2024’s a bit of a weird year for PlayStation. To say that it has been or is going to be a dry year for the PS5 where exclusives are concerned would be- well, in a word, inaccurate. So far, this year has already seen the PlayStation Studios banner put out two games in Helldivers 2 and Rise of the Ronin, the former of which has been a roaring success by every metric. Looking ahead, Stellar Blade is launching imminently, while Sony also has an expanded remaster of Until Dawn and Concord in the pipeline, while the PS5’s library of exclusives is also being bolstered by third-party partner titles like the widely acclaimed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake (which PlayStation said earlier in the year would be out in 2024).
But even though 2024 isn’t necessarily a dry year for PS5 exclusives, it is sorely missing in the sort of games we’ve come to expect from Sony’s first-party lineup. The company has made its name on the back off AAA cinematic narrative-driven single-player experiences, from God of War to Horizon, from Ghost of Tsushima to The Last of Us, from Death Stranding to Marvel’s Spider-Man– and no such game is set to release this year, with Sony having confirmed that it doesn’t intend to release a new game in an existing flagship instalment until at least April 2025. The relative lack of major games is made to seem even starker, in fact, by the fact that this is coming off the back of 2023, a year where we got just one major first-party PlayStation exclusive. Granted, that exclusive was Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which was an excellent game- but still only one game.
Given all that, there’s more restlessness about the future within the PlayStation fanbase than there has been in a while. It’s been some time since we were as in the dark about what big tentpole first-party releases Sony has lined up for the future, though by that same token, one could also argue that it’s about time Sony shared those plans with the public. Sure enough, leaks have claimed that the company has a PlayStation-related event – likely a PlayStation Showcase – lined up for May- and if that is indeed the case, Sony needs to make sure that it’s a showcase we’ll remember for a long time.
And that’s not just because we know unusually little about what Sony’s roadmap of major upcoming first-party releases looks like. There are several other factors that are putting added pressure on this year’s showcase – if one does happen – to deliver the goods- like the fact that last year’s edition was a big, fat dud. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that 2023’s PlayStation Showcase was probably one of the most disappointing things Sony has done in the last few years with the PlayStation brand. As the company’s main, once-a-year (if that) event, PlayStation Showcases are expected to be the place where we’ll see announcements for the biggest upcoming flagship first-party titles.
On paper, Sony fulfiled that demand with games like Fairgame$, Concord, and Marathon showing up- but all of them came with caveats. For starters, of those, Marathon isn’t going to be an exclusive. Beyond that, however, much more crucial was the fact that those were all live service games. Sony’s live service push (which has slowed down significantly since that showcase aired) had looked misguided from the very beginning, so it was especially to see the company focusing this heavily on its upcoming live service games at last year’s PlayStation Showcase, an event that the vast majority of the company’s fanbase expects to be the stage for announcements of the next big single-player exclusives.
Yes, we got a meaty new showing for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 last year, but with no new tentpole titles announced, Sony’s decision to focus exclusively on live service games was a baffling one- especially because every single one of those three aforementioned titles was shown off with CG trailers. So not only did the company choose to show games that it knew the bulk of its audience wasn’t tuning into the showcase to see, it also chose to show them poorly.
Any other year, if Sony put out a PlayStation Showcase that was solid, if nothing special, there probably wouldn’t be any cause for concern- but in 2024, the optics of such a scenario would be damaging for the company, to say the least. Smack dab in the middle of what’s been a dry spell of major first-party exclusives, and coming off the back of a showcase that was widely deemed to be disappointing, if Sony does indeed have a PlayStation Showcase planned for next month, it can’t afford to be anything less than spectacular.
Of course, the question is- what announcements can we expect to see? Journalist Jeff Grubb has claimed a couple of times now that a new Astro Bot game will be revealed this year, which makes it a likely candidate for a PlayStation Showcase spot- but again, that isn’t exactly the kind of major, flagship first-party experience we’re talking about here. The good news is that, given how long it’s been since a number of Sony’s bigger studios put out their last game, the stars might be aligning perfectly for this purported upcoming event.
The most obvious candidate that everyone’s going to be bringing up is, of course, Sucker Punch. Ghost of Tsushima will soon be four years old, which probably means we’re approaching the announcement of its sequel- or that’s what the timeline of other Sony first-party sequels would suggest, at least. Horizon Forbidden West launched five years after Zero Dawn, God of War Ragnarok came four years after its predecessor, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 took five years to release after the first game. Of course, every game’s development cycle is different, as is every studio’s way of going about things- but if 4-5 years is how long it takes to develop iterative sequels on this scale, Ghost of Tsushima 2 should probably be far enough along in development that it gets announced in the near future. That’s the hope, anyway.
There’s also Bend Studio, the developer of Days Gone. The open world zombie game came out in 2019, and yes, Bend reportedly spent a couple of years after that working on an Uncharted game that was allegedly shelved- but for a few years now, the studio has been working on a new open world IP, one that is built on the tech that was developed for Days Gone. Does that mean the game may have received a boost during early development, even if it is a new IP? And if that is the case, might we be getting our first glimpse at it in May?
There’s also Death Stranding 2, of course, which is due out next year and will almost definitely receive another trailer if we do get a PlayStation Showcase in May. It’s also likely that Sony will showcase the likes of Concord, Marathon, and Fairgame$ again, which, paired with announcements of new single-player titles, would likely be much better received this time around, especially if we get to see actual gameplay this time. Paired with showings for third-party titles like Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and more, a hypothetical showcase in May might actually stand a strong chance of being as impressive as it would need to be. The hope is that Sony will have read the room well enough to know that this year it can’t afford to do anything that falls below that standard.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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