The Official SONY Thread

Congrats to @face15 on winning this year's Sony portion of the banner contest! This makes face15 our first 4-time winner in the 10 years of the contest. Ozone came in second with his Death Stranding/Crash mashup. It was actually a tie for first, but face15 had more 1st place votes and Ozone had already won Square anyway. Coming in third place was jscovic's PlayStaiton icons banner.

The Official SONY Thread

E3 is the place for announcing never before seen games. It's exciting, fast-paced stuff and we're all enthusiastic to start talking about all the new toys. But, please keep in-depth discussions about specific games in their respective forums. For more information about how to help us keep things organized, go check out the E3 2018 and You! thread.

In an attempt to keep the E3 shenanigans organized, the mods institute these official discussion threads for each conference so that everybody has a go-to place to discuss them before, during, and after the show.

Despite the chaos of E3, keep in mind that the general site rules still apply. So, don't be a dick. If you need a refresher on to conduct yourself like an upstanding citizen of the Giant Bomb community, check out the FAQ.

Keep Discussions On Topic

This thread is exclusively for the general discussion of the Sony PlayStation press conference. Discussion involving the other company's conferences should be taken to their respective threads (once they're posted).

Specific Announcements

To help you get where you need to go to talk about anything announced or shown during this press conference, we have created a list of them right here:

• Beat Saber
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
• Control
• Days Gone
• Death Stranding
• Destiny 2
• Dreams
• Ghost of Tsushima
• The Last of Us Part II
• Marvel's Spider-Man
• Nioh 2
• Resident Evil 2
• Tetris Effect
• Trover Saves the Universe
• Twin Mirror

Where Can I Watch?

Monday, June 11 @ 6:00 PM PDT (Your Local Time)

• Giant Bomb Chat
• live.PlayStation.com
• Twitch
• YouTube
• Live Events App (PS4)

I've been terrified of Shawn Layden for years but today he seems...human?

Did they seriously kill the initial pacing of this just so The Last of Us Part II could have its own room?

Capcom killing it with DMC5 and RE2.

Johnny Depp in KH? Pirates world looks so weird, pretty muddy.

YOUR GARBAGE SPIDER-MAN GAME IS SERIOUSLY STARTING TO PISS ME OFF, SONY!!!!!! >:(

Lea Seydoux!

Death Stranding has hooked me. Whenever it comes out, I am going to play it day one.

I'm so over Death Stranding's cryptic bullshit. I'm not writing it off entirely yet because I still know fuck all about it, but ugh, I can't take year after year of this.

That said, Ghosts of Tsusima looks great and lord knows considering how much I love Nioh, I don't need anything other than "yo dawg, we're making another Nioh" to get excited about that. CONTROL (all caps?) looks neat too. Good shit all around.

The Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima looked incredible.

Infuckingcredible. Death Stranding still seems weird and, seeing some of it, leaves you sort of whatever, but who knows? I'm there for something that tries, at the very least. The rest of it? Just the prime four looked so interesting (and, excluding Death Stranding, fuckingstellar) that Sony easily takes the show for me. I loved the look of that Control game, plus RE2 is such a formative moment of my childhood I'm there day one. I love how much they nailed what I love about Spider-Man as a character and superhero. The vistas of Tsushima alone make that one to watch very closely (the gameplay and story I remain curious about; I've always loved Sucker Punch's gameplay but their stories haven't gotten much better since the first inFamous) and The Last of Us II looks like a game that hasn't learned any wrong lessons in the time since The Last of Us. Maybe it's story will be less...interesting, but the direction, animation (was that the first GOOD kiss in video game history?) and combat appear to remain impeccable.

Awesome show. I get why total conference nerds are annoyed with pacing or lack of information, but I've loved the tone Sony's been leaning into since they took a firm lead this generation. Just show me the games and let me draw my own conclusions.

I've got a middling feeling after that conference. Sony almost always delivers for me and my taste in games but this was a weaker showing. Too few games.

I.. thiiiiink Ghosts of Tsuhima looks alright? Not entirely sure yet. Animations need to be smoothed out a bit.

I did not play the Last of Us (even though I have it) but I'll say that was a well put together trailer/demo of Last of Us 2. The whole church room aspect, banjo guy, and the intermission afterwards was a waste of money I think and not worth the weird presentation flow.

Resident Evil 2.. not exactly sure what sort of remake it is yet. It doesn't seem to be just a visual/gameplay overhaul and more like.. a completely new re-telling of it or something? We'll see.

