"State of Play" 3/19 Event Recap

When Sony announced that they would be pulling out of E3 2019, and they cancelled the "Playstation Experience" which was their own event for bring gaming news to fans, it begged the question: How will Sony engage and inform their customers? E3 is the biggest stage in gaming news which all the major players either directly or indirectly attend. Microsoft and Nintendo both also hold regular livestreams via Inside Xbox and Nintendo Directs to regularly inform and engage their player base. With Sony canceling these major venues it obviously brought up the question of what its replacements would be. They can't simply not do anything? Games live and die based on this hype. We recently got the answer that Sony would be taking a live stream style more structured like a Nintendo Direct than a keynote or press conference. This would be a string a trailers and news with a voice over. This strategy is not an inferior one perse as Nintendo has made it work; plus its lower budget and simplicity allows for more frequency and updates over annual events. Today we saw what the new "State of Play" would look like, and below are the list of updates. For a major kickoff of the primary way Sony intends to inform and engage customers, to say it was underwhelming is an understatement. Last of Us 2 news? Death Stranding updates? Final Fantasy VII remake news? Anything? Nope...we got a Iron Man VR game no one wanted...

While this event was light on big news, hopefully it does at least mean we will get regular updates from Sony on gaming updates in lieu of major events.

Catch the full stream event below.

Here are the major updates from the March State of Play stream. While the event was short, (only 20 minutes) there were still some announcements and new trailers to check out.

1. Iron Man VR

Sony began by revealing Marvel's "Iron Man VR". At first, everyone was excited for a open world full iron man game...but no worries, its just a VR game. Developed by Camouflaj with Worldwide Studios and Marvel Games, the game puts players behind the visor of Tony Stark. It looks to be a rail shooter that felt very mobile-esque. If Anthem did anyting right, it was to show us how a modern Iron Man game could excel, and following the award winning success of Spider-Man PS4, it is a wonder this was made instead. Hopefully it turns out to be great.

2. Crash Team Racing

The remastered kart racing game will launch in a short few months on June 21st, with unique content coming to the PS4 version such as retro style character models and maps.

3. No Man Sky Beyond VR

No Man Sky is the game that keeps improving. No Man Sky launched and became the game used as an example of something that fails to live up to hype, failed to be what was promised, and is used in examples of lifeless boring game worlds. What is amazing is all that failure has not dampened the updates coming No Man Sky. When any other devloper would have abandoned the game by now *Cough Mass Effect Andromeda Cough* The game is so vastly improved and different than launch, and its latest update is the addition of a free VR mode update coming to the game later Summer 2019. The VR update will be available for the whole game and is not a separate mode. A new physical version will also release including the base game, Beyond, and VR.

4. Days Gone

Days Gone is a long awaited zombie survival game coming to PS4. It finally is set to arrive April 24th as a PS4 exclusive. While zombie games may be the only genre more saturated than any other, this game shows promise and may excited die hard Playstation fans. Sony used State of Play as a platform to reveal a new story trailer for the game ahead of release.

5. Mortal Kombat 11

Probably the biggest name in the State of Play live stream was a new Mortal Kombat 11 trailer. This trailer definitely had a more "goofy" and lighter tone to it. At first, thought this was a parody until saw more MK characters. Check it out. Mortal Kombat 11 releases right around the corner on April 23rd for all platforms.

6. Concrete Genie

Sony announced the release window for the PS4-exclusive action adventure game Concrete Genie to be Fall 2019. Additionally, a new trailer was shown with more of the games story.

7. Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted

"Five Nights At Freddy's VR: Help Wanted" is a VR game based on the beloved horror series, bringing remastered levels from the originals along with new content. It is releasing on PSVR and other VR platforms in April 2019.

8. Ready Set Heroes

Coming later 2019, Ready Set Heroes is announced; an iso-metric dungeon crawler game featuring 4v4 multiplayer in a race to complete through dungeon guantlets.

Conclusion

Short but sweet this new format shows promise, but needs to really get some major news to sell PS4 fans on Sony's plans for the future. Some games are getting long in the tooth on updates like Death Stranding, FFVII, and Last of Us 2, are all overdue for updates. Hopefully the next State of Play will bring more updates on some of those. For VR fans this first livestream was an exciting list of updates. Perhaps Sony should take Nintendo for an example with their "nindies" and break PSVR into its own stream, and save State of Play for "normal" PS4 games. Dispite this some of these releases and new trailers were pretty exciting and look forward to the next State of Play. Did you like this new format? Let me know in the comments, and as always make sure to catch these updates right here on Game Infinite News.