I know Geoff Keighley wants Summer Game Fest to be the de facto replacement for E3, but after watching the presentation last year and this year, it’s not there yet. I enjoyed the show, but there were too many super-short trailers, trailers with no gameplay, and games I just don’t care about.

It should be an unwritten rule for publishers that if you don’t have gameplay to show, don’t make a trailer.

Highlights of the show were:

    • Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
    • Path of Exile II
    • Witchfire
    • Sonic Superstars
    • Alan Wake 2
    • Baldur’s Gate III
    • Black Desert Online: Land of the Morning Light
    • Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior
    • Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has been criticized for its art style, but the gameplay looked great. However, the music choice in the trailer was downright awful and I suspect is a big reason why the trailer is getting so much negative blowback. Using contemporary music that isn’t going to be in the game in reveal trailers is a bad habit that publishers have gotten into.

I wish we could’ve seen more Path of Exile II and Baldur’s Gate III.

Nicolas Cage coming onstage to talk about being in Dead by Daylight was unexpected and hilarious.

I’m not a huge Sonic fan, but Sonic Superstars got my attention.

The brief gameplay of Alan Wake II looked terrifying.

I said in my recent PlayStation Showcase post that Foamstars was the most naked ripoff of a Nintendo IP I had seen in years. I now give that distinction to Palworld, which openly steals Pokemon character designs, and is basically Pokemon with guns. They’re not even trying to hide it.

Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior looked interesting, but I need to see more.

Of course, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was outstanding. I love that Square-Enix is making the shift to action-RPGs as opposed to the turn-based system that should’ve been left behind years ago.

YouTube won’t let me let me embed the presentation because it’s age-restricted, most likely because of the violent Mortal Kombat 1 gameplay, so the link to the presentation is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Bz7Pa_nF4