PlayStation in 2023: everything, everywhere, all at once

One would have thought that releasing Horizon: Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 and God of War: Ragnarok for the PS4 and PS5 in the same calendar year would be a hard act for Sony to follow in 2023, but the Japanese show no signs of slowing down. If anything, the company is actively expanding in all directions this year: new games for its current home, more games for the recently-launched PS VR2, more games for PC, new hardware… the May PlayStation Showcase that just ended had it all. Here’s what was shown and what it all means.

PlayStation games of all shapes and sizes for 2023 and 2024

Fans are looking forward to online presentations such as this one hoping for the unveiling of big exclusives, so Sony took this opportunity to introduce 4 out of its 12 upcoming “live service” games. Jade Raymond’s Haven development studio, which Sony acquired last year, is working on FairGame$, a “competitive heist experience” (looking like an action-focused team-based FPS). Firewalk Studios, also acquired by Sony recently, is building Concord, a PvP multiplayer online FPS with a space exploration theme. Bungie is going back to its roots by re-imagining its original Marathon FPS for the Apple Macintosh as a “sci-fi PvP extraction shooter”, while Arrowhead is doing the same by converting the original Helldivers twin-stick shooter into a third-person co-operative one in Helldivers II.

All four look promising but there was a lot of prerendered video involved and Sony was light on gameplay details, so we’ll just have to wait and see how they progress over time. There are other PlayStation exclusives coming that we know more about, of course, such as Final Fantasy 16 (its June release is close now), Tower of Fantasy (an open-world RPG coming to PS4/PS5 in the summer), Ultros (a beautifully psychedelic side-scroller for PS4/PS5 to be released in 2024) and FoamStars (Capcom’s 4v4 “party shooter” is as fast and colorful as anyone can ask for).

There was also a plethora of multiplatform games coming to the PS4 and PS5 in 2023 or 2024, some of which deserve special mention. The much-rumored Metal Gear Solid 3 remake and Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 are both real (no release dates confirmed yet), EA’s Immortals of Aveum looks interesting (it will be out in the summer), Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Alan Wake 2 will be released in October, Ghostrunner II, The Plucky Squire and The Talos Principle II will be out this year while Sword of the Sea (from the creators of The Pathless) and Neva (from the creators of Gris) are 2024 releases. These games will also be coming to Xbox and PC too, but they do lend considerable weight to PlayStation’s 2023 release schedule and beyond.

Spider-man 2 (Sony’s centerpiece for this online presentation and rightly so) is looking impressive: gamers will be switching between Peter Parker and Miles Morales in the course of the same mission, a couple of classic Marvel baddies – such as Craven the Hunter and Lizardman – are already confirmed to make an appearance and the flow of Spider-combat is as smooth as ever, enriched by new mechanics here and there. There’s no confirmed release date yet, but Spider-man 2 is Sony’s most important 2023 game and a lot rides on it being on time and being stellar.

PCs now firmly part of Sony’s slate, PS VR2 is getting some love too

It’s worth pointing out that most – if not all – of Sony’s own games unveiled during the May PlayStation Showcase are also coming to PC, not just PlayStation: this is already official for Haven’s Fairgame$, Bungie’s Marathon, Arrowhead’s Helldivers II and Firewalk’s Concorde. Spider-man 2 will not be coming to PC anytime soon, of course, but even that – if Jim Ryan’s recent remarks on the matter are anything to go by – is actually going to… at some point in the future. It makes sense that live service games will be coming to PC, obviously, but this is a clearly different battle plan to the one Sony used to follow not so long ago. It makes for a refreshing change.

There was also decent action on the PS VR2 front. Beat Saber, one of the true darlings of VR gaming, is now available for Sony’s most capable virtual reality peripheral – and a free upgrade from the PS VR version to boot, which is always nice to see. Owners of Resident Evil 4 for the PS5 are also getting free content for the PS VR2, as Capcom will be offering the option of playing that game’s full story in VR mode. Alongside those, the weird and wonderfully futuristic “bow and arrow soccer game” Nock is coming to PS VR2 in a few days, as is Hello Neighbor VR: Search and Rescue, both taking advantage of the new product’s capabilities.

PS VR2 owners are probably more interested in new games that take advantage of their investment though and, on that front, three AAA productions unveiled during the May PlayStation Showcase seem impressive enough: nDream’s Synapse (out in July), Vertigo’s Arizona Sunshine 2 (out later this year) and Smilegate’s Crossfire: Sierra Squad (out in the summer). All three are action-oriented but each one is different in terms of style, atmosphere and gameplay options. PS VR2 needs a wide, convincing range of entertainment experiences in order to make its case in 2023 and these three could help with that if their reveal trailers are anything to go by.

PlayStation looking more diverse than ever in 2023

There’s no point comparing 2023 to last year when it comes to first-party PlayStation games: a new Gran Turismo, a new God of War and a new Horizon all being released in the space of 10 months was simply unprecedented. AAA productions of that caliber we usually get once or twice in a calendar year from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, so 2022 has been more of an exception for PlayStation than many people realize. 2023 was never going to be as bombastic. But Sony is now a different company in a number of ways and this was clear to see during the May PlayStation Showcase.

The Japanese are now making moves in order to expand their presence in the gaming market in other ways, not just maximize the sizable revenue coming from the part of the market they already own. PlayStation-branded live service games are slowly becoming as important as PlayStation story-driven ones. PlayStation games for PC are now a thing. PlayStation-branded virtual reality entertainment is more advanced and competitive than ever. New PlayStation hardware is opening up new possibilities. There’s obviously a great number of first-party games – some of those are original IP, which is always exciting – being developed in the background. But that is not all Sony wants to be talking about nowadays and that’s actually a good thing for everyone involved long-term.

For PlayStation fans already owning a PS5, the second half of 2023 will be all about Spider-man 2, a small number of hand-picked third-party titles – there are new FIFA, NBA2K, Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty titles scheduled for Q4, after all – and PlayStation Plus. Sony has done this quite a few times before, reaching Q4 of a given year with just one heavy-hitter (sometimes not even that!), a wealth of top third-party releases and a number of indie gems… and it has done just fine. More than fine. It looks like it will do so again this year, so PlayStation5 owners have nothing to worry about: there will be more than enough quality games to choose from.

What Sony is really after, obviously, is expanding its PS5 user base so that it can confidently complete the transition to this generation at long last. People still holding on to a PS4 or being on the fence about getting a PS5 now have a clear sign that the time to take the plunge has come: the PS5-only Spider-man 2. The Japanese cannot afford to be seen giving that cross-generation period another extension, so last year’s trio of Sony’s AAA finest was probably the perfect farewell for the PS4. The good news is that there’s no better time to get a PS5, as the product is now easy to find while its games library is extensive, diverse and well-supported by a much-improved PlayStation Plus subscription service.

It’s as good a battle plan as any and it’s most probably going to work for Sony. What is less clear is how the company intends to work PS VR2 (which needs all the software support it can get over the next few months), Project Q (which will take some explaining) and any PC releases it might have in store, into that battle plan. But that is a question Sony can provide an answer for at a later date. After all… who knows? There’s always room for surprises. Maybe the company’s first new live-service, cross-platform game to be released, Helldivers II (it’s slated as a 2023 title), will prove to be more important than any one of us anticipated. Weirder things have happened!