Agree with Vinny that the Death Stranding trailer kinda put me off if anything. I'm going to continue to read into the game as a metaphor for Kojima making games at Konami. The baby is his game/project and he has to go on this long, arduous journey, protect it, change it etc and it grows (thus him walking with a body sitting on his back)

I like Rick & Morty so maybe I'll like whatever that game is. Not sure about Nioh 2 as I liked the first one in theory, I played it what felt like forever, and it turned out I only made it through like the tutorial because that game felt so friggin hard for me compared to any of the Souls type games. Not sure why.

Spider-Man is whatever. Not a big super hero fan but I kinda watch all the movies and feel meh about all of them. But hey I liked and finished Arkham City so who knows.

And that was pretty much it. Not enough games as I said. I really miss the older Sony conferences where it was just game after game after game without interruption.

Some of the games looked interesting. Conference was garrrrrrrbage

Ghost of Tsushima looked very nice, especially the environments, but it has that inauthentic look that's very common whenever ppl try to do a culture/race that's not their's. I don't think they'll have Japanese voice, not in the Western releases at least. It doesn't feel Japanese at all, it feels totally Western.

CONTROL seemed rad but the beginning cinematic looked a bit generic.

Spider-Man...I'm not sold on this game. It seems like a game they have to make so incredibly accessible, it couldn't possibly satisfy any enthusiasts.

They all have potential but I'm gonna keep my expectations low on those.

Death Stranding looked a bit empty. Probably should've waited to show. Kojima keeps roping in more world class actors. lol

I get how people have soured on Death Stranding, but for me it boils down to either you’re willing to role the dice on Kojima or not. That game could literally go anywhere.

@htr10: I haven't soured on it, I'll play any Kojima game. They should've waited to show, it's simply too early.

Ghost of Tsushima and Last of Us Part 2 look incredible and definitely make me wish I had a PS4, but that Death Stranding trailer did nothing for me. I'm also excited about the Resident Evil 2 remake; hopefully that's not an exclusive. Beyond that, not much of it did anything for me.

It may mostly just be because I'm interested in games that'll be available on PC, but I thought Microsoft had a far better conference.

Same. I get that being cryptic is Kojima's thing but, it has been to much. They need to not show the game again until they have a gameplay demo. I also suspect that won't be for another year. With the full game releasing in spring 2020.

Getting over my feelings on how they stabbed Spidey to death right in front of me and then spat on his corpse, this....wasn't great.

Ghosts of Tsushima's gameplay is kinda stiff, which is odd from the makers of Infamous of all things. I love Sucker Punch, but my gf and I both got bored during that gameplay.

Last of Us is meh. Nothing new and I didn't fall for the first one like everyone else so a resounding meh from me.

Control is....ok, I guess? Need to see more.

RE2 Remake looked cool. Best game of the show.

Nioh 2 is a nice surprise. Didn't expect it to come out so fast.

I'm officially over Death Stranding. We finally get gameplay and it's just a bunch of walking and a boring stealth section. I don't give two craps about Kojima's name, he's taken it too far. What is this, their 4th E3? Either crap on the pot or leave the room. Enough of this nonsense. I'm actually worried about getting into the MGS series now cause this guy seems like such a tease with nothing to show for it.

Kingdom Hearts has been all over this conference. This is its 3rd show! Officially played out barring my hoped for Switch announcement, though all of the games in one pack is an awesome deal.

And Spidey.....UGH, what have they done???

Yeah, overall not happy with this at all. Didn't expect Sony to bomb so hard.

Resident Evil 2 fucking stole E3 for me. I can't wait.

@nodima: I'm not an expert on this stuff but that was the first time I've seen videogame characters kiss that didn't look like robots trying to eat each other's faces.

Ok so that's Sony done. What a weird press conference, I don't know what they were thinking with the formatting of this one. Opening with a shaky camera, with poor audio, in a weird room was hard to believe they have far and away the most successful console this generation.

Once we finally got to the Last of Us Part 2 trailer the room choice started to make a bit more sense. Man this game is pretty, seriously impressive tech. Didn't really need to be sold on it though. Just tell me Naughty Dog are making something and I am there.

Then it was a hard swing to an intermission with a panel to announce some stuff. Honestly forgot most of the things that were talked about here due to a combination of disbelief, confusion and tiredness. Shawn talking about the games being highlighted as the 4 pillars made me feel bad for Sony Bend. I don't think their game looks very good, seems crazy that Sony are making 2 zombie games at once, but felt bad for them none the less.

