Liveblog: All the news from the Future Games Show
If there's not news this will just be snark
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Welcome to 2001's hottest web technology: liveblogging! Rather than watch this evening's Future Games Show spring showcase and then write several posts about the games of note therein (1-3, max), we thought we'd open a liveblog and parp little text farts amiably throughout the show. You can join in with your own parps! Let's see if we harmonise.
You can watch the livestream here when it begins at 10pm GMT/6pm EDT/3pm EDT:
Announcements and new trailers for the biggest games tend to be reserved for first-party broadcasts, shows by the major publishers, or GeoffFest. That means the Future Game Show tends to feature the mid-tier and indie games that lie beyond. That doesn't mean there won't be interesting games afoot, just don't go staying up late expecting something new from Kojima.
Also I've not used the spanking new liveblog feature yet so let's do it.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
I'll start parping here in earnest nearer to the 10pm GMT (6pm EDT) start time.
Ten minutes to go, or what I like to call, regretting time.
Alright, here we go. This show apparently has 40 games in it so something is bound to be good, right?
That's nice, it opened with a message in support of Ukraine. Brownie points already.
The first game of th show is a "world premiere", and it's a stylish, moody black, white and red trailer for a game called The Time I Have Left. It looks like a third-person action adventure. The camera angles seem to move around in ways that make it difficult to get a sense of how it'll feel, but nice art style.
Shacklestein says: So, does this mean you will not be posting about another Wordlike at midnight? (Asking for a friend.)I will still post a Wordle-like after this, yes, just to annoy caff.
Second up is a new trailer for Gun Jam, a first-person shooter where you shoot and reload in time to the music. This was announced previously and there are more deets up on Steam. It does look fun and propulsive, as rhythm games tend to do in trailers, but I wish they'd show someone terrible - ie. me - playing it so I can see if it still looks fun that way.
Next up is Rocket Le-- wait, no. This is Turbo Golf Racing. It's golf but with cars and with a visual style that looks a lot like Rocket League, right down to the shield effects and car designs. But heck, why not. I'd take more Rocket Leaguelikes.
OK, here's a behind-the-scenes video on Flintlock, the new game from A44, the developers of Ashen. It's set in a fantasy world where black powder has just been invented, giving the protagonist a chance to take back the world from old gods and the undead. I didn't love the announcement trailer they showed last week - it seemed quite generic, at least when compared to Ashen. I want more games from this team, though, so I'm still interested.
Didn't show a whole lot of the game, though. I'm still not sure what's super exciting about it as a place-to-be or set of things-to-do.
Oh heck, Crimesight is next and it looks cool. A murder mystery about solving crimes that have yet to happen from Konami. Some Persona-style UI elements and character art, a board to move characters around on like a turn-based JRPG. Social seduction/investigation. Someone get Matthew on the phone.
nitric22 says: Well you could sign me up for just pure snark and I'd be happy. How many publishers make an appearance at this here show? I'd better go clear a spot or three on the ol' wish list.It's 40 games and 8 new announcements, apparently. A lorra lorra games. (And not much curation, normally. There's your snark.)
Next up: a CG trailer for Midnight Ghost Hunt, a four-player co-op game about hunting ghosts. The ghosts look to be able to mimic players, grab 'em through floors, and bean them in the head by possesing lamps. The humans have... laser chain guns? I wonder if these developers were annoyed by the announcement of Ghostbusts: Spirits Unleashed earlier this week. Although in fairness Midnight Ghost Hunt hits early access in just a few days.
A new trailer for Death Stranding Director's Cut, which launches on PC next week on March 30th. Nicely edited trailer, as always. I should try to finish this game.
Raekihi says: What is it you were saying about not expecting anything Kojima again? :DHey, I said "something new" from Kojima. Death Stranding and its Director's Cut definitely aren't new. *adusts goal posts*
Demeo, a PC version of the tabletop-with-pals game that was previous VR exclusive. Alice and Ed had a good time with this back in February.
Hey it's Dorfromantik aka the chill countryside building game aka Katharine's favourite game. It's getting a full release on April 28th, after its spell in early access. It's already good and polished! You should play it.
Here comes another world premiere.
I should stop calling them "world premieres". It's entirely too fancy a term for a new bit of marketing.
This one was for Alterborn, a sorta horror action thing coming next year? The protagonist has one weird spiky shoulder pad. That's all I got from the trailer.
Oh no, I forgot about Future Games Show's virtual show floor thing. Big lockdown energy in this. Big our-sales-team-conceived-of-this energy.
The virtual show floor is just for, y'know, show. You can access these demos via a Steam page.
The Abriss demo and a lot of the others have been available for a while. But then, the Abriss demo is very good, so.
Next up: a pretty CG trailer for Sengoku Dynasty. All the Dynasty games look really wooden, in that way that suggests that PlayWay is probably involved somewhere along the line. They're very popular though. Sengoku Dynasty will launch later this year via Steam.
Katharine Castle says: Showing Matthew this on the phone right now. He's into it!I knew it!
Next up, the announcement for Deliver Us Mars. Which seems a bit greedy, as titles go. It's a third-person narrative game and the sequel to Deliver Us The Moon (on a stick?) which John quite liked back in 2019. It was good but a bit clunky, while the new sequel is being published by Frontier Foundry with promise of more polish.
