Summer Game Fest

Chef RPG is Stardew Valley but for restaurants instead of farms, the ‘plate’ side of the hypothetical ‘farm to plate’ bundle that Steam may one day sell. Even the set-up is similar to the farming game. You rock up all chef-like off the train, and you're soon greeted by your guide Hazel, yet another Boba-clutching robot. I might be misremembering Stardew. Fry yourself off a nice chunk of trai-loumi below.

As one of the hardest demo appointments to get into at Summer Game Fest's Play Days, we were excited to get hands-on with a quick thirty-minute demonstration of Phantom Blade Zero. Hardcore action titles such as this can have such a different vibe between watching someone else play the game during an online stream versus being able to pick up a controller and play for yourself. It was during Summer Game Fest 2024 that we finally got a brief taste of the Wuxia action players can look forward to in Phantom Blade Zero, a title that needs no introduction nor experience with the studio's prior titles as this is intended to be a prequel to the other Phantom Blade titles.

We recently went hands-on with the first half-hour of gameplay in STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl running on PC. After a brief story-heavy introductory cutscene, we were sent off running through dark corridors at our own pace with danger not far behind. As one that has had more than a short break from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series (Shadow of Chernobyl and the L.U.R.K. mod were honestly my last real in-depth experience with the series nearly a decade and a half ago, although I did dabble in a bit of Clear Sky back at release), so much of the world and inventory feels right at home. Name one other RPG where random bottles of vodka and tinned cat food are just as essential in your inventory as spare bandages and bullets.

PlayStation trophies for Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition have emerged online.

This year’s Summer Game Fest is officially in the bag, though host and producer Geoff Keighley still has Gamescom Opening Night Live and The Game Awards coming later this year. Nevertheless, Keighley has confirmed that Summer Game Fest will return in June 2025, venturing to Los Angeles.

Ahead of the launch of Shadow of the Erdtree, the first and only expansion to Elden Ring, PC Gamer interviewed game creator and FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki and asked whether the development team was aware of how many players had to use guides to complete their games, and if it changed anything in their design plans.

Summer Game Fest will be back in 2025, it has been announced.

Team Asobi studio director Nicolas Doucet isn’t ruling out a future Astro game that doesn’t lean so heavily into the history of PlayStation.

Wccftech recently had the opportunity to get an intimate behind-closed-doors look at Monster Hunter Wilds with a 30-minute gameplay demonstration from the Director of the title himself, Yuya Tokuda. During this hands-off demo, Capcom showcased a selection of early game content, from departing the main village and venturing out into the wilds with a map size that they’re already touting as over two times larger than previous titles and featuring a seamless transition with no loading from camp to quest.

Ubisoft provided the most comprehensive look at Star Wars Outlaws yet during a public showcase on Monday, which coincided with a hands-on demo being made available to press at Summer Game Fest.

It’s tough to be a Dragon Age fan in 2024. It’s been 10 years since Dragon Age: Inquisition, and BioWare has changed a lot since then, having made a very different type of game in Anthem that had fans (and former staffers) fretting that studio had turned away from its focus on narrative-centric games. That might be why, when I saw the first hour of Dragon Age: The Veilguard in a hands-off demonstration at Summer Game Fest, the game’s creative director John Epler said the word “narrative” to me at least a dozen times, as though trying to reassure me this game would not let me down on that score. I ate it up every time, grinning and nodding like a bobblehead. Because, honestly? That’s all I really want Dragon Age: The Veilguard to be, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Developer id Software revealed Doom: The Dark Ages at the Xbox Games Showcase with a sizzling debut trailer, and a couple of the new weapons have left something of a lasting impression. Speaking at Summer Game Fest, studio creative director Hugo Martin says the studio set out to "make the weapons feel like the most powerful you've ever held in a Doom game, like that Skull Crusher you saw in the teaser."

During Summer Game Fest, a new premiered featuring actor and comedian Tim Robinson, and now a full-length trailer and more gameplay details have come out.

It’s been five years since Anno 1800, but we’ve finally seen what’s next for Ubisoft’s history-hopping city-building series. Anno 117: Pax Romana will be the earliest period for the franchise yet, travelling back to the time of a peaceful Ancient Rome. After the biggest gap between Anno games yet, we at least won’t have to wait too long for the newly revealed entry: it’s out next year.

