1.Red Dead Redemption 2 ; I love Rockstar Games. More precisely, I love their open-worlds. GTA has that satire feel to it, with cartoonish characters, absurd stories, and crazy gameplay sequences. Red Dead Redemption got on to me because even though still had some of that witty writing, its themes are way soberer and it was so different from what made GTA one of my favorite franchises, while still maintaining that attention to detail and quality that only Rockstar can achieve on a sandbox game.
Its kinda crazy to think that despite the Western setting being a very mainstream one, and the gameplay tropes the game stand on being insanely popular, there is really nothing like it out there, and that's because it takes really talented people and a lot of time and money to make one of these. That's why when a Rockstar game is coming out, it's a major event.
2.God of War ; I like God of War, but its far from being one of my favorite PlayStation franchises and that makes this shift only more remarkable. That debut at E3 2016 was magnificent. The more focused combat, cinematic adjust on the camera, more intimate treatment to the story and the beautiful Norse setting itself all resonated really strong with me. Then the interviews with Cory started to come out and everything he described about the game, from the themes to its system grabbed my attention even more. We heard the game has a bunch of secret areas and that their playtesting clock is finishing as far as 35 hours! That's insane and I just cannot wait for this to come out and explore every corner of this video game, and that's something I never imagined I would say about God of War
3.Spider-Man ; As a big fan of open world games, traversal in games, Insomniac and Spider-Man, this is one of the easiest sells for me. E3 showcased that this has some form of Arkham-like combat and Uncharted level of setpieces, and those are other two things I'm a big fan of. July came and so did Spider-Man Homecoming, and man, wasn't that movie super super fun, and only brought my hype to a new level. PGW trailer focused on the story and showed the supporting cast and we playing as Peter, an optic that we haven't really seem in Spidey past games. And just now at PSX, we heard that Dan Sloth and Christos Gage are two of the game's writers, that's super exciting too. All I want to see now is some free roaming gameplay around Manhattan and my hype would be over the roof
This looks like the perfect summer game, and I hope they hit a window within that
4.Kingdom Hearts III ; I'm not the most die-hard KH fan. I've always loved the idea of this combination, and really enjoyed playing Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 back in the PS2 days, but never went in on all the other titles on the franchise, so while a fan, I have no idea what the hell is going on with this story and have little attachment to most of these characters.
So why am I so pumped for this game? Because boy doesn't this looks amazing from what we have seen so far. Those E3 and D23 trailers are INCREDIBLE, the beautiful cartoony look, the crazy action sequences, that Toy Story world looks bonkers and so fun to run around. Now there are rumors of Monster Inc world, and we are always in the hope that they will announce something crazy like Star Wars or Marvel. Square, just please ship this game next year
5. Dreams ; I was always intrigued by Dreams and used to love watching their streams, but excitement fell off after a long period of silence and beta delays. PSX and TGA brought that hype back.
Media Molecule had a solid campaign trailer showing at The Game Awards. I like the three Dreams intertwined concept and it has that MM team vibe that I love in LBP and Tearaway. But at PSX is when they fleshed out the tools and showed how deep and yet accessible this engine can be, and this could be a game changer in the long run. LBP community was already so creative despite the limitations and a bunch of people got into game development and got jobs on the game market because of it, so I can only imagine the kinds of stuff they will achieve with accessible 3D modeling, simple and yet realized logic tools, a fully set audio and music making set, and stuff like that.
As someone who has his toes dipped both in game's media and game development, this is REALLY exciting
6.Far Cry 5 ; Far Cry is basically an open world game with immersive sim-like systems and encounters, and that's what makes me so into this series. Its satisfying to stealth run the missions, its ton of fun to blow everything up as well, and I love that duality. It's also the franchise that I think it does the Ubisoft loop the best because the gameplay makes the movement and traversal really fun so doing your checklist around the map is super enjoyable. The new setting is also pretty interesting and seems to be way more open than previous entries, and previews hit recently and the amount of content seems pretty great, so I can't wait to run around this world.
Also, I can be friends with a Dog, so fuck yeah I'm hyped.
7. Monster Hunter World ; My experience with Monster Hunter is limited. Played a little bit on PS2 but were never on the MH PSP or 3DS bandwagon, which is where these games really blew up. Then back in October I got hands-on with World and loved it. Played with strangers but I was immediately projecting how fun doing hunts with my online friends would be. The beta came in December and we did just that, and it was a great co-op experience. Trailers showcasing story are great too and Im looking forward to playing as Aloy with Mega Man as a companion
8. A Way Out ; I like how Josef took that basic co-op design philosophy Brothers had, and blew up the scope and took it to a completely different spectrum. I'm down for the prison break/heist vibes alone, it looks action packed and a thrilling fun adventure from what we saw so far, but this groundbreaking co-op mentality is what really makles me to think this will be a must play in 2018.
9. Concrete Genie ; This is the kind of game missing from SIE catalogue this gen. The paint mechaninc is a pretty unique aspect and makes this such a beautiful game to look at. Its super impressive to think that Pixelopus is making this with only 14 people and they said there's even more to it, the action-y elements in the game still havent really been shown, so Im pretty excited to see what else this title has under its hood;
10. Kentucky Route Zero TV Edition ; This game is right up my alley and the reception and the whole journey it has been going through in the last six years is fascinating for me. Yet, despite admiring the title and the backstory behind it, I still have not played because I prefer to wait until it was finished, and I managed to go through withouth being spoiled about anything at all. 2018 is when I finally get that experience, and it will most likely be on the Switch, so Im very hyped about that.
Honorable Mentions
- We Happy Few
- Metro Exodus
- Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
- Detroit: Become Human
- Days Gone
