The PC Gaming Show has only been around for a few years, but it’s turned into one of the biggest events for PC gaming aficionados. The show itself usually focuses on indie developers and whatever games they’re going to release. However, the show has slowly started to showcase AAA titles that are normally saved for the bigger conferences such as Microsoft, Bethesda, and Ubisoft. Hosted by Sean “Day9” Plott and Frankie Ward, this year’s event was no different as the they pulled out all the stops to impress everyone. We’ll go through the events biggest announcements.
To start off the show, a brand new trailer was shown for a new IP, Satisfactory. Known for there popular game Goat Simulator, Coffee Stained Studios is going in a whole new direction with this game. The gameplay trailer showed a team of engineers, in first person view, search for lush planets, and gather materials and resources in order to built large machines and repeat the process. The game was confirmed for multiplayer with up to 4 player co-op. A closed Alpha is planned in the near future which you can sign up for here.
Also announced was a re imagining of a popular mod, The Forgotten City. The original was so acclaimed that it won screenwriting award, so it makes sense that its being reintroduced as a stand alone game. In the trailer, a player makes his way through an underground city that appears to have a portal through time, including solving various puzzles and investigation. The game has a tentative release for 2019.
In addition the action detective game, The Sinking City, showed a new gameplay trailer. Set in the 1920’s with the Lovecraft inspired motif, the game has you play as a detective searching around a town that is involved with the old god, Cthulhu. The developers from Frogware proclaimed that “the game is not about fighting monsters.” While that may be true, the game still has monster to contend with, so you are expected to defend yourself to some extent. You can check out more about the game and its developer here.
The first AAA game announcement came from Sega, except it was multiple games at once. In a reveal trailer, Sega announced that more of there popular IP’s would be coming to PC, released in particular on Steam. The two biggest games to be revealed were Yakuza Kiwami, and Yakuza 0, both critically acclaimed PlayStation 4 games that popularized the Yakuza series. Yakuza 0 is coming out first on August 1 and you can pre-order it now on Steam. The other games to be announced were Valkyria Chronicles 4, Shining Resonance: Refrain, and Shenmue I+II.
Developers Tripwire took the stage to announce a brand new summer event for their over-the-top multiplayer game Killing Floor 2. Dubbed The Summer Slideshow: Treacherous Skies, it adds a new map, Airship, which takes place on….an Airship. A brief trailer was shown where players mowed down clown zombies (also known as Zeds) on an airship along with some new weapons for the event. The map and weapons go live next Tuesday.
However Tripwire wasn’t done with the stage just yet; they had some more announcements for us. They revealed that they have created a publishing branch within there company in order to assist indie developers with publishing their games. The first game to be published was revealed to be Road Redemption, an action racing combat game developed by EQ Games and Pixel Dash Studios where players lead a biker gang in races, robberies, and assassinations. The other game announced to be published was Maneater, a game developed by Blindside interactive where you play as a human-eating shark. Yes, you play as a shark! As seen in the trailer, in the infested waters of the Gulf Coast, you control a man-eating shark that levels up with points in this open world Role-Playing Game with skill trees, and did I mention that you play as a shark? What a time to be alive. Road Redemption is available to purchase on Steam today, and Maneater was not given a release date.
To add on to the announcements, Insomniac Games introduced a brand new IP, a VR game called Stormland. In the trailer, we saw a robot being brought back to life where the world around him has been ripped asunder. The robot begins to repair themself by finding new parts to put themselves back together before attempting to repair the world around them. Combat was also showcased where you can wield a gun and a shield against other robots as well as finding other robots and reviving them to tag along with you. Insomniac explained that the world was destroyed by a being known as the Tempest, and once a week, he will rearrange the landscape giving players new locations to explore. Stormland has a tentative release for 2019 on the Oculus Rift. You can see more about Stormland here.
Telltale took to the stage, along with Clementines voice actress Melissa Hutchinson, to premier the gameplay trailer for the The Walking Dead: The Final Season. In it, we’re shown some of the dialogue choices, combat, and some new facial animation. The art direction also takes on a more realistic tune, showing how gritty the world has become since we last saw Clementine and AJ. Speaking of those two, they have gotten older, with Clementine looking to secure a home for AJ to grow up in. The first episode will release on August 14, and the other episodes will be released in later months.
Avalanche Studios came up to showcase another trailer for Just Cause 4. In it we were given a real glimpse of their new beautiful gaming engine, the Apex engine, which looks astounding especially the weather effects and draw distance. The developers also promised more destruction than the previous games, so get ready for more explosions and car wire tricks. The last of the AAA developers was IO Interactive, and we were given another gameplay trailer for Hitman 2. We got a preview of the upcoming Miami level where Agent 47 uses some new tricks to his already deadly arsenal. This includes slapping someone in the face with a fish, throwing more objects than ever before at peoples faces, and using a ton of different disguises to make your way to the targets. One of the assassinations was also shown, where a race car winner stood at the top of the podium and was caught in an explosion from faulty pyrotechnics. This is definitely the series we have grown to love. Just Cause 4 releases on December 4 2018, and Hitman 2 releases on November 13, 2018.
Heres a breakdown of some other games that were at the show:
Neo Cab, a narrative game by Chance Agency where you play as a rideshare driver balancing your job and real life. You can see more about the game here.
Mavericks Proving Ground, a battle royale game where the player count can up to one thousand. You can see more about the game here.
Star Control: Origins, a game five years in the making, is an RPG space simulator. Billed as a “Open Universe Game” with cute cartoon animation to boot, it releases on September 20, 2018 on Steam, GOG and the Stardock website.
Hunt: Showdown, a game in early access, is a first person PvP mutiplayer game. A trailer was shown where they introduced new weapons, although no date was given for the update.
Archangel Hellfire, a multiplayer expansion to Archangel, is an action adventure mech game on VR where you play with others in a competitive first person mech combat. You can buy it for early access on Steam, but it will officially release on July 17.
Warframe: The Sacrifice, is the newest expansion in the ever growing online game Warframe. Not much was shown, but it was announced that the story will tie into the new frames, called Umbra, and that Venus will be the next open world zone, and the expansion releases this week. Digital Extreme explained that they would have more reveals at their fan convention, Tennocon 2018. You can see more of Warframe here, and its free to play.
Bravery Network Online, Morning Star, and Overwhelm are three indie games announced all at once by Untitled Publisher, and yes, that is their name. Bravery Network Online is 2D role playing turn based game with a cute art style, and it releases in 2019. Morning Star is the more mysterious of the three, its described as a “first person game where computers are your soil and software is your seeds.” Overwhelm is a side scrolling shooter with mouse controls where the enemies get power ups and the player does not. Overwhelm is available today on Steam.
Jurassic World Evolution, is a simulation game created by Frontier Developments, who are known for the Roller Coaster Tycoon series, and Elite Dangerous. The game plays similar to the Tycoon series where you build dinosaur parks. The pre-order trailer was the only thing shown for this one. You can check out the game here.
Sable, is an open world exploration with one of the best artistic approaches to a game that we’ve ever seen. It looked absolutely beautiful with bright and vibrant colors to go along with the trek across the desert. You can check the game out on their Steam page here.
You can check out the PC Gaming Show in its Entirety here: