This week, we finally saw the Summer Game Fest kick off with a packed - albeit slightly overlong - opening showcase. The show was full of surprises, though we do think it's a shame that some of the announcements were leaked beforehand (poor Naughty Dog).
In terms of the Switch, there wasn't a great deal to get excited about, with most games earmarked for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. That doesn't mean there was nothing, though - the highlights include a fresh look at TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, the official announcement of Flashback 2, and a new look at Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course DLC.
In our opinion, yes, the show was a little bare in terms of Switch announcements. Then again, we weren't expecting much to begin with. We're still - still - hopeful that a Nintendo Direct will air at some point this month, so we reckon a lot of the potential Switch announcements will be left for that. Otherwise, it was pretty much par for the course; lots of shooty shooty games, lots of artificial hype, and... Dwayne Johnson.
For a rundown of all the Switch games featured in the showcase, make sure to take a peek at our full round up:
With that all said and done, let's crack on with some lovely polls!
Comments (47)
Turtles and Cuphead look incredible. But wasn't worth sitting through the whole thing for, easier to wait and read summaries and watch trailers, think I'll do that next time - all of these Geoff Keighley events leave me feeling a bit flat afterwards. They make me feel like I really don't care much about "modern" gaming, especially for the dudebro online-gaming-only PS/Xbox era.
Grimdark grey/green/brown CGI trailers that show nothing of the game itself but look like a cheap SciFi original? Unrelated movie trailers, celebrities or music performances from people I've not heard of? 20 minutes on the new Call of Duty including 10 minutes of unedited gameplay? Not for me.
Perhaps I'm showing my age... although Nintendo Directs always interest me more - colourful, fast paced, varied and lots of original looking indie games.
All that said, I'm happy for anyone who enjoyed it. And to be clear, I know how much effort trying to pull off something like these shows takes, I'm not knocking the organisers, evidently I'm not the intended audience.
I only watched it because I like hanging out with NLifers It was as bad as I was expecting, so wasn't disappointed. The day of the devs and Devolver Countdown were much better. So if it's all under the same umbrella, then on the whole it's been worthwhile. Plucky Squire and Time Flies were my fave two games so far.
All I can say is that I wasted three hours of my life on a show focused on space games with guns.
I didn't watch it just like I don't watch basically any presentation that isn't a Nintendo Direct or Indie World Showcase. There's just never enough of interest shown to justify wasting my time on so I'd rather just read about it after.
Witchfire, TMNT, Cuphead, and maybe Neon White.
Sleeping on the rest
Oh and this wasn't at the SGF show but the Plucky Squire warmed my cold dead heart.
I'm betting on a Nintendo Direct on the 22nd June. No real reason, just a guess.
It was a bad showcase though the Nintendo Life chat made it fun. Interested in TMNT, Cuphead DLC (though still waiting for physical version) and Neon White.
As for Direct, ever since the Three Hopes, Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3 trailers in April I felt that while I'd really like a June general Direct I'm very aware that Nintendo doesn't need to do a June general Direct because of how packed the summer is. The past few weeks have made that even more the case.
My guess for the next general Direct is September 7th or 8th (a day or 2 before Splatoon 3).
Summer Games Fest was an adfest with way too many shooters shown. The fact that the big end reveal was a remake is a microcosm of the videogame industry as a whole. Sell nostalgia over something new.
@MatthewYoung YES I didn't watch the Devolver event but RGT85 just talked about Plucky Squire on a video and holy crud that game just went right to the top of my "modern games that I actually want to play" list.
Meh, I think this summer I might try going outside and getting some fresh air.
Didn't know y'all don't like free SonSon but okay.
Don't care about shooters, so it was mostly a wash, but I definitely don't have "mainstream" tastes in games.
The Turtles info was the high point but of course we already knew it was coming. Nothing super exciting but my expectations were low.
I love the 'Do we need a Nintendo Direct' poll question on this article which unsurprisingly is almost entirely yeses.
Canadian aliens with guns.
That pretty much sums it up.
The entertainment value comes from watching it live with the rest of nintendolife 😂 It was a meh show in terms of content, but I don't think anyone was expecting much from it. But that Rock cringe? So spice.
That shameless plug from the Rock was easily the worst part. No respect for the roid-man.
It was ok. Some good stuff shown.
I realized this week that there are certain modern titles that are never coming to the Switch or if they do come, they will be significantly compromised or gimped, so I purchased an Xbox Series S. They are readily available and since I'm pretty much a digital only gamer now, I'm fine not having a disc drive.
I love the Switch and likely it'll go down as my favorite console of all time, but it's aging and more games are skipping it completely. It's still awesome to have for Nintendo first party games that I like (such as Metroid Dread and Kirby), indie titles and retro compilations, but I want to play Elden Ring. I want to play games like Sekiro, Psychonauts 2 and Yakuza, and I know these are never coming to the Switch.
@Ade117 Gaming is going down the same road as Hollywood more and more, so yes, expect fewer risks and newer titles and more nostalgia and reboots/remakes.
@BloodNinja Seriously, The Rock has become overexposed.
Whole lotta space stuff this year. Much like last year. Guess people like space right now.
TMNT was like the only thing appealing to me. Cuphead DLC is cool, though I forgot it was even a thing so whatever, but there was just a ton of dull, realistic artstyle crap that was mostly space themed or the core gampley was GUNS. The section they had adterwards was great though, lots of cool indies shown off.
Devolver thing happened. Plucky Squire looks incredible, can't wait for that!
Objectively I think the show was fine but just didn't appeal to my personal tastes. Cuphead is the only thing I cared about.
@samuelvictor im with you on lots of the points you'd mention, it was a nice effort to me but may be due to me doing it backwards,I saw a video called all game anouncements in 7 minutes, and then whatched the whole show, i knew what to expect so no disappointment.
Pretty dang *****. They front loaded the presentation with sci-fi shooters, one after another. They all look equally bland and I couldn't tell you the name of a single one. Big production studios are terrified taking any risks at all, so they green light the most generic mass appeal products they can find a studio to waste three years of their life developing.
@kingbk Indeed. It's not that I even had an issue with his appearance itself, but he didn't talk about anything that was related to the SGF, and we just had to endure his pointless self advertising. Well, unless we stopped watching
@Gryffin It's the Deadspace revival! LOL
I had the same thoughts as you, though. Hard to get excited about that initial lineup. Scary and gory, but not for me!
@EriXz Yeah, summaries are the way to go, rather than me settling in for 2-3 hours hoping for something cool. I'm sure the experience is a lot different just watching a quick video or reading summaries, then deep diving on the handful of things that interest you. I feel like the last few events from that specific team (no offense to them I know they work very hard to pull them off) have not been worth my time to watch, and overall left a negative feeling, even though there was things about them I really liked.
Man I'm glad I skipped this. I knew it was gonna be a letdown (especially for Nintendo fans) and that was no surprise. Spent my time doing something else more productive and caught up on the announcements later in a 5-min read-over
Plucky Squire looks awesome.
Oh wait, that was from the Devolver show.
The live feed on here was beyond boring so I kept looking at it briefly in between watching tv but we finally got a release date for Shredders Revenge at least.
Turtles release date was a megaton announcement in my book. I really wasn't expecting anything of that magnitude from the showcase
You can count the number of non violent games on one hand at SGF. And most were shooty shoot, or modern or later in setting. Where's my fantasy games or more stylized stuff?
I think the worst parts of the presentation was The Rock showing up and shamelessly plugging his energy drink and a trailer that came out the day prior, as well as the last of us segment that went on for way too long and only gave us concept art of a multiplayer mode turned the standalone game, a still from the show and confirmation of the remake which leaked before the presentation.
I didn't watch it (not falling for it, Geoff) but based on the announcements so far he had no right hyping this as much as he did. Absolute crap and I hope based on his continual over-hyping/under-delivering every year for the game awards, and subsequent attempt at an E3 competitor, people get wise to his nonsense.
TMNT Shredder's Revenge looks so sick, can't wait to play it. Cuphead DLC looks fine, I haven't beaten the main game yet lol. Otherwise didn't have any interest in watching.
Anything Jeff Keeley does is a pass for me. Such an insufferable dude that is into youtubers and twitchers way too much.
I miss old E3.
@samuelvictor Are you me? This is pretty much how I feel 100%. Completely disconnected from "modern" gaming and what "gamer" types care about.
@Matl I saw this comment elsewhere, can't remember where, but I agree... it's like every dev saw forum threads about "bring back Dead Space" three years ago, so now all we're seeing is people bringing back Dead Space.
@Mr_Nutz Yeah, I feel like these happen in waves. Industry at large sees X thing is popular in one game, so they ALL jump on board and develop their own similar game, which all release within a relatively short timespan. Just look at BOTW and the swathe of open world things with heavy inspiration from BOTW thats been coming out. And even then, some of these sorts of games could be entirely coincidental in their timings too.
@Mr_Nutz Yup. There are a few modern games I enjoy, but its rare, and often they are retro styled ones, or continuations of series I already enjoy. Its not that I don't want to try new things, every now and again theres an original idea that becomes right up there with my favourite games because its so different and imaginative, but most of these are indie games. Its also not that I dislike popular things, DDLC is one example of a style of game I'd never been interested in before but the hype behind it and people talking of the twists made me play it, and now I love it. Fairly recently I got really into Minecraft, mostly because my gf was Twitch streaming it building an enormous project in survival mode and I realised how cool it was. She also got me to appreciate Stardew Valley by streaming it too, as seeing her enjoying it so much and talking so excitedly about it whilst playing was infectious. Though all of those are indie, and I guess somewhat retro in aesthetics, even if doing new stuff with it.
