Last night, as is his wont, video games statesman-apparent Geoff Keighley went on a stage with a bunch of dudes to show off tons of new video game trailers and announcements for Summer Games Fest 2023, the first in a salvo of conferences to make up for the cancellation of the traditional E3 expo.
Here’s some of the coolest stuff that we spotted.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Ubisoft revealed it’s bringing the fantastical Prince of Persia series back to its sidescrolling roots with a new platformer putting the Prince’s time-shifting powers to the limits.
Mortal Kombat 1
Mortal Kombat’s latest reboot — hence the “1” in the title for a franchise with over a dozen games to its name — showed up with gory gameplay rather than anything story-based, but it gave us a chance to see the timeline-reset versions of classic characters like Scorpion and Sub-Zero, Kano, and more.
Path of Exile 2
The sequel to the wildly successful dark fantasy ARPG showed up to remind us all it’s not just Diablo’s moment in the sun right now, with a snippet of gameplay ahead of a more in-depth reveal later in July.
Fortnite Wilds
The latest season of Fortnite is here, and this time Optimus Prime is the famous face you’ll be shooting (or doing the shooting as) in a Rise of the Beasts collaboration. It’s cute that he decided to even the odds by shrinking himself down to Fortnite-Person-Level instead of staying Transformer-sized.
Alan Wake II
The Pacific Northwest horror is finally back with the long-awaited sequel to Alan Wake, which this time gives players two heroes to face the foggy forested nightmares with — the titular returning trapped novelist Alan, and Saga Anderson, a FBI agent who finds herself pulled into Alan’s nonsense.
Star Trek: Infinite
How has it taken us this long to get a Star Trek 4X game? Sure, Stellaris mods have existed for ages, but now Paradox is making it official with Star Trek: Infinite, a game that will ask you to explore the galaxy as the Federation, the Romulans, the Cardassians, or the Klingons. We’ll find out more next week on Captain Picard Day, June 16 — the second holiest day on the Star Trek calendar.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
Legendary director and noted video game stan John Carpenter is putting his name to this new co-operative shooter, where, of course, you shoot lots of zombies. The man likes what he likes!
Sand Land
One of many Akira Toriyama manga classics — this one set in a post-apocalyptic world where control over dwindling water supplies sees a local marshal team up with Demon prince Beelzebub to find a new water source — is now making the leap to games.
Space Marine 2
Even more Tyranid-stomping footage from the long awaited Warhammer 40K shooter sequel confirmed Space Marine 2 will feature co-op up to three players, because boltgunning down endless hordes of xenos is always better with friends.
Palworld
This absurdist Pokémon style game that simply asks “what if we gave not-Pikachu a gun?” dropped even more zany footage, as well as a January 2024 early access window.
Stellaris Nexus
Are you, like me, intrigued by the world of 4X space games — but simply too dumb to commit to playing a match for hours upon hours because your feral brain cells would rather go play something where the numbers go up? Good news: Stellaris Nexus is selling itself as the 4X game where matches end in about an hour.
Baldur’s Gate 3
The long-awaited sequel in the legendary D&D CRPG series is still insisting it’s really coming out at the end of August. This time, Larian Studios brought in Jason Isaacs as a mysterious new antagonist looking to gain power in the titular city-state to further prove there really is a new Baldur’s Gate game coming out, for real.
Twisted Metal
Not everything shown at Summer Games Fest was a video game — sometimes it was a video game TV show. Case in point, Peacock’s new Twisted Metal show starring Captain America himself, Anthony Mackie, showed off a new clip debuting Will Arnett and Samoa Joe’s take on Twisted Metal mascot Sweet Tooth.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
Let’s just hope this new Dwarf-centric survival-crafting game doesn’t delve too greedily, nor too deep, lest we end up with another Gollum-tier gaming take on Tolkien.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Focus Entertainment stopped by after debuting Ghosts of New Eden at last year’s Game Awards showcase to show off more action-adventure gameplay from its supernatural romance story.
Nic Cage Comes to Dead by Daylight
Good for him.
The Witcher Season 3
More TV! This time it’s the first major look at the beginning of the end for Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia. Don’t worry, he’ll get better. And have a different face.
Exoprimal
Capcom’s weird dinosaur shooter might have already landed with a bit of a thud, but the company is really hoping that if you also turn Street Fighter’s Ryu and Guile into robots to fight dinosaurs with, you’ll pay attention.
Lies of P
The long-in-the-works “what if Pinocchio was Bloodborne?” soulslike dropped some new footage, as well as the announcement of a new demo, and a September 19 release date.
Witchfire
Speaking of creepy supernatural stuff in September, the developers of Vanishing of Ethan Carter The Astronauts revealed that a day after on September 20, early access for their witches-vs-witch-hunters shooter Witchfire will begin.
Immortals of Aveum
EA’s new magical shooter showed off a chunk of gameplay, revealing just how its latest take on turning spellcasting into a first-person-shooter will work.
Lysfanga the Timeshift Warrior
Why fight twice as hard when you could manipulate time to get your past self to fight alongside you instead? That’s the puzzling premise behind this isometric hack-n-slash, where the titular Lysfanga uses time-bending power to craft duplicates of herself to solve puzzles and take the fight forward on multiple fronts.
Spider-Man 2 Gets a Release Date
Insomniac’s highly-anticipated Spidey sequel didn’t bring new footage after its big gameplay demo recently, but there was some news anyway — the game’s out October 20 on PS5, and its Tony-Todd-voiced Venom won’t be hosted by Eddie Brock in Insomniac’s twist on the Marvel universe.
Final Fantasy Ever Crisis
Final Fantasy VII do be on that phone though! Square Enix punked the world with its first major Final Fantasy appearance at SGF being in the form of a wild new trailer for Ever Crisis, the mobile game seeking to both retell the story of Final Fantasy VII and its remake, as well as the past spinoffs in the “Compilation of FFVII” series, in a new ongoing RPG.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
But of course, that wasn’t all Square had to show. SGF concluded with a bombshell new look at the second chapter of the FFVII remake, Rebirth, which will continue to twist and turn the story of one of the most iconic JRPGs ever made when it drops — on two discs! — on PS5 early next year. Stop gaslight gatekeep girlbossing Tifa, Sephiroth, please!