For me, sandbox games are never better when there’s an inherent chaos about to erupt at any given second. In a literal sandbox that might be anything from a kid burying a freshly-laid turd like a mischievous cat ready to be stepped on by an unsuspecting trespasser, gathering handfuls of grit to lob in a another kids’ eyes or swallowing a bunch of sand (hopefully turd-free) in pursuit of alchemising diamonds in their stomach. There don’t seem to be turds of any kind in upcoming sandbox RPG Streets of Fortuna, but that’s about the only thing that this ambitious “megasim” appears to be missing in its sprawling go-anywhere, do-anything open world.

It’s been almost a decade since Rebel Galaxy ably picked up the sci-fi trading and exploration mantle handed down by Freelancer, but it looks like a successor to the serene galaxy-venturing vibes of both is finally upon us. Star Trucker is exactly what it sounds like, transplanting the chill A-to-Z courier journeys of Euro Truck Simulator to the interplanetary, uh, roads of space. It’s out this September, and it looks wonderful.

I Am Your Beast is a tactical, smack-tical, I hope this tree branch doesn’t crack-tical while I’m hopping off it to land on this dude’s back-tical FPS. It’s from Strange Scaffold, of El Paso, Elsewhere and Booked For The Week fame. It is a euphoric splurge of murderous game verbiage that has you chaining together thrown knives and solar plexus punches, headshots and tree-fu. Lob an empty pistol at your screen, and then replace it, because you’ll need it to watch the trailer below.

The fifth edition of Wholesome Direct took place on Saturday, presenting over 70 indie games.

The Xbox Games Showcase has now ended, with more than 30 games shown.

The Artful Escape developers Beethoven & Dinosaur are following up their musical platformer with another soundtrack-driven narrative game. Mixtape draws on the classic tropes of coming-of-age teen flicks, adds striking stop motion-style visuals and completes the package with a soundtrack that would feel right at home in a John Hughes movie.

Microsoft and Blizzard have slapped a release date on Diablo 4's forthcoming content-o-season Vessel Of Hatred. It's out 8th October 2024, and sees you hooting and hollering down the road to the new region of Nahantu in search of Neyrelle, a character "who is both suffering the fate of her choice to imprison the Prime Evil Mephisto, and seeking a means to destroy him". In the process, you may choose to become "the apex predator of the jungle as the all-new Spiritborn class". You can also recruit mercenaries to help you, fight alongside other players in a new PvE co-op activity, "and more".

Microsoft has announced three new models of its Xbox Series consoles will launch this holiday season, including an all-digital Series X.

NetEase teamed up with Microsoft at this year’s Summer Game Fest to debut FragPunk, a new tactical FPS title, at the Xbox Games Showcase.

Microsoft has announced the next mainline entry in the Gears of War series.

The “first ever map expansion” for Fallout 76 is on its way with the the Skyline Valley update coming on June 12,.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a “reactive turn-based RPG inspired by the lavish art and culture of France’s Belle Époque”, has been revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase at Summer Game Fest 2024.

2024 sees the continuation of the original Life is Strange story, in Life is Strange: Double Exposure from Deck Nine Games.

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Indy’s upcoming FPS adventure game, has a new ‘Official Showcase Reveal’ trailer, officially showcasing and revealing basically nothing about the game except that it features some pretty and decently acted cutscenes, which we already knew from the previous reveal. It does have snow nazis in however, possibly the rarest flavour of Nazi after Cookies n’ Cream and Original. You’ll find the trailer below. Be careful: it’s official. Also, it’s mainly just one very long cutscene, so if you want to save that stuff for when the game’s out, maybe don’t bother.

The rumours of a new Gears of War appearing at today’s Xbox Games Showcase were accurate - well, mostly. The next Gears of War won’t be a sequel like Gears of War 6, but instead looks to be a prequel to the entire series that returns to the very beginning of the bloody battle between humanity and the alien Locust.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long-awaited sequel to the FPS that perhaps emanates the most shame in my backlog, has a new combat-focused trailer showing off the many dangers of the enigmatic Zone. You’ll also be pleased to know that the release date remains the same as the previous announcement: September 5th 2024, where it will be coming to Game Pass day one. Here’s the tray-tray:

Microsoft have released a new trailer for South Of Midnight, a third-person action adventure from Compulsion Games, who created dystopian Britpop survival game We Happy Few. I thought We Happy Few had some wonderful ideas and presentation - it's sort of Fable by way of Clockwork Orange and Bioshock - but found its mixture of pill-popping satire and survival game mechanisms self-defeating. South Of Midnight seems no less vivid, but a lot more assured in its God Of War-style action... and it's perhaps a bit less intriguing, as a consequence. Still, don't just sit there reading my opinions. Watch the trailer.