But in general, somewhere around the Xbox 360 era (or perhaps it started with the PS2 becoming so popular with mainstream audiences) games started striving to be more realistic and less imaginative/colourful. AAA devs seemed more concerned with milking money via dlc, costume packs, loot crates, pay to win, and would release unfinished buggy games to hit deadlines and patch later - and yearly full priced sequels became commonplace and very much diluted quality. Single player and local multiplayer were less important. I could go on.
While I'd loved games like Doom, Duke Nukem & Unreal, FPS games started becoming so utterly realistic I started to feel grossed out by the violence (Modern Warfare airport level was the final straw for me), and all the crazy silly weapons and settings disappeared, and everything became desaturated colour palletes where everything is grey and brown.
While I loved Outrun, Daytona, Ridge Racer, suddenly it was mostly games where you have to spend hundreds of hours teaching yourself the physics and passing driving tests and grinding to upgrade your specs... and again, the silly arcade fun was gone. Mascot based platformers (my favourite genre), both 2d + 3d almost completely disappeared.
And cruically for me, over time single player modes got less and less important (and often non-existent), local multiplayer completely disappeared (no more pizza, beer and gaming nights with friends) and everything moved online, where you get shouted at by racist teenagers and unless you play 60 hours a week since the game came out, or pay thousands in loot boxes there's no chance of winning.
@Mr_Nutz (cont) While there are great games for all of the Playstation and Xbox consoles, and I'm glad that more people are enjoying gaming, when Sony made gaming cool/mainstream rather than a niche nerd/childhood pastime, and then Xbox made online gaming easily available to the masses, they both accidentally diluted most of what drew me to games in the first place.
For a while, I just gave up on modern games completely, didn't buy any new consoles and just played retro only. The Wii U was the console that brought me back, as I wanted to play Mario Kart 8, Sonic Transformed, and Disney Infinity. I'm glad that around that time, there was a slight backlash against all the mainstream AAA bull and retro or arcade style indie games started to get more traction. At least I can see there are millions of people who enjoy the same types of experiences I do, and there is still a space for original ideas, or passion projects for tiny teams or even single devs to have commercial success alongside the yearly COD, FIFA, or re-releasing The Last Of Us, Skyrim or Resident Evil 4 (all of which were great games!) for the literal 6th "remaster".
Its interesting that I see MANY people on Nintendo related websites, forums and comment sections who feel the exact same way. I think some of it is because older Nintendo fans have been around since the 80s or 90s and remember the Sega vs Nintendo days, and the golden age of the Arcades, so they appreciate these types of games. Of course, younger fans gravitate towards first party Nintendo games, and parents think they are safe, so they are here too. But there seems to be people of all the age ranges in between who feel the same way. Its like Nintendo as a brand somehow brings people with these kinds of taste, regardless of age or gaming history. Its annoying that many Playstation or Xbox fanboys see Nintendo as a "kiddy" brand or see Nintendo only players as "not real gamers" somehow. I'm like "dude I literally bought the PS1, PS2 and the OG Xbox before you were born". lol. But most of the "dudebro" toxicity seems to come from those communities, which is why I only post publicly here (and in retro related spaces), even though I still keep up with Playstation and Xbox news.
It encapsulates what I often say on here about gaming nowadays and that’s that it just doesn’t excite me anymore. Sure I was glad to hear about the release date for Shredders Revenge but we kind of knew it anyway.
TMNT and Cuphead looked great. Plucky Squire looked great too. I’d like to see more of Fort Solis, given the voice talent in the game. I thought the whole thing was a bit disappointing, to be honest. I’m holding out for that Direct and Xbox Presentation (and surprisingly enough, I’m pretty excited for the Capcom show too). Right now, at least State of Play was fantastic!
We only really need a Nintendo direct if Nintendo has some games to release. Nintendo really needs to release some games, they really do.
I don't have any strong feelings for it either way.
I have TMNT pre downloaded and later this month I have FE Three Hopes and Sunbreak. While of course I hope Nintendo has a Direct, my remainder of the year is chock full of bangers like Xenoblade 3, Splatoon 3, and Pokémon on Switch and Soul Hackers 2 with Midnight Suns outside of Switch. (Not to mention Forspoken and Bayo 3 too) my hype is already too high and my wallet is already dreading the coming months so honestly I can deal without a Direct if Nintendo decided not to show 😅🤣
My backlog goes back years, so I won't be playing anything new anyways til 2024ish
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