Horizon Forbidden West – Burning Shores

Guerrilla Games set several bars for excellent visuals with Horizon and its Decima Engine. Burning Shores offered the same stellar graphics but built on it with innovations in cloud generation, delivering massive frankenclouds that appeared like their own landscapes. Such was the fidelity and scale on display – especially during one encounter – that the expansion was only possible on PS5.

Resident Evil 4

There were some stellar remakes this year, but Capcom still proved it was the king with Resident Evil 4. The differences between the remake and the original are incredible in terms of lighting and color grading, not to mention the environments, which pack significantly more details. You also have the usual upgrades to character models, textures, effects and more. It’s expected from the developer, but it still never ceases to amaze even after all these years.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Cyberpunk 2077 was already a gorgeous-looking game at launch, specifically on PC. CD Projekt RED would make improvements over the years, implementing proper Xbox Series X/S and PS5 support, and it all led to Phantom Liberty. The expansion is a tour de force of incredible lighting, atmospheric environments, realistic animations and a stellar level of detail. That’s not even delving into the facial animations, which are still incredibly well done.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

In a year of incredible technical marvels, no game featured ray tracing across the board like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Regardless of the graphical mode chosen, it remained on and looked phenomenal, bringing the city to life even more realistically than in previous games. The significantly improved texture work and facial animations, not to mention the increased scale and seamless loading times, also didn’t hurt.

Dead Space

Motive Studio’s remake of Dead Space offered more than higher-resolution textures and sharper-looking environments (which were still pivotal in delivering a gorgeous experience). It also significantly enhanced the Ishimura’s mood thanks to new atmospherics and effects. Then there’s the new Peeling system, where Necromorph bodies had layers of skin and bones to destroy, providing more visual feedback on the use of certain weapons.

Hogwarts Legacy

Avalanche Software and Portkey Games went the extra mile to deliver an authentic experience in Hogwarts Legacy, and it shows. From the iconic castle and its classrooms to the surrounding landscape and locations like Hogsmeade, it’s all packed with details for fans. As a whole, the experience is visually rich, especially during combat with all the spells going off, and it’s a joy to wander the world, taking it all in.

Atomic Heart

There’s plenty to say about its writing, characters and gameplay, but no one can deny how incredible Atomic Heart looks. From all the subtleties, like the Polymer Glove’s wiring, to the scenes packed with details and atmospherics, Mundfish delivered visual fidelity while nailing the aesthetic. Doing all this while still offering excellent performance out of the gate is also noteworthy.

Dead Island 2

Over eight years after its initial announcement, Dead Island 2 finally released and honed in on a single aspect – the detailed and absolute destruction of the undead. A new system, FLESH, was implemented, allowing players to realistically break zombie bones, melt their skin and much more in over-the-top ways. Of course, doing so with so many zombies on screen, while offering excellent texture work in the models, environments and more is also worthy of note, especially during the more chaotic moments.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Respawn Entertainment’s long-awaited sequel got flak – and rightfully so – for its launch performance. It’s improved since then (unless you’re on PC, in which case results may vary,) but the fidelity and sheer attention to detail have never been in doubt. Whether you’re admiring the hustle and bustle of Coruscant, the extensive reaches of Koboh, the incredible facial animations or tense fights, Jedi: Survivor is a visual treat.

Mortal Kombat 1

Forget about the Nintendo Switch version for a second (WB Games certainly did at launch) and take some time to appreciate Mortal Kombat 1’s visuals. It’s a strong step up from Mortal Kombat 11, which is already an excellent-looking game, with its environments, character animations, effects and rock-solid performance on current-gen platforms. As much as NetherRealm has eroded goodwill with its monetization practices, Mortal Kombat 1 is still one of the best-looking fighters on the market.

Final Fantasy 16

There’s something to be said about Final Fantasy 16 and its aesthetics. While it can come across as dark and moody, the focus on a more grounded medieval fantasy, interspersed with incredibly detailed environments and cities, works well. It also doesn’t hurt that the animation and cinematics are top-notch, while the Eikon battles are another level in terms of fidelity. Performance could still use some improvements, but the series’ latest is still a sight to behold.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

Following the performance issues of Elden Ring at launch, it was nice to jump into FromSoftware’s Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon and enjoy some fast and fluid gameplay without any hangups. Though the scale is nowhere near the same, Rubicon 3’s environments are still brimming with details and gorgeously rendered. Of course, the real stars are the Armored Cores, from their animations to the over-the-top weapon effects, which popped incredibly without overwhelming the experience (most times).

Lies of P

Neowiz’s Lies of P is one of the bigger surprises of the year, not just in terms of how fun it is but also in how well it performs. The Souls-like offers a gorgeous Belle Epoque art style with excellent environmental lighting and detailed animations for its bosses and characters (even down to all the weapon animations). Its effects and texture work are also on point, and it achieves all of this while still scaling well across all platforms, not to mention multiple configurations on PC.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

One of the dark horses of the year in visuals, mainly due to launching at the tail end of everything else, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is simply a delight to observe. The Western Frontier is teeming with unknown flora and fauna, not to mention Na’vi roaming the world and going about their business. Incredible draw distances, stunning skyboxes, detailed foliage – the Snowdrop Engine does it all, and optimization across all platforms is pretty good. It may not get as much recognition as the other titles, but graphically, Frontiers of Pandora is stunning.

