Time to break out those wishlists
A Plague Tale: Requiem
Not only does its sunny, seemingly more Mediterranean setting look absolutely gorgeous, but I’m also keen to see how Hugo’s rat-whispering powers have developed now he’s a bit older. Will he be able to control thatliteral tidal wave of ratswe saw in that reveal trailer? I really hope so, because as much as I hate rats in real life (sorry rat fans, but too many have died under my floorboards and infused my house with the smell of rotting cabbage for me to feel anything but disgust for them), Idowant to see what that looks like in real-time. The rats were a technical marvel in the first game - brilliantly explored by Alex Wiltshire in hisMechanic column- and the next-gen version of ‘death by rat swarm’ has me morbidly intrigued.
Ollie:Look, I love Avatar. I think it’s an absolutely marvellous film. It’s well-trodden ground, but that doesn’t stop it from being great. And that’s more or less how I’m approaching the prospect of an Ubisoft-made Avatar game. Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora will be an open-world, first-person action-adventure game. We already know what we’re getting ourselves into with this. It’s Ubisoft. It’ll be a good-looking game with a decent enough story, almost certainly drowned in map markers and side-quests.
Again, it’s well-trodden ground, but there’s still plenty of opportunity to do something new with the iconic world of Pandora. I, for one, really hope to see some great jungle stealth. You know in the film when we first see Neytiri up in the trees above Jake, and she readies an arrow to slay him but is stopped by a floating Woodsprite landing on her arrow? I want that. I want to be able to stealthily jump from branch to branch, from leaf to leaf, and rain hell down on the Na’vi’s enemies below. The flora in Avatar is meant to be absolutely gigantic, so there should be plenty of opportunity to make use of that verticality. It’d be so good. Come onnnn. Don’t let me down, Ubisoft.
Hayden:IfBear And Breakfastwas just a cute management sim focused on running a bed and breakfast in the woods, I’d be interested. Decorating my cabin, cooking for guests, keeping them all happy with their holiday. It all just sounds lovely, doesn’t it? In Bear and Breakfast, there’s a little more to it. To renovate your cabin and make it hospitable, you’ll need to travel deep into the woods in search of supplies. As you hunt for materials, you’ll meet a quirky cast of critters and discover how Pinefall Resort fell into ruin many years ago.
Bear And Breakfast’s main loop is a blend of managing your business and exploring the woods for supplies, which is all laid back and chill. However, the trailer ends with an eerie warning: do not disturb the wildlife. As the camera flickers onto an angry fox-like creature and then cuts to black, it seems like a not-so-subtle hint that there are some strange mysteries to uncover deep in the forest. With that, I’m hooked. Or, as Hank the Bear would say, excited bear noises!
PS: I wonder if Hank and Horace would be friends? I bet Horace would take up too many rooms, being endless and all.
Alice Bee:The demo for this wasso fun and cute. You cleaned up the trash in the forest to exchange for goods as a form of currency. Isn’t that cool? Yes, it is. I’m excited to spend more time arranging tasteful furnishings in my cabins, and also building a shower that isn’t just a tub with a hose attached. Plus: I admire games that take such a literal approach to their title.
Ed:Devolver’s been on a roll lately, what withInscryptionand Death’s Door beingverygood games. And they look to continue said roll with Cult Of The Lamb, a game that’s a bit cursed Animal Crossing, a bit action RPG. You play as a possessed lamb that’s been saved from annihilation by a mysterious stranger. To repay the debt, you must build a following in his name. And so your cult activities begin. You perform dark rituals, explore a randomly generated world and do quests. It’s simultaneously cute as heck and incredibly dark, with an art style you’d see on an expensive pencil case. Gimme gimme.
