1. Mass Effect 3’s Endings

The biggest innovation the Mass Effect trilogy gave to the industry was its consequential choices affecting the events of its sequels. You could kill off beloved characters, and even have access to exclusive quests tied to specific choices. But all of that brilliant branching narrative comes crashing down when Shepard activates the Crucible to destroy the Reapers at the finale of Mass Effect 3.

Players are presented with three endings, all color-coded and nearly identical to each other. Sure, the outcomes of the endings are different, but the scenes that accompany them show the same dramatic sequence with some very slight alterations. Mass Effect 3’s illusion of choice is presented to you by the Star Child character, a shoehorned projection that pops up out of nowhere. The endings of Mass Effect 3 feel so cheap and inconsequential that many fans refuse to play through the trilogy again because of them, despite how excellent the games themselves are.

Please note that the feature list will contain major spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Batman: Arkham Knight, Ori and The Will of The Wisps, Horizon: Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Persona 5.

With that out of the way, let’s begin:

Joel – The Last of Us 2

Easily one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the generation, Joel’s surprise death held so much weight that it completely divided the fanbase into two halves. Over the course of the first game, Joel had undergone a transformation from one husk of a human being to a caring father figure for Ellie. The sequel opens up with the two growing distant from one another, and Ellie essentially wastes her last precious moments with Joel before he is tortured and ruthlessly murdered by Abby. What makes this more heart-wrenching is that Ellie remains in front of Joel the whole time, tirelessly screaming for mercy – to rather unsurprisingly, no avail. It’s a powerful scene that goes on to show the sheer brutality of The Last of Us‘ post-apocalyptic setting.

Jak 2 

Naughty Dog had carved out its reputation as one of the best developers with its 3-hit streak of Crash Bandicoot on the PS1. The studio once again reinvented itself with Jak and Daxter on the PS2, masterfully morphing its learnings from previous games into a brand new world. Despite many differences between the two franchises, most of Naughty Dog’s work was focused on building family-friendly experiences and charismatic characters, and light-hearted banter. This then changed with Jak 2, a markedly darker sequel that revolves around the iconic duo being thrust into an open-world futuristic dystopia – all while Jak’s personality becomes much darker after an experiment. Some might see this tonal shift as a welcome shake-up for the series, but many resented this change. Either way, Naughty Dog course-corrected again with the next entry in the franchise. 

Thomas Downes – Red Dead Redemption 2

Rockstar Games’ latest Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game about characters. In addition to the richly realized open-world brimming with personality, Arthur Morgan’s tale of redemption is also brimming with a complex and meaningful supporting cast of characters. Players meet Thomas Downes while completing extortion missions for Strauss, wherein a brawl against this person, who is on his deathbed gives Morgan tuberculosis. As our beloved cowboy realizes that he might not even live long enough to see Dutch’s grand plan come to fruition even if it was any good, to begin with, we start to see him change as he becomes a more empathetic and caring man than he was once before – a major courtesy of Thomas Downes.

Which is why this year is so curious for the company- Sony has, apparently, shown us their hand for this E3 entirely. They have very explicitly confirmed that they will be focusing on only four first party games – The Last of Us Part 2, Death Stranding, Ghosts of Tsushima, and Spider-Man– which means that we probably can’t expect a surprise announcement for something like Bloodborne 2 from their show. They have also confirmed that there will be “no new hardware” announcements, so we can’t even count on a PS5 or “PS4 Super Pro” announcement to keep us excited.

"This is a company that has mastered the art of surprising its fans- going all the way back to the shock announcement that the PlayStation will be $299 against an expected $399 price, back in 1994, to now. Surely they will still manage to delight us as they always have, right?"

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So how does Sony surprise us this year? Bear in mind, this is a company that has mastered the art of surprising its fans- going all the way back to the shock announcement that the PlayStation will be $299 against an expected $399 price, back in 1994, to now. Surely they will still manage to delight us as they always have, right?

The good news is, they probably will- and that doesn’t mean that they lied to us. No, it just means we can expect other kinds of surprises. Here are a few ways Sony can pull the rugs from under our collective feet during their E3 show this year.

THIRD PARTY GAMES, OBVIOUSLY

So let’s start with the obvious one- while Sony themselves will be focusing only on the four games named above, they also confirmed that third party and indie games will still get the spotlight at their show. So- new third party game announcements at the Sony E3 show could still be a major source of excitement. Whether it is our first look at the Resident Evil 2 Remake, or maybe Rockstar bringing back, almost a decade after its first announcement, Agent, there are a lot of third party games that could still do the job that Sony’s own first party announcements otherwise would.