Alan Wake 2

It’s almost impossible for Remedy Entertainment to deliver anything less than a stellar visual experience, but it truly upped the ante with Alan Wake 2. The interplay between light and shadows, the meshing of in-game scenes and live action, the art direction and cinematography – it all comes together seamlessly, and that’s before getting into the excellent texture work and animation.

Mortal Kombat 1

NetherRealm Studios has done a great job with Mortal Kombat 1 2023, which is essentially a new beginning for the series after the events of Mortal Kombat 11 and its post-launch DLCs. In addition to playing really well with smooth animations and slick moves, Mortal Kombat 1 is also a looker in every sense of the word. Right from the character designs to the immaculate backgrounds and awesome fatalities, you will be able to notice a ton of detail within the high-fidelity presentation of this fighter.

Psycho Mantis (Metal Gear Solid)

Metal Gear Solid has a reputation for featuring boss fights that defy player expectations – and Psycho Mantis is definitely one such fight that really shocked gamers back in the day. You see, Psycho Mantis will always evade your moves since he’s reading them directly from the controller – which makes it impossible to damage the boss at first. Psycho Mantis can also read your memory card, and his dialogues will reflect what saves are present on your card.

The solution to beating him is to switch the controller from port 1 to port 2, which makes him open to attacks. Once that’s done, this boss fight becomes ridiculously easy and you can easily gun him down and get on with the story. On repeat playthroughs when you know what needs to be done, Psycho Mantis becomes a very silly albeit creative boss fight that poses little to no threat to the player.

Secret Ending – Gex

Gex was painfully unfunny throughout. Still, if you slogged and completed all of the hidden bonus rounds in each world, thus garnering all of the remotes, you’d gain access to Planet X. This is a fairly large world with eight levels and completing all of them will unlock a special ending. Unfortunately, it’s a bit…mixed in the “pride and accomplishment” department. It starts out with a text crawl calling you the best player in the world, universe, etc etc.

However, it gets oddly personal, asking if you have a life or just play games all day, and telling you to think about what you could have done instead of wasting time on Gex. “Go have a life,” it says, before adding “Get out of those superhero pajamas and do something.” Was this meant to be inspirational in some way? A “get your life together before it’s too late, kids” message? Regardless, you’re then treated to some concept art and the credits, which is sort of better but does little to soothe the emotional damage.

Yesterday’s show, the first big PlayStation show in almost a year, was basically a show put on by a market leader that understands this position. It was, very literally, more of the same. For a lot of people who were maybe hoping for Sony to come out and make left-field out there announcements to generate hype and interest like they did in the late-PS3 and early-PS4 eras, maybe this show yesterday was disappointing. But ultimately, what it delivered was more of the exact same kind of fare that people are on board with PlayStation for – we got to see more cinematic narrative action adventure games from Sony’s studios, we got to see some cool third party collaborations, we got to see some multiplatform games, we saw a couple of indie games, and we saw Deathloop and GTA5, both of which are going to be fixtures of Sony shows till the end of time.

Nothing was really surprising. I mean, yes, an Insomniac Wolverine game is technically surprising, but it’s not really a left field announcement anymore, because precedence for Marvel games from Sony is already set. And to be honest, I think it’s fine nothing was surprising anymore. At this point, I know what PlayStation does, and I know what to expect from it, and that’s all I want from it. Unlike Xbox, who are still finding their voice and aesthetic as far as a first party goes, PlayStation, like Nintendo, now has a defined position and formula for what works – and so, giving people more of what made PlayStation so big to begin with is absolutely a great thing to do with a new show.

The pacing of the show was great – very little win the way of fluff, and just game after game after game. I’ve seen some sentiment online that individual game trailers or segments tended to drag, but honestly, I didn’t feel that way at all. The most we saw of any game was 3-4 minutes, so if you didn’t like what was on screen, you didn’t have to put up with it too long. That, along with the conference being shorn of the kind of filler that stage shows usually have, means that this was a quick moving show – slick and well produced, brisk and quick moving.

The actual content was pretty solid too, and while people drunk on so-called “insider” hype expecting a Bluepoint Metal Gear remake and a PlayStation exclusive Silent Hill were probably disappointed, we actually got to see a fair amount of great looking upcoming games – Forspoken (some actual gameplay footage, traversal and mobility look cool, everything else is iffy); Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake (an exciting proposition, but hard to really get attached to without any gameplay, or anything except CG really); Project EVE (which looked like a surprisingly interesting action game); third party multiplatform titles, such as Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, Rainbow Six Extraction, Alan Wake, and Guardians of the Galaxy; yet more looks at Deathloop and GTA5, because we can never have enough (the latter, surprisingly, being delayed into early next year); Ghostwire Tokyo (which looked pretty neat!); Tchia, arguably one of the most charming and interesting looking games shown; and then we moved on to the PlayStation Studios segment.