Alice0:Savathûn has been the most delightful of Destiny’s adversaries, even while operating mostly in the background with her stories mostly told in lore books, always playful and curious while pursuing her own goals. Her introduction as a velvet-voiced charmer in Season of the Lost, well,hello thereSavathûn. Someone had to take responsibility for instilling the next generation with a strange fondness for women who might murder them, and Bungie stepped up. I hope we don’t have to murder her, like we did her nerd brother. She’s such a delightful presence telling one-sided truths and pulling strings. Savathûn has spent millennia building a paracausal Heath Robinson contraption and is very pleased with herself, barely able to contain her excitement for you to see what she’s done. I’m very happy for her; I hope the final phase of her plan is not an alarm clock ringing to startle a cat to pull an iron off a shelf and split reality like an egg.
Beyond the few days I’ll spend playing the story campaign (though I will gladly return to replay it on the new hard mode), yeah, I’m keen to see how Bungie’s latest shake-up plays out. A new melee weapon, a reworking of Void classes, oodles of balance tweaks… yeah man, I’m ready for a fresh year of Destiny. This one has dragged, with Witch Queen being delayed by the pandemic, and I’m up for newness—though I fear the game will once again feel a bit empty at first again afteryet more stuffgoes into the Destiny Content Vault.
Alice0:Every year brings a few games whose complexity is beyond my ken but creates stories I adore hearing. This year, I hope Distant Worlds 2 will be one of those games. BothAdamandSinhave raved about the Distant Worlds: Universe across the years, detailing the complexity of 4X space strategy game simulated universe, the many moving parts which rely on and effect each other. The mechanisms of an Eve-like MMO, but with AI filling in all the roles. I have enjoyed reading about it, nodding my head, saying, “That sounds amazing,” to myself, then absolutely not playing it. I’d like to think that might change with Distant Worlds 2 but, well, at the very least I hope to hear about it.
Katharine:I’m also extremely here for Dordogne’s lovely watercolour work. Gorgeous stuff.
Ed:I was prettyblown away by the closed network testlast year, so you bet I’m excited for Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin’s wombo combo. The way it veered from classic, claustrophobic Souls to open world Elden Ring left a deep impression on me. It felt like an exciting future for the series and I’m curious to see just how far the map stretches when all is installed and done. Will it be able to hold itself together and form a cohesive whole? Still, I can’t help but sense strong GOTY energy radiating from this one.
Alice0:I’ve been avoiding Elden Ring as much as is possible within this line of work (not much, sadly) because I am so keen to see its secrets, surprises, and wacky deathtraps for myself.
Katharine:Will this finally be a FromSoft game I’m not terrible at? Chances are slim, but hey, I’m ready to be proven wrong. Let me discover your secrets, Elden Ring, I beg you…
Katharine:The Luminous Productions making Forspoken may not be made up of quite the same people who madeFinal Fantasy XV, but cor, I love that you can still tell this is a Luminous RPG, you know? There’s a texture to this fantasy landscape that instantly calls to mind the jagged, eye-drawing horizons of Eos, only here it looks like we’ll have a lot more fun traversing it thanks to protagonist Frey’s springy super legs and natty grapple hook. The way she leaps and bounds across rooftops and scales rock faces in an instant like some sort of invincible mountain goat have me itching to try it out for myself, and I hope she feels as good to control as she does to look at onscreen. I have high hopes for her magic powers, too, after the spectacular elemental lightshows of old Noctis and co. Fingers crossed it also has an interesting story to match its lovely visuals.
Alice0:I’m still not sure what shape the horror FPS from Tango Gameworks will take, but their twoThe Evil Withingames had some cracking horror and fun violence so yep, I’m up for more. I like how colourful it looks too, mashing weird monsters on the streets of Tokyo. Not sure what it is; do want to know.
Ollie:Have A Nice Death has me very excited indeed. What a splendid idea for a roguelite. You are Death, founder and CEO of the corporation that handles all things death and afterlife. But you’re also experiencing severe burnout after millennia of hard work, and your employees have started to run rampant, leaving you no choice but to cancel your holiday plans and sort them out the old-fashioned way.
