The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Developer: CD Projekt
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: May 19, 2015
Based off of the series of fantasy novels of Polish author Adrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher has gained a reputation for being both narrative rich and technically ground-breaking experiences.
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s case, the developer is pushing for a truly open-world experience where the player can go anywhere they want in the game world without restrictions. This environment will also be filled with a ridiculous array of creatures to hunt (we were quoted 80 monster types at one point).
On the narrative front, this appears to be the final chapter of series protagonist Geralt of Rivia. Although if The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is as critically successful as the previous two entries (hell, even President Barack Obama has a copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings in his pile of shame), I have serious doubts this will be the final game in the franchise.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: The Chinese Room
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: 2015
British developer Chinese Room is following the success of their visually rich and narrative-heavy Source engine modification, Dear Esther, with the eery Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
Players find themselves in a large world set in the rural English countryside, where a mysterious (very rapture-like) event seems to have left much of the area abandoned. You can pierce together the storyline in a non-linear fashion while exploring clues scattered throughout the sandbox environment. It sounds a little bit like a large-scale version of Gone Home.
I’m usually skeptical of projects that tout their narrative as a big selling point, but the trailer’s creepy imagery of everyday items abandoned in the wake of an apocalypse (which reminds me of “Day of the Triffids“) has me intrigued.
No Man’s Sky
Publisher: Hello Games Developer: Hello Games
Platform: PlayStation 4, PC
Release Date: 2015
As an explorer in space, players will poke around a virtual universe that is entirely pieced together by algorithmic generation. By everything, I damned well mean everything. Planet surfaces, atmospheric conditions, plant types, animal inhabitants, oceans, civilizations, galaxies, alien species, etc.
Hello Games claims it has a potential universe containing 18 quintillion planets teeming with things to discover. This makes No Man’s Sky the most ambitious project I’ve seen to use procedurally generated content. It’s an amazingly cool idea that is going to be a nightmare for anyone suffering from OCD.
Bloodborne
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: From Software
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: March 24, 2015
AKA Dark Souls III … or Demon’s Souls II … you know, does it matter if it is officially tied to these franchises? You and I should know what’s up: The important thing is that From Software is bringing us another Hidetaka Miyazaki action-intensive role-playing game.
The narrative McGuffin in Bloodborne involves a gothic Victorian town, which is famed to have advanced medical science. It’s become a tradition throughout the land for people to make a pilgrimage to this city. Unfortunately, something has gone horribly wrong (it always does), and the city’s population has mutated into twisted beasts.
Sounds like a good enough excuse to start hacking away at monsters to me.
We’ve had a couple of opportunities to check out early play demos of Bloodborne, and the consensus is that the gameplay is definitely a follow up to the Dark Souls/Demon Souls line. The setting may be Victorian instead of medieval, but the brutal action we crave from From Software is very much still alive in Bloodborne.