The PSX Wishlist 2016
The days leading into PSX are exciting. When I cast my mind forward to what I might expect from PSX 2016, my mind drifts back to what we’ve seen in the past, and what that says about what we might get this Sunday morning. The likes of Ni No Kuni II, Paragon, Street Fighter V, The first slice of Uncharted 4 gameplay, the same for Final Fantasy VII Remake and a lot more all premiered at the past two PSX conferences. With all those highs in the past, there’s plenty of reason to think that we’re getting an equally massive showing this year – leading to this; my PSX 2016 Wishlist.
Charting a Course… One Last Time
It’s already known that I’m a massive Uncharted fan, but it’s more likely than not that we’ll be getting the first reveal of the upcoming Uncharted 4 Singe Player DLC. Rumours abound as to what that DLC is and nothing seems confirmed for sure, but odds are high that we’ll see this new piece of content. The reason this appears on the wishlist is because I’m super hopeful that not only will we be getting this debut, but we’ll also be getting a release date for it.
Crash the Stage
It was E3 2016 when the head of Playstation Shawn Layden got up on stage and announced that Crash Bandicoot was about to return to consoles, firstly in the recently released Skylanders: Imaginators, but then in a full remake of his original three classics. The dream is that this PSX we see the first gameplay from one of (or all) of these three remakes. The love for Crash is still strong in millions; c’mon Sony and Activision – let’s get this thing going.
Agent Reports for Duty
We’re in a wonderful period right now where two massive PS3 games that many thought were dead have both been revived and have now been released (or in the case of The Last Guardian is only days away). Wouldn’t it be great if Sony had found a way to ride this wave a bit and revive another IP that was touted as Playstation’s next big thing but then disappeared never to be seen again? Of course, I’m talking about Agent, the Rockstar apology for GTA IV going multiplatform that was announced in 2009 and was never seen of again. While probably not to be developed by Rockstar, the name holds some cache, so maybe Sony could revive it and pass it on to one of their many internal developers to do something special with it.
#BuildingtheList
PS2 games coming to the PS4 has reportedly been a massive success, and the release of Final Fantasy VII on the PS4 was too. Perhaps Playstation could continue the rage in the PS2 space and expand it further to include games from the PS1 catalogue. As an enormous fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, I’d love to see VIII and IX arrive on the PS4 with trophies, in particular IX with it being my favourite game ever, but there’s an unbelievable catalogue outside of the Final Fantasy franchise that could come across. Spyro, Tomb Raider, Suikoden and many, many more could all make the jump, and get loaded with trophies onto the PSN – it would be massive!
We have to go back!
Whilst on the subject of classic games coming back, it’s about time we discussed one thing that Xbox One is doing that PS4 isn’t that is distressing a number of people – backwards compatibility. Now I’m not saying we go back as far as PS1 or PS2; though that would be kinda cool and would make my last point totally redundant, but given that the Xbox one is slowly being populated with some of the best games of the last generation, perhaps it’s time that Sony explored the same possibility.
Let Us Change Our Names
This is a sore spot for those of us out there with awful PSNIDs. Thankfully I “Gocatters” am happy with my decision to continually support my beloved Geelong Football Club in my gaming world as well, however there are a number of us out there who are in dire need of a change. “Bilbo_Baggyballs”, “Grundlestiltskin” and “DontShootImGay” are all legitimate PSN IDs that I bet the owners of which would love to change, but are unable to do so. Sony, this is an issue that has persisted for a hell of a long time, while Xbox fans have enjoyed the ability to change their gamertags for the better part of a decade – let us change our names!
The Rest of Us
Naughty Dog surely has an ace up their sleeves for this PSX. Uncharted 4 was a known commodity for quite some time before it was unveiled, and even then it took the better part of 3 years before it released. The popular opinion is that we’re getting a sequel to The Last of Us, a game that (despite my love of Uncharted) surpassed even it last generation. Whether it has the title The Last of Us 2 or something completely different I have no idea, but the PSX press conference is probably the best place to unveil the next chapter in a story that defined a console generation.
Release Dates
Gran Turismo Sport, God of War, Days Gone, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom and Detroit: Become Human… what does each of these games in common? Well for starters they all look great, but the point of the question is that we don’t have a release date for any of these games yet! GT Sport was delayed into 2017, God of War and Days Gone were announced at E3, Ni No Kuni II has been radio silent since it was revealed this time last year and Detroit is a David Cage game (enough said). Surely a few of these get either rock solid release dates or at least a release window. Here’s hoping Ni No Kuni II is chief among them! Don’t go counting on a date for Death Stranding though, if we’re lucky then that potential masterpiece might launch in 2019 at the earliest.
The Surprises
Final Fantasy VII Remake, The Last Guardian returns and Shenmue III have been just a few of the major surprises that Sony has dropped upon its fans over recent years, and it’s hard to think of what they could do to top their own efforts, but that’s a good problem to have. Creative thinking will be required by Sony if they wish to knock the socks off fans once again, but wheeling out a sequel to Bloodborne would be an excellent start, maybe The Order 1887, Sly 5 or even a third party exclusive announcement like the rumoured Marvel Vs Capcom 4 that could lift the roof. I’ve had a bee in my bonnet for a few years over third party exclusive deals but something like that would certainly become major watercooler talk for a few days/weeks.
So that is just a small slice of the many things I’m hoping for out of PSX 2016. Remember, you can watch Sony’s PSX 2016 Press Conference live courtesy of the official Playstation Youtube channel from 5:00AM Sydney/Melbourne time tomorrow, Sunday the 4th of December. Follow us on twitter @Player2au and myself @PaulJamesP2 where there’ll be a steady flow of thoughts trickling out as the conference plays out, and of course, let us know what you think. What’s on your PSX 2016 wishlist? What did I miss? Sound off in the comments below, or tell me all about it on Twitter. Enjoy this time Playstation fans.
Paul James