It looks incredibly stylish and quirky, with a beautifully smooth animation style and fast-paced movement and combat reminiscent ofDead Cells(no wonder, given that Dead Cells' Sébastien Bénard is helping out with the development). I’m most looking forward to how developers Magic Design Studios root the mechanics in the world they’ve created. From what they’ve said so far, it sounds like they’ll do a great job here. I mean, just listen: “Taking more power for yourself is a controversial move in Death Incorporated’s company culture. For instance, adopting a Curse upgrade for yourself might result in the Labor Inspector granting your subordinates enhanced powers, or worse, raising the cost of koffee and other items that are vital to your work output”. Fabulous.
Alice0:I’m also excited to see what 19 years of technological advances have done for those iconic ship trails.
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
James:In addition to the game where you play as a warmongering superhuman religious fanatic (see below), I’m also interested in the game where you play as a cat. Someone at Double Dagger Studio evidently realised that felines are, in fact, the perfect video game protagonists: they’re intelligent, independent, and are pretty much expected to perform bizarre acts of chaos for fun. We all sneer at the ridiculousness of Solid Snake earnestly jumping in a cardboard box, but when a cat does it? Phones out, oh that’s so cute, do it again in a different box etc, etc.
Little Kitty, Big City does apparently have a “get back home” narrative, but you can tell from the first trailer it makes plenty of time for you just potter about, doing cat things. Stealing fish, pouncing on objects that clearly aren’t alive, slinking into places you shouldn’t and so on. It appeals to every part of my brain that, when I’ve looked at my own cat, has thought, “Lucky bugger, not having human responsibilities.” And for that, I want it.
Katharine:As another resident cat parent on the team, I’m also very much looking forward to both this and Stray.Good video game catsare finally getting their due!
Full disclosure: Little Kitty, Big City includes creative work by Philippa Warr (RPS in peace), who used to commission James back when he was a starving freelancer. But he liked cats before he knew Pip, so uh, yeah.
Alice0:I am well up for a new turn-based tactical game from the studio behindXCOM. They basically already made a superhero game with XCOM 2’s War Of The Chosen expansion so I’m curious to see how daft things might get with actual superheroes. Large parts of Midnight Suns look familiar, but they’re shaking it up with cards for abilities and other bits and yeah, I’m curious. While I haven’t returned toXCOM: Chimera Squadafter finishing it, unlike the two main games, I enjoyed how it pushed familiar aspects in new directions. I want to see what they’re doing now.
Katharine:I’m no Marvel buff, but I too am intrigued to see how well the beefcakes I’ve seen at the cinema gel with tactical XCOM fare. Superheroes aren’t known for waiting their turn to dropkick enemies into the tarmac, but everything I’ve seen so far looks pretty damn fine. I’m also keen to see just how Persona-y the Abbey bits are when you’rehanging out with fellow supesin your downtime between missions. Because a tactical RPG superhero game that also takes the best bits from FiraxisandAtlus? Now that’s something I’ve gotta see.
Katharine:Continuing my odyssey into the realm of the big strategy giants, Men Of War 2 also has my interest well and truly piqued. While we don’t know exactly when it’s coming out yet (I may have had my fill of WW2 RTS games if it ends up launching anywhere near Company Of Heroes 3, for example), Men Of War 2 does at least have itsnifty-looking Direct Vision featureto help set it apart. This lets players assume direct control of individual soldiers and units from a first-person viewpoint, allowing you to get up close and personal with its impressive looking battlegrounds. If nothing else, I want to see who wins the war of the best WW2-themed strategy game this year. Men Of War 2, or Company Of Heroes 3.
