sgf 2024

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of Summer Game Fest Play Days 2024

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of Summer Game Fest Play Days 2024

Summer Game Fest 2024 officially wrapped up on June 10, after a long weekend of game previews, developer interviews and unlimited cold brew — but we just published our final stories from the show this week (held under embargo, of course). Those were Mat Smith's impressions of Black Myth: Wukong and Tales of the Shire, and they capped off a month of juicy video game news out of the summer's biggest show.No, Silksong did not make an appearance.There were, however, plenty of bright and shiny games at the show, and many of them were available to play for the first…
Read More
Tales of the Shire is a cozy village sim where you can’t run, but you can skip

Tales of the Shire is a cozy village sim where you can’t run, but you can skip

The march of big-budget Tolkien fantasy has hit gaming yet again. While ignoring Gollum’s misadventures, another game, Tales of the Shire, offers a gentler, low-stakes way to play in the universe of Bagginses, lembas bread, and Gandalf.Set somewhere between the end of The Hobbit, but before it all kicked off in Lord of the Rings, Tales of the Shire sees you settling into Bywater, helping fellow villagers achieve their tasks and dreams. That involves fishing, farming vegetables and cooking up a storm to improve your relationships and unlock new recipes and possibly other activities.The game’s simple but effective home decoration…
Read More
Black Myth: Wukong is pretty, intriguing and as challenging as it looks

Black Myth: Wukong is pretty, intriguing and as challenging as it looks

Black Myth: Wukong is gorgeous. It’s built up a lot of momentum, feeding trailer after gorgeous trailer, and at Summer Game Fest this year, I finally got to play it. Is it just a gorgeous tech demo with a heavy dose of Chinese mythology or your next gaming challenge?A Chinese folk story, Journey to the West, inspired Game Science Studio’s action RPG. You play as the “destined one,” a monkey hero wielding an extending bo-staff and a handful of magic spells. I was given the higher-specced (though undisclosed) PC rig to play on, ensuring all that Unreal Engine 5 eye…
Read More
Skate Story hands-on: Kick, push, shatter

Skate Story hands-on: Kick, push, shatter

Push. Push. Push, push, push, jump —All four wheels reconnect with the glowing pavement in a slap of crisp plastic and crunching wood.Push, push, push, push, jump kickflip —Another slam, a quick screech.Push, push, push, ju —A shattering crash. The world flips on its head in an explosion of glittering blacks and iridescent pinks. I let out a small laugh, adjust the controller in my hands, and lean forward. Reset.Push.In a hyper-chilled demo space at Summer Game Fest, Skate Story creator Sam Eng drew a picture of a flaming skateboard on a business card while I played his game, occasionally…
Read More
Neva hands-on: A grand achievement in emotional game design

Neva hands-on: A grand achievement in emotional game design

Neva is going to make me cry. It very nearly did at Summer Game Fest, as the game’s introductory cinematics faded to black, literally just one minute into my time with the demo. I won’t divulge what happens in those initial frames, but it shattered my soul. It also perfectly primed me for the heart-pounding danger and devastating beauty that I would get lost in for the next 45 minutes, alongside my new best friend, Neva the wolf. Nomada StudioEvery aspect of Neva is breathtaking. It plays like a living watercolor illustration: Alba, the protagonist, has long, slender limbs, a…
Read More
Metaphor: ReFantazio feels like a JRPG free from restraint and sanity

Metaphor: ReFantazio feels like a JRPG free from restraint and sanity

Metaphor: ReFantazio has been a long time in the making. It was announced in 2017 as Project re Fantasy through a weird long video that said very little. Since then, Atlus has swapped the Project for Metaphor and scoured Google Translate to find a cool way to say ‘fantasy.’ It’s also made a giant fantasy JRPG — and after rolling through a demo at Summer Game Fest last weekend, I’m dying to play it.ReFantazio is the first original title by Studio Zero, a relatively new Atlus division headed up by Katsura Hashino. As the director of the third, fourth and…
Read More
Phoenix Springs offers breathtaking beauty in a desolate neo-noir world

Phoenix Springs offers breathtaking beauty in a desolate neo-noir world

Take me to Phoenix Springs.I didn’t make it all the way to the remote desert oasis and its mysterious community of misfits while playing the Phoenix Springs demo at Summer Game Fest, but after spending a brief time in Iris Dormer’s neo-noir world, I’m desperate to get there. I want to find out what happened to Iris’ brother, a man I’ve only heard about in strange, sad tales. I want to hear Iris’ voice articulating in my ear, providing brusque context for every scene. I’m ready to get lost again in the game’s sickly green shadows. I’m wildly curious to…
Read More
Astro Bot is a supremely silly and incredibly smooth platformer

Astro Bot is a supremely silly and incredibly smooth platformer

Astro Bot is as precise as it is ridiculous, and this is exactly what makes it so damn delightful. During my 30-minute demo at Summer Game Fest, I crashed into spiky obstacles, flew off the side of sky-high platforms, bounced into deadly projectiles and popped my little robot protagonist like an overinflated balloon — and I could not keep the smile off my face the entire time. The art style, sound effects and animations in Astro Bot are infused with childlike joy, taking the sting out of each failure. Simultaneously, each death felt avoidable with a little more practice, each…
Read More
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a tale of two very different assassins

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a tale of two very different assassins

The long-running Assassin’s Creed video game industrial complex has finally reached Japan – and I’ve been waiting. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set in feudal Japan, in the late 16th century, to be precise, at a time of political upheaval that birthed the ninja. While I didn’t get to play Shadows, at Summer Game Fest 2024, Ubisoft offered a hands-off gameplay demo, revealing how the game will play with two different but equal protagonists.If you missed the initial reveal, Shadows' protagonists are Yasuke, a powerful outsider samurai who can strike the armor off enemies, and Naoe, an assassin/ninja with a killer…
Read More
Gears of War: E-Day is the origin story of the Gears franchise

Gears of War: E-Day is the origin story of the Gears franchise

As the grand finale of Xbox’s Summer Game Fest showcase, after the new consoles, we were treated to the exclusive premiere of the latest addition to the Gears series, Gears of War: E-Day.The trailer kicks off with a one-on-one brawl between the Gears guy and a grunt, ending in a headshot. Immediately after, however, the floor collapses between them. Fortunately, Gears’ Guy #2 is there to grab your hand. And the sad Mad World melody plays in the background. Because Gears. Called E-Day, and ending on an apocalyptic view of a city, it looks like this game will center on…
Read More
No widgets found. Go to Widget page and add the widget in Offcanvas Sidebar Widget Area.