"If Red Dead Redemption 2 is to be at E3, it will be at Sony’s show, given Rockstar’s marketing deal- so, again, seeing the world premiere of gameplay footage for that game would probably be enough to win crowds over once and for all."

For instance, there is a large chance that Shadows Die Twice, From Software’s new game, is probably multiplatform- but given the developer’s affinity with Sony, it will probably get a proper reveal at Sony’s show. That in and of itself will be a major source of hype and excitement for many. If Red Dead Redemption 2 is to be at E3, it will be at Sony’s show, given Rockstar’s marketing deal- so, again, seeing the world premiere of gameplay footage for that game would probably be enough to win crowds over once and for all. What I am saying is, third party game announcements and footage can still be plenty exciting- and depending on which ones Sony has on stage for its show, they could still add a dose of unexpected delight to proceedings for them this year.

GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE FOR THEIR OWN GAMES

So, Sony is bringing four games to E3 this year- Ghosts of Tsushima, Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part 2, and Death Stranding. Do you want to know what is interesting about them? Barring Spider-Man, we have not seen a single second of gameplay footage for any of those games. So just seeing how the long awaited sequel to Naughty Dog’s seminal The Last of Us, which is one of the greatest games of all time, might play is going to be extremely exciting- provided the gameplay itself lives up to player expectations, which it likely will. And even more than that? Death Stranding is the first non-Metal Gear game renowned auteur Hideo Kojima has made in a very long time- seeing what he does when he has carte blanche on game budget and resources, and freed from the shackles of that franchise, is plenty exciting in and of itself. That alone would probably get more people hyped than anything most other companies can muster.

"Death Stranding is the first non-Metal Gear game renowned auteur Hideo Kojima has made in a very long time- seeing what he does when he has carte blanche on game budget and resources, and freed from the shackles of that franchise, is plenty exciting in and of itself. That alone would probably get more people hyped than anything most other companies can muster."

Throw in gameplay footage for Ghosts of Tsushima, which is likely to at least be good (when was the last time Sucker Punch made a bad game?) and Spider-Man, which is looking set to be one of the highest selling games of the year, and Sony has plenty of ammo to generate hype even without new announcements.

PS4 PRICE CUT

This one is a pie in the sky sort of dream, but- the PS4 is now in the final stage of its life. It is still selling exceptionally well, far better than consoles do in their fifth year on the market. Wouldn’t it, then, be surprising if Sony were to permanently drop the price of the machine? It currently costs $299- would it not generate a lot of excitement if the console was dropped to $199 by itself, and $249 bundled with a game? Mind you, Sony actually did this for a limited time last year- in November, the price of the PS4 was dropped to $199, causing mass sellouts in the console’s fourth year on the market, and without any major new game release (except Gran Turismo Sport). PS4 ended up running circles around the competition that month- Sony could push the PS4’s sales pace beyond anything seen in the console market before, and also pick up a lot of gamers with a low price like that- hell, they can also use that chance to lower the price of the PS4 Pro, and boost adoption rates for that console, too.

"PS4 currently costs $299- would it not generate a lot of excitement if the console was dropped to $199 by itself, and $249 bundled with a game? "

It is very unlikely that either of this will happen- but if it did, I like to believe it would be the announcement that cements Sony’s domination of the console market for the rest of the year.

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.

Industry insider shinobi602 is back at it again, this time offering more teases of what’s to come with Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding (exclusive on consoles to PS4) and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 whose announcement is apparently coming soon.

It was noted earlier that Death Stranding wouldn’t be using Sucker Punch’s engine and when asked on Twitter if KojiPro was using an entirely new engine, shinobi602 responded, “It’s not.”

He further added that people will be surprised that it wasn’t something regular like Unreal Engine 4. The final tease came when he confirmed that it’s actually an engine from Sony first party studio that’s being used. Which one? That’s anyone’s guess at this point.

As for The Last of Us 2, shinobi602 dropped a vague statement about how this year’s PlayStation Experience would be “better than The last 2 PSX shows”. Notice the odd capitalization? So did another user and shinobi602 chose to stay silent on the matter (discounting the GIF posted). It’s not exactly a tease for The Last of Us 2 but such is the nature of teases.

Will we see the Naughty Dog sequel at PSX this Saturday? Will Hideo Kojima reveal exactly what engine Death Stranding is using? Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days to find out.

Would you like a The Last of Us 2? I’ll admit, while I think the first game was perfect in and of itself, and hardly needs a sequel, I wouldn’t mind getting a sequel that explored an entirely different part of the world with entirely new characters. I do want to see what Naughty Dog can achieve with the world with the resources that the PS4 can afford them.

