games take to develop now, and that Miles is so new (and still selling so well); but Insomniac works really efficiently, and it’s actually not unrealistic to expect them to have a full-fledged Spider-Man sequel out by 2023. It’s also a game they have talked about a fair few times in the past. We are probably not going to get much of a detailed look at Spider-Man 2 at the PS event, if we get any look at all to begin with – but at the very least, I think we can expect an official announcement trailer.

GOD OF WAR

You knew we were going to save this for the end, because that’s probably what Sony is going to do as well. God of War 2018 was an incredible reimagining of a beloved franchise, and one of the most acclaimed games of last generation – and a direct follow up that builds on it and addresses its shortcomings is an exciting prospect by definition. Sony originally announced the game for a 2021 release for PS5 only – obviously, they weren’t being exactly truthful there, because the game is a cross-gen title, and it’s not coming this year, but neither of those things is really enough to dampen the hype at the prospect of a real, new God of War game running on the PS5. If we see nothing else at this show, we are guaranteed to see what happens in the story of Kratos and Atrues now that Ragnarok has been initiated – and how the sequel builds up on the tease at the very end of the 2018 game. We cannot wait, frankly, and a new look at God of War will be enough to make this event worth it all on its own.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

I honestly have never really had any issues with the cross-gen model. I had zero issues with it when Microsoft was doing it. I have zero issues with it now that Sony is doing it. I don’t buy that cross-gen games hold anything back either. Game design or quality is not contingent on the tech available to it. The best games ever made through the four decade history of this medium have been designed under heavy technical constraints, and games that are regularly considered among the very best of all time were designed for technology far more primitive than even the PS4. So no, I honestly don’t think that cross-gen holds back game design. I don’t think that new technology automatically makes games better. I think it allows for new, powerful, and sophisticated tools that make developers’ lives easier, and make it easier and more cost-effective for them to realize their vision than having to work around the technical constraints of weaker consoles would. But I don’t think that any game will be the best ever purely because of the magical SSD in the PS5.

But even though I don’t have any issues with cross-gen games, I absolutely do have issues with how Sony has handled its messaging around this topic in the last year or so. There has been a deliberate and consistent attempt to mislead and obfuscate at all times. Though Jim Ryan’s words leave enough wiggle room for interpretation when viewed in isolation, in context of the broader discourse at the time – they were specifically said in response to Microsoft’s cross-gen strategy, and the backlash that provoked, as well as off the tail of Mark Cerny’s repeated emphasis that the PS5 would enable games that wouldn’t be possible on the PS4 – it is very clear that Sony misled. And the proof of that is in the pudding, because if Sony had no intention of misleading, why, exactly, were every single one of the ultimately cross-gen games revealed as PS5 exclusive? Spider-Man Miles Morales, Horizon: Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, God of War Ragnarok, every single one of these games was either explicitly or implicitly supposed to be a PS5-only game, with PS4 versions only being announced much later.

No, the “pandemic shortages” which fans often like to point at as an excuse for why these games are cross-gen have nothing to do with this strategy, either. Unlike what fans would like to believe, these games weren’t meant to be PS5 exclusives initially and then only turned into cross-gen titles once the shortages that COVID-19 would cause became clear. Not only does game development not work that way – you have to scope out the technical budget and framework of your project ahead of time, and adding a system late in development can derail things significantly – but if that was true, then it would by definition nullify Mark Cerny’s entire sales pitch that PS5 games wouldn’t be possible on the PS4. If that was the case, how was it possible to turn PS5 games into also-PS4 ones late into their development cycle? If they were designed around the PS5, which enables experiences that cannot be achieved on old tech, how did that even happen?

But honestly, we have substantial proof, including from the developers, that this was never the case and that these games were developed for the PS4 from the get go. For instance, Guerrilla Games confirmed in an interview with Game Informer that the game had primarily been developed on the PS4, and that even playtesting of the title was being done on the PS4. If anything, the PS5 version is the one that came later, it appears. A report by VGC also seems to confirm that this is true for all of these cross-gen games – God of War, Sackboy, Spider-Man, Horizon were all in development for the PS4 from the get-go, with Gran Turismo 7 being the lone exception in being originally intended as a PS5 exclusive, and then being back ported to the PS4.

