Not-E3 events summarised: State of Play 2025
Hello, worlds
Eight years ago, I wrote a series of articles for Eurogamer during E3 week called the E3 Bulletin. They served a few purposes: pulling together articles from across the Gamer Network sites, who weren’t instinctive collaborators; attempting to summarise the chaos of the previous 24 hours for people who hadn’t been up all night watching the shows live, and laying a foundation for email newsletters, which I was boringly enthusiastic about even back then.
They only achieved the first two, at best, but they were fun to write, the commenters liked them and I did them every year until the pandemic paused, then killed, E3. My job then changed and I rarely had time to write anything anyway.
This year, I have a bit more time, I don’t have a new Nintendo handheld, and I’m paying attention to the showcases. So I’m writing about them again - join me.
Playstation: State of Play June 2025
Vibe: Live service games? Never heard of them. Check out this third-party third-person action
Format: No intro, mostly trailers with a few short asides from developers and Playstation staff
Discernable trends: Fancy lighting, bright colours, Japanese VO, swords
Sony is almost embarrassingly ahead in what used to be considered the console race and it’s been doing State of Play events for a while, so it can proceed with confidence and efficiency. That meant no execs reading off an autocue and instead getting straight to business of showing off games with the reveal of Lumines Arise. This is Lumines given the Tetris Effect treatment, which is great news for dads with reliable drug dealers.
There was big dad energy to Capcom’s Pragamata, too. It opened with an AI pitch for “Delphi Corporation” credible enough that I’d just started to worry it was serious, before it segued into some intriguingly classy third-person space exploration/combat with Grizzled Astronaut and Cute Robot Daughter in Abandoned Space Station Full Of Murderous Robots. His suit makes me think of Vanquish and the kid makes me wonder if she’ll end up being the final boss or simply need to be sacrificed to complete the game. Should be solid regardless, Capcom are on a tear these days.
The next protagonist had the misfortune to be in a Suda 51 game, Romeo Is A Dead Man, which means he has been forcibly biohacked by an off-brand Grandpa Rick into a chainsaw-swinging melee combat specialist traversing what looks like a greatest hits of classic Capcom locations. The trailer helpfully points out that this is “ultra-violent science fiction” and tacked on “maybe” to the 2026 “release date”, and the website confirms he’s searching for a missing girlfriend so it all seems fairly standard Suda stuff, glad he’s still getting work. It looks like his jacket was suede rather than leather, too, which counts as innovation this year.
Silent Hill f ditched the Silent Hill setting and headed to Japan, adding a schoolgirl protagonist but keeping the grotesque female enemies, which is just a tremendous gift to the hentai community. Looks horrifying (complimentary), I’m too squeamish to play it. Side-scrolling 2.5D RPG Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement is a remarkably dazzling upgrade from the 2019 debut, and looks like they gave the dev a bag of money and told them to add more of everything.
I’m too old to understand Digimon but I’m not convinced that the trailer for Digimon Story Time Stranger would have made much sense even if I did. Anime visuals, time travel, baffling sci-fi, jaunty music, flashy but blood-free combat, there’s a lot of character customisation and an extremely detailed skill tree in there somewhere. I wish nothing but the best to all involved. I’m the right age for Final Fantasy Tactics but I never played it, so I will merely extend the same good wishes to my generation for finally getting the remaster they have wanted for so long, and commend Matsuno for going hard on “inequality and division”.
Sony’s Shawn Benson and Sid Shuman just about fitted into the same frame to introduce Baby Steps, by far the most lavishly rendered game in which lovable sadist Bennett Foddy makes it very difficult for you to go somewhere. The trailer suggests there’s a story this time, but it’s about going to the toilet so it shouldn’t sully things too much. Hirogami is a lovely little adventure game in which everything is made of paper, Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots added a day-night cycle and Pac-Man as a playable character, neither of which can be considered essential. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is another side-scroller for the 90s kids, and Cairn is an interesting game about how much it sucks to climb a mountain. There’s a demo.