Microsoft and Playground's genuinely long-awaited Fable reboot will launch in 2025, and they've released a new trailer which... seems... good? And is also quite informative about the moment-to-moment of the game. The video is framed as the memoir of a paunchy retired champion, Humphry, who once mentored a young heroine I presume will be the game's main character, though it's ambiguous. She could also be the villain. Then again, Fable is a series in which you can be the villain. Egad, such shenanigans!

I love me a Flight Simulator, but never more when there's some dramatic structure to my flight. That's why I've long been looking forward to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. It takes the staggeringly detailed world and flight model of Asobo's Flight Sim revival, and adds a job system on top. And now it has a release date: November 19th.

Max Caulfield is back! The time-bending protagonist of the first Life is Strange is returning in a new entry in the series, Life is Strange: Double Exposure. It’s out this October.

The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake - aka Metal Gear Solid Delta - resurfaced during tonight’s Xbox Games Showcase. We still don’t have a release date, despite signs we might see the remake of the 2004 game this year, but we did get a pretty good look at a bunch of key moments from the original remade in the shiny Unreal Engine 5 do-over - including a look at The Boss and the familiar gravelly tones of Snake actor David Hayter.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is the next Bethesda Doom game, following DOOM 2016 and Doom: Eternal. It takes the FPS series back to a more civilised medieval age, where men and demon solved their disputes with throwable chainsaw shields, massive dragons, and guns that grind skulls at silly speeds then fire out the bone chips. Feast your face on the trailer below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will release this October, including a day one launch on Game Pass, with an open beta on the way - and it’s certainly looking like a Call of Duty game.

Microsoft have published the very first trailer for EA and BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard, formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, at their summer Xbox Game Showcase. It accompanies the first details of this "immersive single player RPG" - pause for ecstatic applause from Anthem haters - "where you become the leader others believe in". Not miles from the premise of Dragon Age: Inquisition, then. That footage, tho? Not entirely Inquisitiony.

Those undead just keep on coming back from the grave as Microsoft screen a new trailer for State Of Decay 3, your latest helping of sorrowful yet bloodthirsty zombie-bopping survivalism. I reviewed State Of Decay the first and thought it was a cool scrappy underdog next to larger zombie-botherers such as Left 4 Dead or DayZ. State Of Decay 2, on the other hand, I found to be disappointing - the same game with more money behind it in a way that seemed to magnify its faults. The threequel? I have tempered expectations, but I do want it to be good.

Age Of Mythology: Retold, the remaster of the classic strategy beast-em-up, is due to release this year, 4th September 2024 on PC and Game Pass. This will be the 2002 game’s second remaster following its Extended Addition re-release in 2014, and aims to thoroughly spiff up the original with a 3D visual overhaul, new animations and texture, plus UI and QOL improvements. Prevent yourself being seduced by the suspiciously thunder-imbued swan that’s currently chatting you up, and have a gander at the trailer below:

The Xbox Games Showcase is taking place later today and you can watch it live here.

The PlayStation 5 version of Valorant won’t support gyro aiming, because developer Riot Games doesn’t want to put Xbox players at a disadvantage.

This year’s main Summer Game Fest presentation has now ended.

In big news for horror game fans,Summer Game Fest 2024 has brought a wealth of new details pertaining to Slitterhead, an upcoming horror game from Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama.

Following its various editions leaking, Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong received a new CG trailer at Summer Game Fest. Though demos will be showcased from June 8th to 10th, these are behind closed doors, so we may not learn their details until later. On the bright side, pre-orders are now available, with multiple editions revealed.

The latest Day of the Devs presentation has just ended.

Summer Game Fest’s 2024 event concluded on Friday with a plethora of announcements and exclusive looks at upcoming games.

New World Aeternum, a reworked version of Amazon‘s first-party MMORPG for console, is coming on October 15, 2024.

Capcom's series about big beasts and the clothes you can skin/steal from them continues in Monster Hunter Wilds, which looked as great as ever in its newest trailer from tonight's Summer Game Fest show. We get new peeks at some lovely dunes, reptile-chicken mounts and bulky weapons. Oh, and some monsters ripe for huntin', presumably.