So no, Sony had always, always planned on these games being on the PS4 – they just heavily implied (or explicitly stated) that they would be exclusive to the PS5, presumably to generate hype, presumably to get people to buy the PS5 in a frenzy, maybe for some other reason. But the fact of the matter is, Sony did mislead and lie here. There is no getting around that, and honestly, it’s such an unnecessary move on their part as well. The PS5 is selling extremely well right now – better than any other console has in history, actually – and it is doing that in spite of its high price, the shortages, the controversy surrounding its game prices, and loads of bad press Sony seems to have a habit of generating these days. It’s selling well because it’s an amazing product, and because Sony makes amazing games. It was always going to sell well on those merits – Sony didn’t need to lie to artificially generate hype, particularly since the blowback with every single announcement for a game by them that will also come to the PS4 just ends up being egg on their face now as a result.

The blowback actually appears to come most from those people who bought the PS5 on the promise of exclusive next gen showcases for the console. I get that sentiment. The PS5 is not cheap – it’s $500 and it’s extremely hard to find, and it’s all that in the middle of the worst economic slowdown the world has seen in a hundred years. People who bought the system on the promise of a next generation God of War or Gran Turismo (two of Sony’s biggest franchises) only to now be told they aren’t actually getting that, that the games they are getting will be prettier versions of PS4 titles in those franchises, have a lot of reason to feel jilted (even if I personally don’t think that the game design will suffer from being on the PS4 like so many seem to). I mean, sure, the PS5 has had exclusive titles from Sony – but none from Sony’s biggest and most popular franchises. Spider-Man, Horizon, Gran Turismo, God of War, all seem to be opting for cross-gen, rather than committing to delivering next-gen exclusive experiences.

For people who spent the $500 on the console on the promise of those experiences, I do feel bad. However, ultimately, I feel that this is just vindication of an age-old refrain I have held – do not buy a console until you actually need to. Definitely do not buy it on a promise.

Consoles are expensive purchases. You should really only buy them once there is enough already available that justifies the hundreds of dollars you will be spending on it. This can be anything – it can be one showcase game that you feel is worth springing that money for, it can be new entries in your favourite franchises for that console, or it can be a specific number of games that finally makes you comfortable enough to pull the trigger. But you should only do it once those games are actually out. Buying consoles on promises is always a short-sighted decision. Because you have two options – either you buy a PS5 now because a God of War game for it has been promised, or you wait till God of War for the PS5 is already out and buy it then. The latter is always the better option because it is a more informed purchase. You’re waiting till a) the game is out b) you are aware of its quality and c) you know what it entails (I.e. you are not buying a system on the promise of a next-gen only experience that doesn’t exist; at that point, if you are choosing to buy a PS5 for God of War, you are doing so knowing it has a PS4 version as well). You can’t possibly feel misled or like you wasted your money then, because you know what you spent your money on – rather than having spent your money on something that is never delivered in the form it was promised to begin with.

To be clear, I don’t think this is exclusive to Sony either. I think this applies to all consoles. Consider the Wii U – it sold pitiful amounts, but how many of the people who bought it bought it on the promise of that great new open world Zelda game for it? That game was eventually delivered, sure, and it was amazing, but it was also inferior on the Wii U (and would go on to become the signature game for its successor). So if you spent $300 on the Wii U to play Breath of the Wild, you could either resign yourself to playing an inferior version after a years-long wait, or you could spend another $300 to play it in the best form possible. This, of course, could have been avoided if you’d waited to spend the money on the Wii U until the game you were buying it for – Zelda in this case – was actually out.

Ultimately, of course, everyone will decide how they want to spend their money. And spending money foolishly doesn’t absolve companies like Sony lying and misleading like they did with regards to the cross-gen situation for the PS5. But I do feel that there is something to be said for customers exercising some judgment before they spend hundreds of dollars on shiny new toys. Sony may have misled, but people who feel jilted at the money they spent wouldn’t have had they just… not spent the money until they had more information and concrete reasons to buy the product, rather than just empty promises.

So in an ideal world, I could hope that Sony, and Nintendo, and Microsoft, stop misleading their customers and are honest and upfront. But in this same ideal world, I’d also hope that customers actually start waiting before committing to expensive purchases – at the very least wait for the game you want to buy the console for to be out before you buy it. And, well, if the point was never the game, and it was just the console itself? Then you really shouldn’t feel that let down if a game or two isn’t what was promised. There are still plenty of next-gen experiences on the PS5 right now, and there will be more. Even a new PS5 only God of War and Horizon will eventually come. Unless the point wasn’t next gen games, but specific next gen games, the PS5 is delivering well enough that you don’t really have much to complain about in that case right now.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.