PlayStation has kicked off the year in style with its January 2024 State of Play, showcasing trailers, deep dives, and announcements on well over a dozen upcoming PS5 titles. We learned a lot, but we were also left with some burning questions – both to do with games that were in the show, and also those that weren’t.
There’s no escaping that Sony did an excellent job overall at hyping up PS5 exclusives like Rise of the Ronin and multiplatform titles like Judas. The balance of titles (both in terms of genres and when they’re set to release) was on the money as well. We also think carving out a separate State of Play for FF7 Rebirth – probably the lead contender to be the best PS5 game of the year – was a smart decision. But here are the five things that left us scratching our heads and desperate for more information.
Still no sign of Concord
Sony’s well-documented (and seemingly struggling) push for more live service titles includes its space-bound FPS game Concord, which it has repeatedly said is set to launch this year. A new gameplay trailer, and potentially a Concord release date announcement, felt like a sure thing for this State of Play. However, it’s still nowhere to be seen.
It was revealed in May 2023 with a short, conceptual reveal trailer and an even shorter blog post that simply calls it a “PvP multiplayer first-person shooter” and “a bringing together of peoples”. But we’ve heard nothing since. The official line on Concord is that it’s still destined for 2024, and it was included in a quickly-deleted blog post from Sony about this year’s slate of games. So to still be without any new information is both strange, and a little bit concerning.
What is Stellar Blade’s combat actually like?
We wrote in-depth about this topic immediately after the State of Play, but in a nutshell, we were frustrated by the way combat was shown off during the deep dive of Stellar Blade. The game looks visually stunning, and we received a decent amount of info about a lot of the game’s systems, but any footage of combat was delivered in rapid fire snippets that lasted, at most, four or five seconds.
Despite getting a healthy six-minute spotlight in the State of Play, there was no extended gameplay sequence that truly showed off what a combat encounter would feel like, what combos you could perform and chain together, and how enemies would fight back. Hopefully, before it launches in April, we get a proper, uninterrupted look at some action.
Many, many things in the Death Stranding 2 trailer
Why is there a cute cat with bat wings? How did a face mask made of rubber gloves light a cigarette? Why is there a low frame-rate talking doll that looks like Alan Wake? How did Sam Porter Bridges seemingly end up on an asteroid orbiting the Moon? And why does Troy Baker have a weaponized electric guitar? These are just some of the bizarre questions we’ve been asking ourselves after Hideo Kojima’s new nine-minute trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
Maybe, the general answer to all of these questions is: ‘because it’s Hideo Kojima’. But we genuinely can’t wait to find out more about, well, everything in this sequel. It sounds like we’re going on an even more radical journey this time around, but sadly we’ll be waiting at least another year until we arrive at the Death Stranding 2 release date.
Will Physint even be on the PS5?
Sticking with Kojima, our next burning question involves his brand new IP Physint, which was announced at the very end of the State of Play. Looking to blur the lines between films and videogames, we can’t wait to see how this return to the action espionage genre (which Kojima conquered with Metal Gear Solid) eventually plays out.
While we of course have so many questions about Physint itself, the big one for us revolves around if it’ll even be out on the PS5. To us, it feels like a title that could kick off the PS6 era with a bang, but we’ll probably have to wait a couple of years at least before we hear more about the game and the console it’s destined for.
No news from Insomniac
While Insomniac Games suffered that horrific and massive data leak towards the end of last year, we were still optimistic in our pre-show predictions that the studio would feature in some capacity. It may still be a bit too early to show off gameplay for its upcoming Wolverine game, but we were hopeful that we’d get some kind of news or initial teaser for some Spider-Man 2 DLC.
A State of Play just doesn’t hit the same without a splash of brilliance from Insomniac, and we’re left wondering when we’ll hear more about its Marvel projects. Insomniac devs did make an appearance shortly after the State of Play in a Sony roundtable with the team behind the Across the Spider-Verse movie. However, while there was plenty of talk about tentacles, there was no mention or tease for upcoming content.
So those are our five big unanswered questions off the back of the January State of Play. For more on the games featured in the showcase, check out our thoughts on why Helldivers 2 will feel like Halo for PlayStation gamers, and why Judas adds a healthy dose of Mass Effect to its Bioshock roots.