The good news is, a The Last of Us 2 may be coming – this bit isn’t news, we’ve had all but a confirmation for this for a while now – but it may even be getting an announcement sooner than we think. How do we know this? Well, well known industry insider shinobi602 is at it again. In a thread on NeoGAF about E3 2017, when someone posted that they would love for The Last of Us 2 to be announced there, shinobi left a tantalizing post saying only that ‘Maybe you don’t have to wait that long.’

It is to be noted that shinobi is a well established industry insider with a very good track record, so we have no reason to doubt him this time. With that said… what could he possibly mean? An announcement for the game before E3? The original The Last of Us was announced at the VGAs, after all, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for the sequel to not be announced at E3 either- maybe at Sony’s own upcoming PlayStation Experience awards?

We’ve seen Naughty Dog drop hints about a sequel to The Last of Us over the past few years. In fact, there was even a teasing poster in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End for The Last of Us: American Daughters. No new information has been revealed on whether it’s happening but voice actor Ashley Johnson, who voiced Ellie in the original, is keen on returning.

Speaking to GameSpot, she stated that, “I feel like if they were to pursue it again, if they were to have another story for Ellie or Joel or that whole world, I would totally jump on board. But you know there’s also a part of me that thinks, ‘Man, the story could stand alone,’ and sometimes we should just leave it alone. If they were to make another one, though, I would love to be a part of it.”

As for The Last of Us film, Johnson said she doesn’t know how far production has come or if any progress has been made. However, she’s still interested in seeing it happen. As for appearing in it? She noted, “Yeah, I’d be a clicker.” Probably in jest. Probably.

At this point, everyone probably knows about this easter egg in Uncharted 4– and if you have not played through Uncharted 4 yet, close this window now. There will be minor spoilers in this post. For everyone else, you may carry on reading.

Anyway, one of the collectibles that you collect in Uncharted 4 is a poster that references Naughty Dog’s other big hit recently- The Last of Us. Except what you come across is not something that seems to reference the game itself- rather, it is for The Last of Us: American Daughters, and it depicts what appears to be a pregnant woman in a ravaged setting. When people stumbled upon this easter egg, many of them took to believing that this was referencing the next Last of Us game.

Indeed, an easter egg like that would not be unprecedented- Naughty Dog, after all, included several references foreshadowing Uncharted 4 in The Last of Us, so why not have Uncharted return the favor? but that’s not even all- the big news here is not the existence of this easter egg, which most people at this point already know. No, the big news here comes from Richard Lyons, who is a concept artist at Naughty Dog. He is the one who apparently worked on this image, and he uploaded it to his online portfolio, with a short description that sets our imagination running.

“The Last of Us – American Daughters. The poster was created as an in game asset for Uncharted 4. Such a treat to work on. Also I can’t elaborate on the narrative to this image,” the description reads (emphasis added).

Now why would he say something like that? He could have just uploaded the image and be done with it- why call attention to the fact that there is a story to this image, and that it is one that he can’t discuss?

Have we stumbled upon what might be at the very least some very early concept art for the next Last of Us game? Do you think this theory holds any merit? And who is the woman here? It can’t be Ellie, since she doesn’t need a mask, but it could be her mother Anna- or is it someone else entirely? Could the next Last of Us game be a prequel, following the adventures of an Anna pregnant with Ellie after the infection has broken out, and Marlene, two women who we know spent some time together thanks to the game’s backstory? Let us know in the comments section!

A sequel to Naughty Dog’s 2013 hit The Last of Us is all but given- it is an idea that Naughty Dog themselves have floated multiple times, and it’s not like Sony will let one of their most successful games of all time simply be a one shot, either. However, for the time being, work on the mythical The Last of Us 2 has been suspended.

“Before my partner, Bruce [Straley] and I, my directing partner, came on to Uncharted 4 we were working on prototypes for different ideas within The Last Of Us universe,” Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann told GamesRadar. “All those things were left on hold when we had to come onto Uncharted 4 to direct the project.”

However, once work on Uncharted 4, including all of its DLC, is concluded, Naughty Dog will resume work on those prototypes, Druckmann confirmed.

“Our next focus is the single player [Uncharted 4] DLC and then, once we have enough resources, resurrect all those prototypes; see where we’re at, see where the teams at, what they’re excited for and go from there.”

Which sounds exciting- Uncharted is well and good, but I truly believe that Naughty Dog shone like never before with The Last of Us. Hopefully the sequel lives up to the original.