Another musical number before our first real look at Ghost of Tsushima. Man another really pretty game. They must have some graphics wizards over at Sony. Very excited for this. I have loved Sucker Punch's output over the years. Thinking I will play this in Japanese which is very unlike me.

Our brief glimpse of Remedy's new game Control, looks like it could be a fun Quantum Break. That was maybe a bit mean, I thought that game was ok. Eager to see more of it. I have zero interest in the Resident Evil 2 remake. Good to see they obviously put in some work for it but I could never get into that series.

Next Trover Saves The Universe? Rick & Morty but not Rick & Morty? I have gotten to the point where I think Justin Roiland's type of comedy(?) is not for me. I watched the first 2 seasons of R&M and liked them just fine but since then between the fan base and Accounting (which I thought was just complete garbage) I just can't get into it. More Kingdom Hearts 3... with Pirates Of The Caribbean? That was weird, pretty good likenesses though. Still no interest in actually playing the game itself however.

Death Stranding was up next. A huge amount of hype from people around this given how little we actually know about it. I agree with the sentiment of the GB staff though that it showed very poorly here. We are no closer to understanding what it actually is and it showed largely the same themes from last year. I wouldn't say I am a huge Kojima fan but mostly enjoyed MGS4 & 5, the only ones I actually played. This is definitely a wait and see for me.

Quick announcement that Team Ninja are making another Nioh. Never got around to paying the last one but its near the top of my backlog pile. Spiderman looks like it will be great. Very Batman-esque combat and traversal looks like fun. Getting some Protoype (which I liked) vibes.

Not my favorite conference so far. They have some really good looking games that I am very excited to play. Kind of hope they look at the Microsoft presentation from this year and copy that format for next year. This one felt like it was kind of thrown together, weirdly paced and a bit low rent. Very much not like the "premium" company image Sony usually tries to present itself with.

All done for today, up again at 2:00am for Nintendo tomorrow :)

This was a bit of a bizarre one. Some weird pacing hampering what I'd otherwise consider a pretty solid showing. Death Stranding still looks like incomprehensible bullshit, but that's kinda what I want out of Kojima at this point.

That said, It's probably telling that the two things that made me very excited at this conference were the announcements of Nioh 2 and that RE 2 remake.

The Last of Us 2 looks boring and spare me with the weighty violence when I'm killing hundreds of guys for the second game now. It's no different than Tomb Raider but at least Tomb Raider is playing it more action movie by this entry. The graphics are great but it doesn't look fun or interesting and it looked very scripted.

Control looks really awesome and is being overlooked I think, but I am a Remedy guy. I also think the use of telekenetic abilities has been way underutilized since that Psi-Op phase so I'm very excited. Cool looking horror type elements too.

Death Stranding looks weird. I think it's going to be more of a regular action game then it's being let on to be at this point. There was a brief moment when he took out a gun. I also saw this tweet, where Kojima says basically the trailer went out of it's way to have no "explosions/gunfights". Maybe that's meant in a general way but personally I'm taking it as that stuff is in there.

Ghosts looks pretty damn awesome but the trailer was very scripted feeling and I hope we can learn more about it soon.

More excited for an RE 2 remake than I expected to be.

Spiderman is not exciting me at all to look at really, even though I have liked Spiderman games before, but people say it's amazing to play so we will see.

The actual presentation was a total mess.

If anything I give Kojima huge props for court g these international actors and actresses to be this esoteric video game.

A weird show with good games. Last of Us II looks very good and Ghost of Tsushima as well. Still, I think the most exciting announcement coming out of Sony this E3 is that Tetris game.

As someone who sets his clock at 3 in the morning in order to watch this and having to work the next day ( i am typing this at work). I was heavily disappointed by the weird conference setup they had. Just give me a CEO some pie shards and new games, (games where fine btw) just there bullshit setup and those poor jurno's having to move all the time, it would have made me angry if i was at the event. There's nothing wrong with just a dude on a stage telling you about games. I think Microsoft nailed that one and i don't even own a Xbox One. Or just hire Keith David that always works goodjob on that Square Enix.

To end with a good note. Those games really looked well. I wonder if they where even running on a ps4 / pro :D.

I liked Sony's conference, but I'd still say Microsoft had a better show. And yet when it all comes down to it, it still seems clear the PS4 is where you want to be if you want to play most of the great games shown. Cyberpunk is the game I'm most interested in, and even as the final "Yeah, we GOT that shit" of Microsoft's show, I was thinking "Yo I can't wait to play that on my PlayStation".

I didn't watch the conference, but that trailer for the new Remedy game looks great. They seem to have learned a lot from Quantum Break and surely this won't have any of that TV show baggage.