Blumhouse unveiled six video games that it was publishing under their newly formed Blumhouse Games label during Summer Game Fest on Friday.

Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Wilds will support crossplay. Further details are pending, of course, but this would mark the first time players across consoles and PC can group for hunts.

One of the biggest announcements to come out of Summer Game Fest today was Night Springs, the first expansion of Alan Wake 2.

Unbroken Studios and Warner Bros’ Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions will launch on 3rd September 2024, as announced at this year’s Summer Game Fest with a new trailer. It’s still a game about the Potterverse’s broomstick-riding sport, allowing players to play against the computer and each other across various single player and multiplayer modes, and it’s still a new instalment in the world of an author, JK Rowling, who has an on-going track record for endorsing transphobia.

Night Springs is a fictional TV show within the world of Alan Wake 2, so of course that's also the focus of the meta-horror action game's expansion. It's three episodes, and it's out in under 24 hours.

When the Summer Game Fest trailer for "narrative-centric cosy game" Wanderstop said it was from the creator behind The Stanley Parable, I thought I had surely entered a different dimension where The Stanley Parable was actually a wholesome shop-keeping sim rather than a zig-zagging office-based nightmare. Then Wanderstop started to get rather bleak, and I finally stopped pinching myself. See for yourself.

I’m not familiar with the proto-internet cartoon Killer Bean, but Graham assures me it’s fairly important in the history of online animation. Regardless, I’ve been won over by the upcoming video game of the same name from original creator Jeff Lew, which looks to blend together Just Cause stunt shenanigans, John Woo slo-mo gunfights and the energy of a third-person action game you would’ve found in a bargain bin for the PlayStation 2 in 2002. It’ll hit early access this summer, courtesy of a fresh look from tonight’s Summer Game Fest showcase.

Things that weren’t on my Summer Game Fest bingo card: a surprise appearance from I Think You Should Leave’s Tim Robinson. Things also not on my Summer Geoff Fest bingo card: that Tim Robinson would show up to reassure us that, yes, Skate is still in the works.

Surprise! The next Horizon game after Zero Dawn and Forbidden West is also the next Lego game. Revealed during today's Summer games Fest showcase, Lego Horizon Adventures lets series heroine Aloy romp around with a pal in two-player co-op, and it’s coming to PC on the same day as it hits PlayStation.

Boheh Game Studio's horror game Slitterhead will release for PC on November 8th 2024, the developers have revealed at this year's Summer Game Fest. They've also popped up a new trailer, which is PS2 as hell, in what I consider to be the best of ways.

Palworld is getting a lot of new things! I’m going to write the names of these new things now. I really hope they mean something to you. I want you to have nice things. Here are the new things coming to Palworld: a new island. Some new Pals. A new level cap. A new arena. A new subspecies. A new raid. A new oil rig stronghold. A new faction and boss. Maybe some other, secret things? All this newness comes as part of the ‘Sakurajima’ update, which releases on June 27th, 2024.

Taking that famous quote from Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, then sticking a ‘2’ on the end because that’s how sequels work, No More Room In Hell 2 is an eight player co-op horror from Chivalry 2 bods Torn Banner. It’s been teased for a while now, but now it’s got a release month: this October, 2024. Shamble hungrily toward the trailer below

Before we get to the latest trailer for S-Game's soulslike Phantom Blade Zero I have a couple of complaints to lodge about the title. Firstly, this game clearly contains a non-zero quantity of blades, from whacking great axes to katanas. Secondly, I do not accept the premise that these are phantom blades. They are very obviously non-spectral, going by the amount of stabbing and clanging on show in the video. With these potentially ruinous caveats out of the way, I am now free to tell you more about a game that looks like it's out to eat Sekiro's lunch.

Oh, this one looks nice, doesn’t it? Tears Of Metal is a rousing medieval stabathon that sees you retaking your Scottish island from a bunch of bad lads who’ve decided to come have a go, which was a bit silly of them, honestly. It’s a hack n’ slash co-op roguelike with some nifty looking strategy elements and a striking art style, but you can tell most of that from the trailer below:

It’s easy to draw comparisons between Metaphor: ReFantazio and Persona, given that the upcoming RPG is in the works over at Persona makers Atlus and is built around a similar ‘transform into an awesome-looking robot/creature and do battle’ concept, but so far all those comparisons only serve to highlight just how damn good Metaphor: ReFantazio looks.

