Just days after new games like Resident Evil Requiem were announced at Summer Game Fest, a collection of press and game industry stalwarts were invited to play them in Los Angeles.
I spent time with Capcom heavyweights like Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata, but also a host of great games previously not on my radar.
One such surprise is a heist game where the player "steals" African art back from museums. Another is a new game from the art director of Journey that feels like a direct nod to that classic indie game.
The experience of choosing which games to play (and subsequently write about) mimics the reality of the games industry right now: there are so many great games and simply not enough time to play them all.
The art director of Journey has a new game
"It was a once in a lifetime thing," says artist Matt Nava, thinking back on the success of his work on the video game Journey. Released in 2012, the game played a key role in ushering in an era of show-don't-tell video game storytelling. In Journey, mood, atmosphere and aesthetics are king; exposition and plot play second fiddle.
This is a legacy that Nava is well aware of. It also means Nava has to contend with the burden of following up on his past achievement, one of the greatest video games ever made.
Nava now works at the video game studio Giant Squid, which has made similarly atmospheric adventure games like Abzû and The Pathless. His approach to art direction remains the same as it always has: make hyper stylized games that refuse to chase photo-realism. "It's not trying to depict what's real," Nava says. "It's trying to get beyond what's real."
Sword of the Sea is the team's latest project, set to release in August of this year. Players glide across vast sandy landscapes on a sword. Originally a lifeless desert, the area's are gradually restored with water and life, becoming filled with color. In an era where so many video games seem tinted with the same dark blue, grim-dark hues, this game is a blindingly brilliant breath of fresh air.
It's hard not to draw a parallel between the landscape of this game and Journey's; hard not to see a similarity in its ideas about player movement and game feel.
Nava says there's a reason for all of that. Sword of the Sea is the first time that Nava feels comfortable making a game in conversation with Journey. "It's the first time where I'm like kind of openly saying — yeah, that was me." In that way, the game feels like a kind of full-circle moment for an individual creator, but also, a long overdue homage and acknowledgement.
A heist game asks players to repatriate African art
There are a lot of games with a great narrative hook that lack compelling gameplay. Relooted, on the other hand, stands out: a game with a bold narrative idea that is also mechanically engaging.
In it, you play as a team of thieves assembled to steal back African artifacts from museums. Each of the game's museum areas represent both a puzzle solving challenge and platforming test. First, you'll plan your escape. Then, you'll execute the plan by grabbing the artifacts and running and jumping your way to the exit. Better strategy up front leads to a better execution time, and a better time leads to better scores.
Creative director Ben Myres grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. He calls the game a work of "African-futurism," distinct from afro-futurism in the sense that it is about "real people, real places, real cities in the future." That kind of quest for authenticity extends to how the game catalogues its artifacts. Once repatriated, a detailed 3D model of the art is displayed within the game's hub area, where players can delve into the real history of these objects.
Relooted might be the best game I played across any of this weekend's showcases: a polished, thoughtful and outright fun heist caper that dares to ask challenging questions about art and ownership.
Resident Evil Requiem remains a mystery
NPR was one of a few outlets to play a hands-on demo of Resident Evil Requiem. Resident Evil is one of the longest running horror franchises in gaming and arguably its most influential. That influence continues today and is a big part of Capcom's eight-year streak of record-breaking profits.
The demo of Resident Evil Requiem begins at a moment shown in its recent trailer. The game's protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, finds herself strapped upside down to a medical gurney inside of what appears to be a hospital. An IV is drawing blood from her arm. She breaks free: and the demo begins, orienting the player in a first-person perspective (a perspective that the player can switch to third person, which I learn only after the demo concludes).
What follows is a familiar survival-horror scenario. Walking through barely lit corridors, moving objects around the environment, and solving object-based puzzles in classic RE fashion. Throughout all of this, the player is stalked by a towering, Lovecraftian creature that smashes through ceilings and walls. When it manages to get its hands on you, it takes a brutal bite out of you. And when it kills you — as it did to me during the demo — the result is gory and brutal, with carnage and dismemberment reminiscent of Resident Evil 4.