You can def tell Sony is on cruise control. Last of Us 2 & Spider Man look great. Ghost of Tsushima looks cool, if not a little rough? Death Stranding..eh. All the other stuff they showed is meh. Weird conference. Honestly surprised they didnt show Red Dead 2 gameplay ( I know Rockstar doesn't do E3 normally)

Side note: Rocksteady, where are you?

@kittentactics: I think a smarter idea would've been to have the press in the confence room the whole time and have that church/barn dance thing for TLOU be full of fans. Then you would've gotten a bigger "pop" when everyone copped on to what was happening and you could've avoided the incredibly awkward 20 minute change over.

I think it’s safe to say that the FF7 Remake will never come out. It’s crazy that it wasn’t even mentioned in either the Square Enix or Sony conferences. Also, after hearing about all the problems that game is already going through, I have lost all hope this game is ever getting a release.

I continue to be mystified by the popularity of The Last of Us. It was so boring. At least the RE2 remake looks good.

@cannoli: We all have wrong opinions sometimes.

@ericjasonwade: Dang dude. I didn’t want to not like it. I’m so tired of “your opinion is wrong” as a response to something people disagree with.

So who's fault is it for the Sony and Epic Game's kerfuffle with Epic Games account? I know I should be angry but at who? Sony for their anti consumer practices or Epic Games for not warning us that simply logging onto your Epic account on a friend's PS4 locks it down? I realize both may hold some blame here but who should I really be angry at?

@mattson: Hard to give a definitive answer. I know Polygon reached out to both for an explanation and I assume other outlets did too, but there's been no reply. If I had to bet, Sony seems like the most likely culprit. I mean, you can freely use your account between any other platform and the one where you can't is the one that also has taken a hard stance against cross-platform play with any other platform besides PC. Coincidence? I think not.

Also, Epic was out there like last year talking about how much they wanted to do cross-play and how easy it would be, etc. Now, they obviously deserve blame for not giving you a warning. I signed up back in the early Paragon days so I'll give them a pass for not giving me a warning because PS4 and PC were the only platforms for them at the time. However, now there is simply no excuse.

But back to the point, all signs seem to point to Sony as the main conspirator on this one with Epic obviously being complicit and shady about the whole thing. I can only hope Fortnite is big enough that this becomes a legitimate problem for both companies that ends with them fixing this mess. And ideally, other companies see Sony softening their position and try to take advantage of that. Then again, that's probably why they Sony is being such an ass about all of this. Maybe they want to avoid giving people even the slightest chance to jump ship. Fuck if I know though.

A badly produced conference for the second year in a row. Do you guys remember the technical issues from last year? Whoever had the bright idea for that Last of Us church is an idiot. It killed the pacing of the entire thing. Please listen to 4 people fill time for 20 minutes while we transition to the actual auditorium...

As for what they actually showed, Sony really leaned into the exclusives angle, which is not a bad strategy by any means(playing to their strengths). Less is more, let the games do the talking, all things I like. Ghost of Tsushima, Spiderman, and Last of Us are probably day 1 purchases for me. Also, obligatory wtf Kojima.

Please don't take this as a reactionary post as I'm genuinely interested and have next to no knowledge of Spiderman: What about it don't you like the look of?

WARNING: LONG WINDED POST

Don't get me wrong, it's not ALL bad. I like the fact that we're dropped into a different universe with an older Peter than we usually get, and the game is visually awesome. My main problem is that the gameplay itself feels so dang cheap and automated, and that the developers seem to lack imagination.

Take a look at what they showed this year for example. We get to The Raft (big super villain prison) and so far, so good. A whole bunch of Spidey's famous villains have broken loose and it seems like we get to fight the Sinister Six in this game (a team of Spidey's villains all focusing on killing him)! Awesome! We've never done that before! And the first thing we get to do is....chasing Electro.

Unless I'm missing one, this is the 4th time we're being asked to chase after Electro in these games (Ultimate Spider-Man in 2005, Web of Shadows in 2008, Shattered Dimensions in 2010 and now here). But what baffles me is that this chase manages to be more automated and boring than ALL of the others.

Take the 2005 game, which this game rips off the most directly with this chase (Electro even says one of the iconic lines from that game's chase). In that game, we were playing as Venom, whose gimmick in that game was his health bar was constantly draining and he needed to feed off people. So you didn't just chase Electro, but you also have to make sure to find the right moment to stop and eat someone to stay alive. Also, if you got too close, Electro would let out a gigantic expanding energy wave that would take a chunk out of your life and send you flying backwards. If he got too far away, you would lose. It was tense and made you think about positioning and guess where he would go next.