Warframe-like “Next-gen looter shooter” The First Descendant releases this Summer, July 2nd 2024. The ‘next-gen’ part probably refers to Unreal Engine 5, and fair’s fair, it’s a real looker this one. The below trailer is mainly scripted or edited bits, but having played a chunk of the last technical test, there’s some genuinely impressive sci-fi vistas to behold, as well as some absolutely massive bosses. Click on the trailer below, until the purple hat or whatever it is you kids grind for these days, pops out with a synapse-tickling noise workshopped by psychologists for eighteen months.

The First Descendant has made a fair amount of waves with its showings and closed play tests over the last couple of years, and after having previously confirmed that the third person action RPG looter shooter would be out sometime this summer, Nexon has announced exactly when it will release with a new trailer at Summer Game Fest.

As promised, Capcom dropped another new trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, showcasing a newcomer to the monster roster. While its name is unknown, it appears to be a Piscine Wyvern type similar to Jyuratodus, except it can seamlessly traverse the dunes. Check out the trailer below.

In the six years that have passed since its release, Kingdom Come: Deliverance has amassed a sizeable fanbase, so it’s no surprise that its recently announced sequel is generating the kind of excitement that it is. Capitalizing on that hype, publisher Deep Silver and developer Warhorse Games have showcased a new trailer of the game at the recent Summer Game Fest showcase.

Phantom Blade Zero turned plenty of heads since its announcement last year, and though updates on the game had slowed down since then, developer S-Game premiered a new gameplay trailer at the recent Summer Game Fest showcase.

Capcom has a lot going on with its flagpole franchises, from Monster Hunter Wilds to upcoming Street Fighter 6 DLC to, if reports are to be believed, plenty of new Resident Evil games. Between all of that, however, the company also has some smaller projects in the works that have caught the eye- like the upcoming action strategy title Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. 

Before Alan Wake 2 launched, Remedy Entertainment had already confirmed that it would be releasing two expansions in 2024 in the form of Night Springs and The Lake House. True to recent reports, the former of those has been officially unveiled.

Pocketpair’s next major update for Palworld goes live on June 27th and features a new island to explore – Sakurajima. Check out the trailer below to see it in action.

We’ve been waiting for a new Skate game for years, and though that wait is still dragging on, we’re at least making tangible progress on the road to its release. EA and Full Circle’s free-to-play Skate reboot was unveiled as far back as 2024, and as previously confirmed, recently at Summer Game Fest, we got another brief look at the game.

Studio Zero’s Metaphor: ReFantazio took the stage next during the Summer Game Fest, with director Katsura Hashino talking more about the game’s Archetypes. These classes define each character, providing different abilities and playstyles for their respective characters. With over 40 Archetypes and even some evolutions to unlock, there’s plenty of choice to go around.

2K Games confirmed last month that it would announcing the next instalment in one of its biggest and most beloved franchises at Summer Game Fest, and though there was some confusion in the lead-up to the show about what exactly that game would be, leaks eventually suggested that it would be Civilization 7. That has proven accurate.

Linear, single player, narrative-driven games are hard to turn down when they’re looking legitimately promising, and promising is exactly how Bandai Namco and developer Reflector Entertainment’s Unknown 9: Awakening has looked each time it has been shown off. Recently, at Summer Game Fest, the game got another new trailer, and continuing to pique interest.

As it prepares to unveil its next project with Devolver Digital, Heart Machine has revealed a new gameplay trailer for Hyper Light Breaker. The 3D action roguelite will enter PC early access in late Summer, but in the meantime, we get to see some new campaign co-op gameplay. Check it out below.

Recent leaks had claimed that PlayStation would be announcing a LEGO-themed game based on Guerrilla’s Horizon franchise at Summer Game Fest, and that has indeed turned out to be accurate.

Since its release for PC in 2020, Valorant has become one of the biggest competitive shooters around, in spite of the fact that it hasn’t been available on consoles. Of course, there have been some suggestions over the years that that could change soon, and now, Riot Games has finally officially announced that.

It’s going to be a hot summer… for video games! Host Geoff Keighley’s annual showcase of what’s to come in the world of gaming, Summer Game Fest, kicked off Friday with a two-hour extravaganza of game trailers, announcements, and surprise reveals.