Even here, to be honest, nothing was really unexpected, with one obvious standout. Gran Turismo 7 looks great, and Spider-Man 2 promises a really exciting sequel to the 2018 game and Miles Morales, but both of these are expected sequels (as well as sequels that had already been shown off/announced/discussed/acknowledged before). Wolverine by Insomniac is an exciting proposition, but we got to see no gameplay, we barely got to see anything that would give us an idea of what the game is like. Naughty Dog’s announcement was fairly disappointing – Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves may be exciting in that it finally brings Nathan Drake over to PC, but for PlayStation owners, having to pay full price money to get the same game as on the PS4 but with a frame rate and resolution boost is unacceptable, and hopefully there will be an upgrade path for existing owners that we will learn about closer to launch.

Sony chose to end the show on Ragnarok, and that was a great idea, because Ragnarok looks spectacular. It looks like Sony Santa Monica, who are pitching Ragnarok is the conclusion to the Norse narrative, are going all in and taking all the feedback that the original game got into account. What we saw already showed us more varied enemies, what looked to be bigger and more varied set pieces and bosses, and a more populated world with more NPCs; so it’s already looking like Ragnarok might end up delivering on the promise of 2018, a game which lay the foundation for one of the greatest games ever, but never quite reached that level itself.

Ending on Ragnarok, and indeed, on a segment focused only on their own games, which also included Wolverine, was a smart choice. While the early parts of the conference may have ended up disappointing many of Sony’s audience that traditionally would tune in for a show like this, Ragnarok and Wolverine meant the show signed off on a hell of a high note, and that the lingering impression for the show ended up being positive – even if they may have been disappointed or underwhelmed with what came before.

But honestly, I don’t think anyone who really enjoys PlayStation and the style of games that PlayStation pushes, could have been disappointed by yesterday’s show. It may not have been a top tier show on the same level as Sony’s legendary E3 2015 or 2016 shows, but at this point, it doesn’t have to be. At this point, Sony knows what people like, and giving them more of that is all it needs to do. And that’s what they did yesterday, and what we ended up with was a show that painted a promising picture of the future of PlayStation.

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.

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.

Insomniac Games has always been regarded as one of the better developers out there, especially following the massive success of Spider-Man on PS4. The open world title sold a whopping 13.7 million units worldwide as of August 2019. Ever since Sony acquired the developer, the question has always been: Spider-Man 2 when?

With the PS5 reveal event coming up, it seemed somewhat likely that a teaser for the sequel would be showcased. When asked about the same, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier on Twitter, “Insomniac’s got another game coming first!” The tweet was deleted afterwards and that only makes us all the more convinced that it’s legitimate.

Disappointing as it may be for some people, this isn’t all that strange. Sony acknowledged that it owns the rights to “past Insomniac Games works”, including Sunset Overdrive. Insomniac has been known for its Ratchet and Clank franchise on PlayStation consoles throughout history so a new title certainly seems likely.

However, some will ask: What if Sunset Overdrive 2 is announced? When will Spider-Man 2, if it’s currently in the works, be revealed? Regardless, the PS5 reveal event is slated for 1 PM PDT today so stay tuned for more details.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

It seems fitting to kick off with one of the most maligned PC launches for a major game in recent memory. Batman: Arkham Knight – the game itself – has a few issues of its own that don’t sit well with a large number of people, but the game’s PC version in particular has become an infamous example of a poorly handled PC launch for a game. WB Games are no strangers to bad PC releases, but Arkham Knight in particular drew all the negative attention in the world for pretty much every reason possible.

Spider-Man has been out for almost five months now, while its post-launch expansions have also all come out (and are really good, too). All eyes now are on the future, and considering how successful the game has been since its release, and how happy Sony has been with said success, it’s not a stretch to assume that Sony and Insomniac will be looking to the future as well.

As it turns out, it looks like early production on Spider-Man 2 might already be underway. Insomniac’s Bryan Intihar, who served as the creative director on Spider-Man, recently put up a tweet, expressing his nervousness over handing in the first story draft for… something. Sure, he doesn’t really mention a Spider-Man sequel by name (or Spider-Man at all, actually), but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that is most likely what he is talking about.

Then again, there’s the off chance that that isn’t what he’s talking about, so don’t take this as a confirmation of any sort. Spider-Man 2, whenever it does come out, is still probably a good few years away from launch, and almost definitely not a PS4 title- when it does come out, though, we have some expectations (and predictions) about what the game might include by way of villains. Read that feature through here.

Few things are more nerve-wracking than sharing your first story draft to others. pic.twitter.com/w0SX1GGqXe

— Bryan Intihar (@bryanintihar) January 25, 2019

Pinwheel – Dark Souls

Though it ultimately depends on the route players take, Pinwheel can be a big push-over since you’ve adequately levelled up at this point. The hilarious part is how Pinwheel isn’t even all that tough after the sheer torture that is The Catacombs. Having some of the lowest health of all the bosses in the game also doesn’t help. The fact that he’s not the only pushover boss in Dark Souls is also pretty funny, we suppose.