If there’s a State of Play this week there’s one thing it must have

As rumours swirl of an imminent PS5 State of Play, a reader reveals what he’s looking forward to the most, and it doesn’t involve any existing franchise.

So it looks pretty certain that there will be a new State of Play this month, probably this week. That’s based on both reliable leakers and the more straightforward fact that Sony always has one in September. So, let’s take it as fact and then ask the obvious question: what will be in it?

There’s been talk of Naughty Dog, God Of War, Resident Evil, and more but, as we all know through grim experience, there’s never usually that much of interest, just maybe one or two big name games at most. I don’t know what will be there in terms of known franchises, but I know the one thing that has to be there, for me not to consider it a failure: something new.

This last couple of generations has been terrible for new IP from Sony. Nintendo has been just as bad and funnily enough Xbox has probably been the best. And by best, I mean least worst. We have got to get some new blood – and not just new names but new ideas.

Technically, Sony has two new IPs on the way at the moment, but Saros is a follow-up to Returnal, that sounds like a sequel in all but name. It’s less clear what Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is, but considering Naughty Dog has been making the same basic game for the last 18 years I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s a third person action where, at some point, you end up throwing a rock to distract a guard.

I’m not saying either of these games are going to be bad, but I am worried that they’re going to be familiar. I know why this is, it’s because a new IP is a risk and when games are expensive to make as they are now a risk is not what you want.

But we’ve got to have it, we can’t just go on seeing the same games and again, getting slightly less interesting with each new sequel, until we’re just playing a shadow of an original idea. Nothing lasts forever and I wish when a franchise starts to sag in popularity publishers don’t see that as a need to reboot it but a sign it needs to be replaced with something new.

Do you remember all that stuff Sony said about the PlayStation 5 before it came out? About how its SSD was going to revolutionise how games are designed and then they showed off all those amazing graphics and particle effects… that never showed up in any game ever.

The PlayStation 5 doesn’t do anything differently to the PlayStation 4 except play the same games with slightly better performance. If the PlayStation 5 is capable of doing anything different that’s not obvious in the games. Sure, games load quicker than they used to, but the SSD hasn’t changed the design of anything.

We need games with new ideas, new characters, new location, new gameplay, and new styles of graphics. Gaming feels like it’s been stuck in a time loop where it’s just the same games coming round again and again and nothing else can ever get made.

What’s worst is that the last time Sony did try something new it was Concord, and we all know how that turned out. No one’s going to cry if that puts them off more live service games but how will it affect their approach to new IP?

I’m still hopeful though. Intergalactic is new, it’s not a spiritual sequel like Soras, so maybe Naughty Dog will do something innovative and it’s not just going to be a sci-fi Uncharted. But even if it is, that’s still only one game and we need more.

I’m not big into retro games, and I’m not generally that nostalgic, but what I do miss from the good old days is that sense of excitement that something new has been invented. I remember the first time I played Deus Ex or Command & Conquer or Journey and they seems so completely unlike anything I’d ever played before.

I can’t remember the last time I had that feeling though. We can’t have used up all the possible ideas, we’ve just used up all the courage to take a risk – and if a video game costs $300 million to make I get it. But even indie games seem stuck doing the same thing forever, when the biggest indie title of the year is a sequel to a pretty straightforward Metroidvania, that started out as DLC.

So that’s what I want from the State of Play: something new and something I’ve never seen before. Ideally something I never even imagined was possible. I’m not very confident that will happen though.

By reader Cassell

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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