PlayStation Showcase May 2023: The Biggest Games And Announcements

Sony’s PlayStation Showcase aired on May 24, and it certainly brought the goods from both first-party and third-party studios. Alongside expected games like Spider-Man 2, the presentation gave us the surprise return of Marathon, a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3, and several live-service multiplayer games coming to PS5 and PC. We also saw a sneak peek at Sony’s new hardware–not a console, but a special handheld system–and were very pleasantly surprised by a high-octane Chinese action game with Devil-May-Cry-like flair, Phantom Blade Zero. Here are the biggest games and announcements from the PlayStation Showcase.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater revealed

The Metal Gear Solid series was heavily featured during the PlayStation Showcase, and the biggest announcement was Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. A remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 for the PS5, the new game did not get a release date, but the pre-rendered trailer featured Naked Snake in all his glory, along with a look at the wildlife chowing down on each other. Alongside the remake announcement for PS5, the show also revealed the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection containing the original Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Metal Gear Solid 3. It’s out this fall. What a thrill!

Spider-Man 2 gets extended gameplay

The biggest chunk of time was, as expected, allotted to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The slice we saw focuses on both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, with the former seemingly being influenced by a symbiote, complete with more violent abilities and a raspy voice. At the beginning of the trailer, the villain Kraven, in Predator fashion, selects New York City as his target for a worthy opponent, discovering Peter and Miles from his harrier while they’re both trying to stop Lizard’s rampage through the city. The gameplay footage gave us a good look at the two Spider-Men’s abilities, ranging from an electric attack as Miles to Peter’s devastating Venom-like moves. Spider-Man 2 releases for PS5 this fall.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage makes us nostalgic

Confirming what we’ve heard over the last several months, Ubisoft showed off Assassin’s Creed Mirage during the PlayStation Showcase. The gameplay trailer looked far more like the original Assassin’s Creed in style than its successors, with protagonist Basim moving smoothly across rooftops, stealing from pockets, and delivering one-hit killing blows. The events look to set up what comes later with the character in the recent Assassin’s Creed games, but expect to play a social stealth action-adventure game rather than an RPG when Assassin’s Creed Mirage arrives on October 12.

Fairgames announced from Haven Studios

The first game from Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios, which is a first-party PlayStation developer, Fairgames is a competitive “heist experience” game that is headed to both PS5 and PC. It kicked off the PlayStation Showcase with a pre-rendered trailer that showed off a group of ragtag “modern-day Robin Hood” types as they work to shift the balance of power by stealing from the extremely rich. It bears a slight resemblance to the Watch Dogs series, though it didn’t appear that any of the heroes were using actual firearms, and the game’s competitive multiplayer will feature “emergent sandbox” gameplay. No release date or window was offered, but it’s coming to PS5 and PC.

Helldivers 2 is real, and it’s spectacular

At long last, Helldivers 2 is finally a real thing. The sequel to the acclaimed original shoot-’em-up game looks to be taking things in a slightly different direction, as the gameplay trailer shown during the PlayStation Showcase made use of a traditional third-person perspective. What has not changed, however, is the enemy: big, nasty bugs. In glorious Starship Troopers fashion, the presentation is satirical and over the top, with the trailer coming via the Super Earth Ministry of Truth. It’s possible that this has all been a giant misunderstanding and the bugs just want to be our friends. But probably not. The game arrives on PS5 and PC in 2023.

Ghostrunner 2 lets you drive a motorcycle down a skyscraper

The original Ghostrunner managed to combine speedrunning gameplay with Dishonored-like combat to brilliant effect, and its sequel Ghostrunner 2 looks to be kicking things up a notch in an unexpected way. As seen in the PlayStation Showcase trailer, you’ll still be parkouring your way across cyberpunk environments and slashing enemies with your swords without stopping, but you’ll also be riding motorcycles down skyscrapers. Not through the floors of a skyscraper, but down the literal side of one. It remains to be seen if developer One More Level can pull it off, but we’re giving it the benefit of the doubt based on the original. It’ll be out in 2023.

Phantom Blade Zero is a stylish-as-heck action game

One of the most impressive games to come out of the PlayStation Showcase is actually a “spiritual rebirth” of a mobile game never previously released outside of China. Phantom Blade Zero, developed by S-Game, stars an assassin named Soul, who must uncover the cure for a mysterious ailment in 66 days or perish forever. The game makes use of a semi-open world, and though the aesthetic may remind you of Team Ninja’s work at first glance, the combat looks to draw more heavily on fast-moving action series like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. The trailer goes from 0 to 100 in no time, and we can’t wait to see more.

Alan Wake 2 stars someone aside from Alan Wake, too

Alan Wake 2 finally has a release date, and it’s not that far away. The game arrives on October 17, and in a new trailer, we see just how far Remedy Entertainment is going into horror territory with the game. First playing as an FBI agent moving through a small building, we see some sort of aggressive monster burst forward and attack, and we also see series writer Sam Lake playing a character who looks exactly like him. As the trailer concludes, the agent asks a bearded man for his name, to which he does not reply before the trailer concludes, but it’s pretty clearly the title character.

Marathon is coming back, for real

Is this real life? Yes, Bungie has revived the Marathon franchise. For those who don’t know, it served as the spiritual predecessor to Halo, but the studio is doing something a little different–and undoubtedly contentious–with the revival. The new game is a competitive extraction shooter for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and will support cross-play and cross-save. Battles take place on a moon installation just next to earth, and the cyberpunk art style feels like some of Bungie’s more recent work has been an influence. Marathon will not feature a single-player campaign, and it appears to still be fairly early going on the project.

Project Q is a PS5 companion handheld

Sony is indeed creating a handheld device, but it’s not a competitor to the Switch or even to the Steam Deck. Instead, the device currently known as Project Q is a streaming handheld that you can connect to your PS5 to play games on the go. It comes outfitted with a sizable screen and all the same controls as the DualSense controller–just split on each side. At the same time, Sony also announced new PlayStation earbuds, which bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s Airpods and should be a good companion for the handheld. We’ll hear more about it this year.

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