Alice0:This summer, I swam down a mile-and-a-half of the River Tweed. Walked up the riverside path, ate a nice lunch, chatted with pals, splashed about a bit and dove off a nice big rock, then drifted, stumbled, and swam back down to the starting point. So, I’m glad someone is making a new video game based on my life (the first being, of course,Streets Of Rage). Naiad is a gentle-looking game about a water spirit swimming down a river: enjoying the sights, befriending animals, maybe solving some gentle puzzles. Then I assume when she reaches the end, she puts on a leather jacket, eats an entire chicken from a bin, and starts punching punks.
Ollie:From former BioWare devs comes Nightingale, a survival crafting game set in a fantasy world known as the Fae Realms. Except that’s not where you’ve come from. You actually hail from a much more Victorian-inspired world connected to the Fae Realms (and presumably many others) via an arcane portal network. But with the sudden collapse of that network, you become stranded in the Fae Realms, and must act quickly to survive amid its many fantastical and horrifying dangers.
Alice Bee:One of those games that I wouldn’t be surprised to see delayed a wee bit, Park Beyond is a very ambitious business management sim. It aims to be just as fun for people who like pouring over quarterly earnings reports and tweaking how far the park toilets are from the drinks stands to find optimum Time To Piss windows, and those who like making really pretty fun parks, rollercoaster, fairytale theme, big giant donut, wheeee! This is a very difficult circle to square, and developers Limbic havetalked about their “impossification” theme– that is, making rides frikkin’ gravity defying monstrosities that I would have nightmares about. I’m into it, in theory, and really hope it works in practise.
Katharine:I love me a good Ori-like, and Planet Of Lana couldn’t be more up my street. I need to play it this instant.
Alice Bee:The age of the big concept Left-4-likes continues. Redfall is Arkane’s play for the co-op team shooter, which means it’s a bit more sexy and goth than the other options available. Details are scant, but it’s set in an open world, the bad guys are big giant vampires who are blocking out the sun a la an episode of The Simpsons, and the player character cast is diverse. They have cool weird powers like telekinesis, or a robot pal, or they’re like… a ghost sharpshooter? I don’t know, but it’s cool. One of them is like, a cryptozoologist YouTuber. It all resonates a bit more with a millennial like myself, you know? Like, souped up Goosebumps where people swear and have big guns. Yes please, show me more.
Alice0:I’ve been waiting for a new FPS which calls the laaads together for good times and tomfoolery; I’d be very pleased if it were an Arkane game.
Katharine:Replaced was easilymy standout game from E3 last year, and wowzer, every time I watch that trailer I just get more excited to see it in action. Its pixel art is just HNNNGH, I mean look at it. Look. At. It. Stunning. That lighting? Perfection. And those fight scenes? Beautiful. Gorgeous. KAPOW. I want to play it this instant and find out exactly what’s going on in this alternate 1980s post-apocalypse. At E3 we were told we’d be playing as R.E.A.C.H, an AI trapped inside a human body against its will. We’ll also be digging into the murky underbelly of Phoenix City to root out corrupt overlords, and man oh man, I need to play this with every fibre of my being. I just hope it feels as brilliant under the thumbs as it is to look at.
Ollie:Rumbleverse is a silly, goofy, and somehow utterly brilliant melee battle royale. The object, as always, is to be the last player standing, but here there’s a distinct lack of guns, and a surplus of bodyslams, suplexes, and bashing each other with traffic signs ripped from the ground.
Alice0:Yeah, I think they’re not really sure how to market this one. Different people have grown attached to different parts of Saints Row across the years and I get the feeling the marketing gang are a bit hazy on how to work with that. I think the way they’re doing it works for me: I want a slightly sillier GTA with good character customisation and dress-up options.
Katharine:Having heard developers Spiral Circus talk aboutthe weird and wonderful inspirations behind Siltat EGX last year, I am very much looking forward to discovering more of its watery, monochrome secrets later this year. I’ve already played the opening 20 minutes of this mysterious deep-sea diving puzzle adventure, and I can safely say that fans of Limbo and Inside will want to keep an eye out for this one. As well as paddling through the murky depths avoiding all manner of deadly aquatic wildlife, you also possess the curious ability to transfer your soul into this fishy friends and use their unique abilities to help you progress. A piranha chomp here, a hammerhead shark bash there… You get the drift, and I’m excited to see what else Spiral Circus have in store for us. In short, I’m hooked.
