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There was a lot of sound and fury from the main event E3 press conferences this year, but just because it wasn’t on a main stage, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth thinking about. The PC Gaming Show had a bunch of cool weirdness, as always, and a few devs pushed their trailers and reveals to during the trade show itself, to avoid getting swallowed. Here are six games that aren’t The Last of Us: Part II, but are worth your time anyway.
Man Eater
Let’s start with one you might have seen being shared around Twitter already because, much like that game where you play as a naughty goose, Man Eater has instantly captured the imagination of many. Man Eater is a single player action RPG from Blindside Interactive (from Alex Quick, who you may know from Killing Floor), ‘coming soon’ to PC. The story is a tale of bloody murder, as you’re left for dead in the sea and go on to not only survive, but thrive, and seek revenge. Man Eater will feature exploration of an aquatic open world, and will apparently have quite a customiseable skill tree system relating to different parts of your body.
Also you play a shark.
The Sinking City
This is a kind of Lovecraftian horror meets eldritch mystery game. In The Sinking City you play as a private detective a weird, slightly supernatural, partially flooded town in 1920s Massachusetts, full of strange people with stranger problems. It looks to be part exploration and investigation, and part getting ambushed by horrible flesh spiders. The release date is TBD, but this is definitely one to watch.
GreedFall
We don’t know too much about GreedFall yet, but it’s a new RPG from Spiders (whose most recent previous work was Technomancer) and published by Focus Home Interactive, a publisher I like because it’s like it keeps texting me, personally, in the middle of the night, like ‘Hey Alice are u bck on ur bulls***? Cos if so I have some historical, narrative driven games that look hella goth? If ur interested?’
In GreedFall your character explores a new world (a ‘remote island seeing with magic, rumoured to be filled with riches and lost secrets’). Artistically it’s taking cues from 17th century Europe, like oil paintings of women lolling about in Autumn forests looking terribly bored, and puts emphasis on having a core RPG identity with branching quest solutions. The wrinkle is that it looks like it might touch on themes of colonialism, which is either going to be interesting and good or very, very bad.
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Another game published by Focus Home (let’s get ’em out the way, shall we?), A Plague Tale: Innocence has been knocking around for a couple of E3s now, and each time it raises its head it looks a bit more horrible and lovely. Set in 14th century France during the plague, and follows a young brother and sister as they try to navigate both aggressive humans, and hordes of rats. Seething, writing carpets of rats. Rats that look like a furry ocean, pushing toward you. Ew. Cool. It’s slated to release next year, but as yet there hasn’t been a lot of gameplay knocking around, although the stuff that is looks pretty cool.
Neo Cab
You’re the last human cabbie in a world of auto-driven cars, and your friend has gone unexpectedly missing. By picking up different fares and choosing conversational options you can uncover information that may or may not be helpful. Neo Cab may not a giant AAA project made by someone who wishes they were a Hollywood director, but it is interesting, and it looks really cool. The mix of cyberpunk, dark capitalist setting and solving puzzles through talking reminds me of The Red Strings Club as a concept, which is of course no bad thing. Blade Runner, but Uber.
Concrete Genie
It sounded lovely when it was revealed, and now PS4 game Concrete Genie has some big, cool chunks of gameplay to check out. Armed with a paintbrush and some magic paint, you can bring light and art back to a world desaturated and occupied by bullies. You can also create monsters and creatures that come to life. The combination of painting with a cursor and choose from a selection of premade assets allows a player to feel like they’re really creating art. It’s such a nice, feel-good, wholesome idea and we all need more of those right now.