Next up, a game about being a little remote vacuum cleaner on a cruise ship under siege by baddies. Justice Sucks, it's called. You defeat the bads, hide from the bads, then hoover up the mess they make - with their blood, it seems. There was another game once about a vacuum cleaner but it was a sad, ponderous puzzle thing. I can't remember it's name, though.
I like when publishers put modern pop, rap or hip hop music over videos of little trains pootling around.
I dislike when they drop sizzle reels with like 10 games in the middle of a games show that itself has 30 other games in it. Some of the games this is showing look neat but I have forgotten them the instant they are offscreen.
Oh, it's ending with a longer trailer for TRepang2, which now has proper art rather than the grey box version I played a couple of years ago. It's like FEAR, if FEAR had no narrative pretensions and just wanted to be slomo slide-kicks and destructive guns.
Oh, I'm excited about this one! Songs Of Conquest is a dark fantasy turn-based strategy game with really stunning pixel art. Terrain matters, with high ground giving buffs to your attacks. It's also got an overworld map, where you've got to defend and expand your home to provide resources for the fights. Multiplayer, skirmishes, two singleplayer campaigns. Lovely stuff. It'll enter early access May 10th.
Rumu, was the narrative puzzle roomba game I was thinking of. It's on Steam.
A new trailer for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is out April 5th. It does indeed look like a Lego Star Wars game. Not a bad thing! That's what it's called, after all. Would be weird if it looked like anything else.
Ah, here we go. Another sizzle reel of games. All these developers paid to be included but I'm sorry, I'm going to go crosseyed and think about my bed until it's over.
Raekihi says: Oh, Rumu looks neat! I was thinking about Roombo: First Blood actually, also on Steam, and yeah, it's the same team so no wonder it looks the same.Ah, interesting! Justice Sucks devs made a similar game that's already on Steam.
Next up, The Cycle Frontier. It's a game where you must fight for resources on a hostile alien world, apparently. That's how the presenters described it and it makes it sound like seven million other games.
The thing itself is more interesting. Like a friendly, scifi version of one of those survival-y murderfests like Escape From Tarkov. Fight for resources, lose it all if you die. It's from Yager, which long ago made Spec Ops: The Line.
Next up: The Outbound Ghost, a paper RPG adventure - as in, all the characters are 2D in a 3D world, Paper Mario style - in which you build a party of ghosts in a wholesome fantasy world. It looks nice!
Katharine Castle says: Ed has been playing The Cycle: Frontier this week, so expect more thoughts soon!I always look forward to Edthoughts. Ethots, I call 'em.
Lots of "what if FTL was 3D" games about, and This Means Warp is... one. The difference is that it's co-op, so it's *also* "what if Overcooked but not about cooking".
Forever Skies is a first-person scifi game about scavenging a ruined city to build an airship. It doesn't look like there's combat, just spooky post-apoc ambience and a laser gun that lets you steel sheet metal. Honestly? It looks rad. Deeply onboard with Subnautica-but-an-airship and having to deal with collapsing buildings and lightning storms. Forever Skies was announced back in January and it's coming later this year.
I like that the Future Games Show makes peppy American voice actors say out loud the puns of distinctly British games journalists.
That was a short trailer for Alaskan Truck Simulator. I'll probably wait for American Truck Simulator to get there, but I'm all for more truck sims.
Next up, the new game from Sam Barlow about staring at a pretty young woman in trouble. It's Immortality. This time you're scanning through footage of an actress's movies, exploring them via match cuts to uncover the mystery.
I missed an entire game because I was thinking about how I'd rather re-watch Satoshi Kon's films again than play another Her Storylike. But then I'd rather watch Satoshi Kon's movies than do almost anything.
And there goes a trailer for Expedition Zero, which is out now. It's a first-person survival horror and it's on Steam. Woods, cold, monsters, guns.
Silt is Limbo-but-underwater but looks pretty good with it, because underwater creatures are always good, creepy, no matter how big. And here they're pretty big. It'll be out early this year.
SparrowHawk says: “ Subnautica-but-an-airship”, Plusaeroca? Addaviator?Subnotica. Notsubica?
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong looks pretty interesting. It's a narrative mystery from the makers of The Council, with RPG elements (stats, die rolls) that determine the outcomes of dialogue confrontations. In lieu of Bloodlines 2, this looks good. It'll be out May 19th.
Alright, one more new-gamey-wamey-trailer (not "world premiere") and then it's over for the night.
The Cub. Lovely art. Sidescrolling cinematic platformer about being stranded on a terraformed Mars as a little kid after all the other humans have left - and then come back, because you're seemingly immune to something they are not. A decent en-- Oh, wait, this isn't the ending. There's another reveal.
They've Columbo'd one-more-thing me.
It's a new Lego game, Lego Brick Tales, where you can construct machinery and explore diorama worlds, with a physics simulation and story-led quests to go solve. It looks nice! A Lego game with some actual Lego building.
Alright, we're done. It's proper done now. I'm already forgetting the names of most of what was shown, but the last handful - Swansong, The Cub, Lego Brick Tales all looked nice. As did that Matthewlike murder mystery game, Crimesight.
Thanks for joining us for another experiment in liveblogging. We will do this again. I'm going to write some other posts, but I'll leave this liveblog open for a little while and check back if people have more comments to make.
Raekihi says: Thank you for the coverage, Graham!Thanks for participating!