I found it all compelling enough, but a bit safe. The creature AI, and how it tracked the player, felt prescriptive rather than interactive. The result is gameplay that feels like trial and error rather than the result of dynamic problem solving.
What is Resident Evil Requiem? Both Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village had strong thematic identities. In contrast, the aesthetic and tone of this game, at least across this tiny slice, is not as clearly defined. Is that mystique by design, a way of spurring conversation about what the full game will look rather than revealing its surprises too early?
Probably. I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom is, intentionally, leaving us in the proverbial dark. The game is releasing in February of next year, so we won't have to wait too long to find out.
Pragmata is a risky experiment that pays off
Capcom also let us go hands-on with Pragmata, a game first announced more than five years ago and targeting a 2026 release. It's a science fiction action game where you assume the role of Hugh, a grizzled astronaut in a heavy space suit, and his hacker sidekick, Diana, an android girl who rides on his back.
The wrinkle here is that you actually control both characters at once: shooting with classic third person shooter controls, and using the face buttons to navigate a hacking grid that, if executed successfully, causes attacks to do considerably more damage. The result is a frenetic shooter that doubles as a frenetic puzzler; like playing Gears of War and Lumines at the same time.
It's a weird concept. But compelling, if only because it feels like such an outlier to what modern shooters offer. In this 20 minute slice, I was crawling through linear hallways and picking up new weapons, blasting my way through bad guys and doing this intricate puzzle solving dance. It understood its strengths and stuck to its figurative guns.
I actually found its simplified design decisions refreshing, a break from the many sprawling open worlds I'm usually asked to slog through. It's clearly the puzzle elements that stand out here and I'm interested to see how wild Capcom lets loose with those mechanics in the final game.
Onimusha's producer explains Capcom's success
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a third person action game with a light-horror feel. This new title marks a big budget revival for the series after Capcom prioritized other titles for years. Given player interest in third person action games of this kind, it makes sense why its making a return.
But it's also symbolic of where Capcom is right now: successful enough to take a chance on a dormant franchise, thanks to a track record of quality that almost guarantees broad interest.
I want to pause for a second and talk about just how remarkable Capcom's recent run is. At a time when big video game releases appear to be getting farther and farther apart, Capcom is bucking that trend, releasing a number of well-reviewed and financially successful games every year.
I asked Onimusha producer Akihito Kadowaki, what makes this possible? Is it because of their dedication to using familiar game engines and tools? Employee retention and expertise?
Not quite, although he admitted those were both contributing factors.
The real answer, he said through a translator, was that Capcom's directors and project leads have a very clear direction of where they want to go, "a very good idea of what they want to create."
Easier said than done, but in an industry where big studios often scrap and restart projects in an effort to appeal to everyone, Capcom's secret sauce may lie in its all hands on deck approach to a single cohesive idea or vision.
It's an answer that brings to mind my earlier demo of Resident Evil Requiem. All the more important, then, for that game to cohere into something more clearly defined.
Blumhouse tries its hand at playable horror
The size of the video game market is no secret. You've heard countless times now from mainstream outlets like NPR that its revenue dwarfs that of the film and music industry combined. So, it makes sense that big media companies like Netflix and Amazon have made investments in gaming.
But it's been equally interesting to see how production companies like Annapurna Interactive and now Blumhouse Games, have used video games as a strategic extension of their broader portfolio.
Blumhouse showed off two games at the Play Days showcase. One was Crisol: Theater of Idols, a first-person horror game that takes place in a nightmarish alternate version of Spain. Another was Grave Seasons, a kind of Stardew Valley meets Doki Doki Literature Club riff on the farming sim genre.
Both impressed me. Not only in their quality, but also in the kind of games they promise to be: eccentric and impassioned projects that feel in the spirit of the Blumhouse try-anything horror ethos.
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