What do we do in this brand new, next-generation Spider-Man experience? Eh, just swing after him. Fight some generic enemies every couple of feet. Follow him up a linear shaft and tap left or right when you see a bright light coming at you. Sure, it looks nice, but the gameplay is so basic, and much less interesting than a game from more than a decade ago, as well as every variant of the same sequence we've had since. This is the new generation of Spider-Man?

Oh, and that part where Electro takes a bunch of containers and throws them at you? Been there, done that in Shattered Dimensions in 2010, except in that game there was more variety in the items (trains, lampposts, cars and containers), you got to manually avoid all of this yourself AND you had to fight off three variants of electric monsters Electro would send after you at the same time. Here in this 'next-gen' game? Just a cutscene and then you're back to mindlessly slapping the swing button.

So that's extremely disappointing, but forget about that. We get to the top and we see that yes, we have a fully formed Sinister Six team waiting for you. Ok, NOW we're talking! I can't wait to see how we deal with these guys! This is the first Sinister Six fight in a 3D Spider-Man game! It's gonna be awesome! So how do we go about this?

Another cutscene plays where Spidey gets the crap beaten out of him and the demo ends.

...WHAT THE HELL?! Who in their right mind thought that the first appearance of the Sinister Six since the NES in 1992 should be a dang cutscene?? It's 2018 and we have the most powerful consoles ever! I don't wanna WATCH the freaking Sinister Six, I wanna FIGHT the freaking Sinister Six!! And I understand that six boss characters on screen at once might be a little too much, so do 2 at a time like Dark Souls or even Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 did! You can't beat a licensed anime game, Sony and Insomniac?! ANYTHING would be better than this, and considering that their showing last year was just a bunch of QTEs and the same combat system from Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, I'm starting to get a bit pissed off here.

This big, beautiful new Spider-Man game that everybody's screaming over, is actually just a lazy cash grab when it comes to the actual GAMEPLAY. The most important part of a game and they have nothing new to offer at all! Just the same game we played 6 years ago, except prettier and now with even more QTEs! More than a decade after my first example and not only are we getting way less interesting scenarios, we're also getting way less gameplay in the trade-off!

As a lifelong Spider-Man fan who's played all these games and can see this, it's infuriating and just makes me react with more and more cynicism and sadness when they show it, because it's more and more clear that they don't have an original thought in their heads.

@nicksmi56: Thanks for the in-depth response! I do think they've played it rather safe with the game and this E3 demo really pushed home how much inspiration they've taken from the Batman Arkham games. That said, I'm still quite excited to play it, even if it's just for the swinging.

• Last of Us 2 looks spectacular and I'm genuinely interested in what happened in the time between games. Also, watching Twitch streams, I'm reminded that the internet needs to grow up.
• Ghost of Tsushima is beautiful and I'm excited to casually playing a fun samurai game.
• Control featuring psychic Major Kusanagi looks pretty neat. Looking forward to hearing more on this one.
• REmake 2 had me worried to high heavens, with the new character designs, over the shoulder, and new dialogue; however, upon watching a demo, that game looks scary as all hell and a blast to play. This is my show winner.

Agreed. The characters speaking a somewhat Japanese-accented English really turned me off on that game. It does look beautiful, and the combat looks fun, but boy did that VA really sour my enthusiasm.

Apparently there is a Japanese localization for the Western release, man I remember when games used to have so many goddamn language options, for some reason I enjoyed playing Jak 2 in German

Ever had the feeling of Sequel-itis?

So many safe sequels that the sequels have sequels. And all the sequels of sequels all have prequels.

I have had strong sequel-itis most of E3 so far. It's not that Gears 5 will be poorly made, and not fun, it's just that it's the 5th, and the 5th time of almost anything is going to be a little stale.

The solution: Hideo Kojima to the rescue!

This guy is a living, breathing fever dream. I kind of wish this crazy man would generate new IP and outsource it to other studios. Norman Reedus, sneaking through a field. His radar-pinging backpack, helping him avoid the inter-dimensional monsters, and a strapped on artificial womb for his baby clone of himself! Come On!

Death Stranding is the weirdest and most unique-feeling new IP in a great long while. Perhaps since Bioshock 1. Every once in a while somebody comes up with something that seems genuinely different. And this seems like it.

Ghost of Tsushima might be the game that makes me buy a Playstation after so many years. That looks so awesome