Ed:I’m all for an emotional rollercoaster, and sci-fi adventure Somerville looks set to make me weep openly. You play as a bloke trying to “make his family whole again” amid a large-scale conflict. Trailers show moments of quiet as you glide over planets in your spaceship, soaring orchestral music, and lots of running away from things. There’s also a dog, which can only signal a crushing moment of loss.
Not to mention that this is being developed by Jumpship, whose co-founder is Dino Patti of Playdead andInsidefame. It certainly hits similar beats, so fingers crossed this is just as good, if not better, than the dark puzzle-platformer of yore.
Alice0:I have more reasons to be cynical about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 than I do fingers on my hands, and that’s after I gained a few fingers in a mutation (though later lost several to an anomaly). And yet, new S.T.A.L.K.E.R., man! New S.T.- alright stuff that, new Stalker! The originals are still an astonishing experience so I want to believe. And Stalker 2 will be on Game Pass, so it won’t be expensive to gawp.
Alice0:I do not like Bethesda’s model of open-world RPG. The Elder Scrolls and its post-apocalyptic reskin, Fallout, feel empty and boring to me, worlds lovingly crammed full of pointless and uninteresting quests and locations. I slightly hope that Starfield will be something quite different, casting off the model they’ve been recycling for years. They could make something remarkable! But my interest is this: even if Starfield does turn out to be Just Another Bethesda Game, they say it’ll have their usual mod support, and I am endlessly fascinated and delighted by the work of Bethgame modders. I’m very keen to see what they might create with a whole new sci-fi setting to play in. I mean, beyond the near-inevitable attempts to remake Oblivion and Fallout: New Vegas once again.
Ed:I’ve weighed it all up and yeah, I’d like to kill chaos. Especially as it’s Team Ninja and Final Fantasy VII Remake devs who’ve set me this mission, marrying action RPG Nioh’s deep combat with Final Fantasy’s storied universe. While I often adore FF’s largely turn-based battles and their takes on real-time skirmishes, I’m an impatient individual. When I’ve got to grind out a few levels, or whittle down a boss for what seems like an age, my teeth start to grit. In Stranger Of Paradise, I can finally fulfil my fantasy: just smash and crash my way through anything that grants me EXP. Chaos, I am coming for you.
The apparent premise of The Devil in Me admittedly didn’t grab me quite so immediately as the three prior games in the anthology. A Saw-style serial killer and body horror with corpse puppets is, to be honest, the gruesome sub-genre I usually turn away from in favour of a good psychological thriller, ghost story, or creature feature. But Dark Pictures games are known for their shocking twists, and while players are often divided over whether said twists are actually any good or not, one thing I’m sure of here is that we haven’t seen nearly the full picture in those 90 seconds. My money’s on surprise werewolves, but we’ll have to wait and see. Just hopefully not for too long.
Katharine:I wasn’t kidding about getting properly into strategy games this year, honest. I must admit, this is the one I’m the most intimidated by. I mean, I’ve spent HOURS watching armies duke it out in Warhammer II’s benchmark, so that must count for something, right? In any case, I’m excited to finally dip my toes into this massive series, even though I fully expect all the actual Warhammer stuff to go straight over my head. While we wait, I’m going to be reading up onNate’s excellent faction analysis.
Disclosure: Former RPS co-founder Alec Meer (RPS in peace) has been writing for Total Warhammer 3, and Nate (also RPS in peace) writes for Games Workshop’s publishing arm Black Library, albeit in the Warhammer 40K camp.
