PS4 | PS5: The editorial staff’s expectations for 2024

The reinvention of the God of War saga with the excellent 2018 episode showed that it was still possible for Kratos to finally evolve and have a little more thickness than the leather of his armor. If the character of the God of War is however still very grumpy, some welcome cracks, born of the relationship with his son Atreus, gave a glimpse of the torments of Kratos whose life was not a long quiet river. Ragnarok should therefore continue on the momentum of the previous episode, bring it a real conclusion and will certainly develop the questions that remained unanswered at the end of the basic adventure. If Santa Monica gives itself the luxury of making its boss fights even more bombastic and the bestiary is a little more varied, we could still hold a must.

If you like the horror genre a little, Tango Gameworks is necessarily a studio that you keep an eye on. Directed by Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), he recently gave birth to two episodes of The Evil Within, a series popular with survival horror fans. Although it has been announced for over two years, Ghostwire Tokyo has remained very mysterious. What we do know today is that the game published by Bethesda is played in the first person and that it asks to send ghosts from Japanese folklore back to hell. The bestiary looks varied and some monsters look awesome on screen. In addition, we are promised an eventful visit to a Tokyo sinking under the occult, with emblematic places like Shibuya or the Tokyo Tower faithfully reproduced invaded by youkai. On the gameplay side, the hero should be able to manage multiple powers to face these demonic creatures with his bare hands. The various videos show very nice graphics as well as well-managed special effects. Finally, the work of Tango Gameworks seems to have something original to tell, so as not to leave the player in a sandbox infested with monstrosities without a motivating quest.

Here is a game announced for a long time and which has not given its news recently. Ghostwire Tokyo is the new project from Tango Gameworks, a studio run by the very famous Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil saga, and who has worked in recent years on both The Evil Within, a survival horror that I love. Especially. Suffice to say that the gameplay videos broadcast so far are quite intriguing. We see a character making Naruto-style symbols to fight spirits in the city of Tokyo. This hero is Akito, whose powers begin to manifest as his city is invaded by spirits. But man can count on other allies to lead this fight. And that’s about it for now. The title seems very action oriented, and therefore very different from The Evil Within. With these recent games, Tango Gameworks has managed to find some kind of consistency in the quirk, and I’m really waiting for Ghostwire Tokyo to do the same. So the title has no release date for the moment, apart from a vague “Spring 2024”. In any case, the title is still planned as a console exclusive on PS5, despite the takeover of Bethesda (and therefore Tango Gameworks) by Microsoft. We hope to learn more during the next year.

I’m probably not going to be the only one in the editorial staff to cite GoW: Ragnarok as my most anticipated game on PS5, but what do you want: it’s not every day that you can get impatient with the following a “20/20”. I expect from the new Sony Santa Monica game at least two things: that it be a real technical slap capable of making us say “here we are in the next-gen” and that it offers an experience at least as well. visceral than its predecessor. I’m also very curious to see how the relationship between Kratos and Atreus will evolve and refine, with – let’s face it – an attempt to make Kratos a little more human and sensitive. Sony Santa Monica must therefore have some pressure on the shoulders for this sequel. Is it possible to do at least as well? Answer in a few months.

At first glance, I’m rarely interested in MMOs, except for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) and The Secret World on which I spent a few hours much more out of interest in the worlds of George Lucas and Lovecraft than for the video game genre itself. Still, The Day Before ticks all the boxes for a massively multiplayer experience aimed at me, and so has been eyeing me insistently since its announcement. This action-adventure game started by MYTONA and FNTASTIC takes place in a post-apocalyptic universe strongly inspired by The Last of Us where survival requires the gathering of resources, mutual aid as well as mistrust. The greatest threat to players, far ahead of the horrific creatures that inhabit this world, is and will remain other players.

Since the publication of the very first title in its catalog, the acclaimed What Remains of Edith Finch, it is good to keep an eye on the Annapurna Interactive stamped releases. In 2024, Stray, a production widely promoted by the label, will offer us to play a cat in the third person. The feline is of course an additional reason to arouse our interest. The action-adventure game sets its frame in a cyberpunk city where our protagonist meets B-12, a rather nice drone. The latter will serve as a guide, a translator, but also a weapon to protect oneself from “Zurks”, organic creatures not really advisable. The game which will oscillate between platforms, puzzles and action has already shown itself in some rather promising trailers; the animations seen seem frankly successful and the artistic direction makes you want to enter the universe.

While we should have some news this year, Final Fantasy XVI was finally the big absentee of 2024. Fortunately, we were recently entitled to a word from Naoki Yoshida, producer of the game but also director of Final Fantasy XIV, who explains that this lack of communication is due to the pandemic which delayed the production of the game by six months. Given this information, we are entitled to wonder if a release window at the end of 2024 is still credible, or if we should rather lean towards a launch in early 2024. In any case, Final Fantasy XVI remains a project that I am waiting with great impatience, and for good reason, there are former members of the Final Fantasy XIV development team who worked on the game’s overhaul in 2013 as well as on the first expansion, Heavensward, namely the one of the greatest moments of the game. And then, the title also marks the return of the franchise to more classic heroic-fantasy, as well as the passage to a gameplay even more action than Final Fantasy XV. A little surprising direction when we know that Ryota Suzuki, one of the designers of the combat system of Devil May Cry 5, is working on the title. In itself, a numbered episode that promises to be particularly innovative which we can not wait to discover new images next spring.