Next came the news that Digital Eclipse are doing their thing to the classic Mortal Kombat releases, which Ed Boon is delighted by. There was an entirely pre-rendered glimpse of Project Defiant which is a fight stick, but wireless, which I suspect the FGC have many thoughts about. The Snake Eater remake retains both the stealth and the goofiness, with the trailer including a lingering confirmation of the Ape Escape crossover. Team Ninja debuted Nioh 3, which continues the existing model of a samurai traversing a fantasy land messing up fantastical bosses with British accents but now with actual traversal and also, ninja moves. There’s a demo for that too.
There’s also a new Thief game for PSVR, which resurrected at least two things presumed to be dead, rising to three with the Garrett cameo. It looks great and I cherish that franchise, but I wouldn’t want to bet on a long future for any of ‘em. Nice to see some Northern representation in the voice acting and for all I know the setting, bonus marks if they get Andy Burnham to do a voice cameo.
Tides of Tomorrow looks interesting, with a sort of technicolour Ubiworld style and an intriguing asynchronous multiplayer model where you follow the steps of other players. I’m sure it’ll be at least partially undone by griefing and inappropriate usernames but the prospect of your mission being shaped by the previous actions of TrukNuts_9000 is novel.
Team Asobi’s Nicholas Doucet showed up to flex about the “few honours” that Astro Bot received, which is just a savage burn on BAFTA, and promise more DLC and a custom controller. Sea of Remnants looks like it’s gunning for Sea of Thieves, although its multiplayer pirate fantasy is going a lot harder on the fantasy than Rare did. Sword of the Sea was instantly recognisable as the next thing from the people who brought you Abzu and Journey, only with sick boarding moves this time, and FBC Firebreak is definitely from the people who made Control only with multiplayer chaos this time.
The first look at IO’s Bond game revealed that it stars an almost instantly insufferable Young Bond, who looks like they fed every online argument about who should replace Daniel Craig into an AI and told it generate an average of the white ones. IO say this is because they wanted a Bond "who's comfortably just his own game character," which is announcement-speak for “licencing the real person would be an incredibly expensive administrative nightmare and we don’t wanna”, although of course the role is currently vacant anyway.
This is a stroke of luck for IO, because they can at least partially avoid the Temu-talent dissonance that bedevilled Square’s Marvel Avengers, and given that Amazon now owns 007 there’s probably been at least one meeting about how IO’s guy can be in the movie, or at least his own Amazon Prime show. Although based on this, it would be an unwatchably terrible sequence of smirking wisecracks in exotic locations and they already have Red Notice at home.
The footage has the same jet-setting pizazz as the Hitman series - which has always been the reason I’m convinced this is a great IP/developer pairing - and it nails the film aesthetic too, right down to the gratuitous Omega and Land Rover product placement. Stealth! Shooting! The island from Golden Gun! The music from OHMSS! Chasing a plane in an Aston Martin! I suspect I’ll dislike the character but love the game, and I’ll be fine with that.
There followed a brief glimpse of Ghost of Yotei, confirming both a dog and much longer look to come next month, and a much longer look at Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, which is a new beat-em-up from Arc System Works. I’m hopeless at both playing and knowing about fighting games but it looks fantastic and that’s a dev who knows their stuff. Sony clearly wants to emphasise this, because this was the only game in the showcase which got the potted behind-the-scenes video package, although that could also be because (a) Sony owns Evo now (b) if they released it anywhere else nobody but the fighting game fans would watch it.
A decent show, all told, although some notable omissions - chief among them, games developed and/or published by Sony, rather than third parties. Kojima is understandable because he’s got his own show with his best mate Geoff Keighley on Monday, but Marathon is a little bit more ominous given that game’s recent troubles - I hope it shows up later on in the week. There was a notable shortage of online shooters full stop, which is mildly notable given that it’s still a huge chunk of the market. It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft’s inevitably Call of Duty-heavy show on Saturday compares.
Overall grade: A-