Ed:Come on, justlookat it. Trek To Yomi oozes the style of classic samurai films and captures their spectacle. Backdrops for sword clashes look gorgeous, not to mention exploration in general, which takes you trotting through eery mines, burning markets, and vast forests. I’m confident this won’t be “just another game set in Feudal Japan”. Again, justlookat it.
Disclosure: RPS co-founder Alec Meer (RPS in peace) is the writer on Trek To Yomi.
Hayden:Oh man, I feel silly. For years, I’ve shied away fromTwo Point Hospitalbecause the sheer mention of hospitals gives me anxiety. I didn’t even watch a trailer. But when Two Point Campus was announced, I knew this was for me. I’ve always been interested in school sims (as a kid, I’d spend hours teaching and managing my pupils in Imagine Teacher) and now I’ll discover why Two Point Hospital was so beloved in a setting that I can stomach. Everything looks suitably weird as well. Instead of math and English, the pupils are attending Knight School and Gastronomy. That seems like a big tonal shift away from serious medical procedures and anxiety-inducing hospitals?
Again, I feel very silly because, well, Two Point Hospital is very silly. Sigh. Why did no one tell me the patients all have wacky diseases like Cubism and 8-bitten instead of deadly viruses and serious infections!? It’s safe to say I’ve now fallen in love with the wacky nature of the Two Point franchise and can’t wait to dive into Campus later this year. In the meantime, I’m excited that I can finally try out Two Point Hospital without sinking into a state of panic.
The thing that really makes ValiDate stand out for me, though, are the personalities on display. I have a long and storied history of falling hard for video game characters, particularly in visual novels where characterisation is placed front-and-centre. The singles in ValiDate, though, are something else; namely, they areawful- as evidenced by their toe-curlingly accurateTinder-style biosthat dress up each of their least appealing traits in a way that makes it clear they think themselves sound charming. From obvious clinginess to a deep cynicism precluding all attempts at forming a genuine connection, these are more like people you might actually meet on a dating app than the tropey, idealised husbandos and waifus the genre is known for. I’m expecting some redeeming qualities to emerge over the course of their character arcs, but honestly, if they all stay hot messes from start to finish, I won’t complain either. Why not try thefree demowhile we wait?
Alice Bee:I am really interested to see if we find anything out about Bloodlines 2 this year. That has been asaga- some promising hands-off previews, interviews, then suddenly key team members (including Brian Mitsoda, who is Mr. Bloodlines) being let go and everything going quiet. Bloodlines 2 is apparently being worked on, but by whomst, and in what form, we do not know. It’s going to make one hell of a ‘The Oral History Of…’ article one day.
Release date:TBAFrom:TBA
James:I love it when games come back from the dead, and once THQ shup up shop, any possible Space Marine sequel seemed as cold and stiff as they come. And yet, a decade after the stompy, shooty, original, Space Marine 2 lives. And it’s got Titus in it!
Development duties have switched to Saber Interactive, which is fine by me: their take on World War Z is far better than a game-of-a-film-of-a-book has any right to be, so they clearly know their way around punchy gunplay and horde enemy design. A fine fit indeed for 40K’s bolters and Tyranids. It also sounds like Titus will be doing some planet-hopping this time around, which should make a nice change from the purely industrial Forge World setting of the first game. Well, maybe not “nice”. But a few different shades of grim won’t hurt.
Alice0:I hope we finally meet Spice Maureen this time.
Katharine:A new immersive sim from the former creative director of Dishonored? Say no more. I’m in. Seriously,everythingI’vereadabout Weird West so far just sounds delightful. I love a good western, and Weird West’s stylish take on supernatural cowboys and the eldritch horrors the great outdoors looks like it’s going to be right up my street. It’s a shame it got delayed a bit, but a slip from January to March isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. I sure it will be worth the wait.
As I mentioned above, there are simply too many cool and exciting new games to list them all here. We’d honestly be here all day. But rest assured, the likes of:
…are all things we’ve got our greedy, beady eyes on as well.
