Let’s be honest: it’s been a dry couple of months. But the remainder of 2015? It’s about to get crazy. I asked everyone in the office about their most anticipated games for the remainder of 2015.
And no, not everyone chose Fallout 4.
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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Mark Serrels, Kotaku Editor
Metal Gear Solid V comes out in a matter of weeks. Has everyone forgotten about this?
In all the controversy regarding the split between Konami and Kojima Productions, amidst the horrible stories of employee treatment, I think it’s been all too easy to forget that a major video game is about to be released. Like a proper major one.
Metal Gear Solid V might not have the same maelstrom of hype that we saw in the lead up to Metal Gear Solid 2 or Metal Gear Solid 4. But we’re forgetting one thing: Kojima always gets it right with his odd numbered Metal Gear games!
Metal Gear Solid 1. All-time classic.
Metal Gear Solid 3. Probably the best game in the series.
Metal Gear Solid V? Well, I’m hopeful.
I’m hopeful because Ground Zeroes, for all its lack of content, showed a new accessible control system and a host of new inter-connected systems that are incredible to toy with. I honestly expect this game to be special. I expect it to be a game of the year contender.
Unravel
Danny Allen, Publisher
Remember how endearingly nervous Martin Sahlin was at E3? His charming little platformer has been on my radar ever since — a kind of physics-based, puzzle-driven cross between LittleBigPlanet and Limbo. My wife’s not a huge gamer, but those are the last two games we kicked back and got tipsy playing together. Unravel looks beautiful and I can’t wait to get wrapped up in it.
Destiny: The Taken King
Luke Hopewell, Gizmodo Editor
Look. Destiny has problems. Lots of them. It’s corporate and soulless; it’s expensive and it has no story. But as a reformed WoW player, there’s something about The Taken King that I’m really looking forward to.
I wasn’t sold on it during E3, but now that we’re in pre-launch hype mode, details that are coming out are really helping to get me over the line. It’s going to be less of a grind because the Light system has been abandoned. The story will be a little more cohesive. The voice acting will be better. New raids are coming in. There are new skills. You don’t have to go back to the vendor to hand in quests. It’s promising, and I want it to deliver.
Fallout 4
Campbell Simpson, Gizmodo Journalist
I didn’t really get into Fallout 3 or New Vegas, to be honest. Halfway through my FO3 playthrough I ran into a game-breaking bug, and NV just didn’t capture my attention for more than a couple of hours. What I did love was Fallout 1 and 2 — those games were my childhood, and I finished them dozens of times each. (Fallout Tactics never existed, guys. It never. Existed.) They just had awesome worlds, deep lore, great settings, and memorable characters. I’m hoping that Fallout 4 will bring that back, without changing things too much — just keep the great voice acting, the feeling of lawlessness and danger in the wasteland, the ability to roam freely and explore, and the weird and messed up evolution of post-apocalyptic human civilisation, and I’ll be happy.
*** runner-up goes to Star Wars: Battlefront. I just want to cut some bad dudes up with a lightsaber, yo.
Fallout 4
Rae Johnston, Journalist
I’m a sucker for an open world RPG with great storytelling and stunning visuals, so Fallout 4 fits the bill for me. There’s no level cap so you can just keep playing forever after the main storyline is over. I’m going to lose my life to this game and I’m perfectly okay with that. I have three Pipboy editions on their way for each member of my family, so cosplay plans are sorted, too.
I genuinely can’t recall the last time I was this excited for a game. It may even pry me away from trying to collect every shard in Dragon Age: Inquisition (that will be the true test). In the meantime — I’ll placate myself with being increasingly disturbed by my vault management style in Fallout Shelter.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Chris Jager, Lifehacker Editor
While everyone has been salivating over Fallout 4, I’ve been keeping my eye on another Dystopian RPG.
Torment: Tides of Numenera (terrible title) is the spiritual successor to Black Isle Studios’ critically acclaimed Planescape: Torment; a game that has an almost mythical reputation: despite receiving universal critical acclaim, not that many people actually played it.
The new game promises to retain many of the elements that made Planescape: Torment so memorable, including old school pre-rendered isometric environments and an emphasis on dialogue choices to steer story progression. Built off the back of a Kickstarter campaign, there’s a lot that can go wrong with this project — but if it can deliver a gaming experience that’s even half as dark and fascinating as the original, we’ll be in for a treat. But maybe change the name, eh?
Mad Max
Spandas Lui, Lifehacker Journalist
Fallout 4 is my most anticipated game for 2015, but a title I’m surprised to be looking forward to is Mad Max. I’ve already read the less than stellar first impressions of the game and I know it’s not directly related to the spectacular Mad Max: Fury Road film, but sometimes, I just like doing things that I know aren’t good for me. Maybe it’s the trailer, which I thought was done quite well and displayed the dark post-apocalyptic tone that I’m such a sucker for. Maybe I’m drawn to the epic car battles that Mad Max is promising. Either way, I’m buying the damn game and it might just be my cup of tea.
The Witness
Junglist
I’m hoping this is actually released this year… I’ve been hanging for it for a while now. Jon Blow displayed impeccable design in Braid, and I’m looking to The Witness to provide the same kind of steadily expanding puzzle systems and interesting meta – in its own unique way – as Legend of Grimrock 2 and Talos Principle gave us last year. At first I was sceptical about how a premise so basic could provide for an entire “Double-A” game, but seeing its progress has been encouraging.
I’m taking Jon Blow’s distraction of making his own coding language as a hopeful sign that the game is finished and waiting for its Sony-approved release date. Hopefully. Maybe? I’ll be playing HOTS in the meantime
SOMA
Hayley Williams
2015 thus far has been a great year for horror with the release of games like Dying Light, Kholat and Until Dawn, but nothing has me as excited for long nights of sleepless terror as Frictional Games’ latest title SOMA. Frictional – the studio behind long-time ‘scariest video game’ contender, Amnesia: The Dark Descent – is back to mess with our minds again, this time exploring themes of identity, consciousness, free will and artificial intelligence, all set in an abandoned underwater research facility. If we learned anything from the first Bioshock (other than not to trust people with Irish accents) it’s that the bottom of the ocean can be creepy as all hell. And SOMA isn’t even nice enough to give you a wrench. The areas we’ve seen so far certainly don’t disappoint on the creepy factor – they range from the sci-fi standard of run-down, utilitarian corridors to vaguely organic-looking tunnels of winding pipes and metal plates that recall something straight out of Giger’s wet dreams. SOMA is due for release on the 22nd of September – I don’t know about you, but I am so ready for every blinking standby light in my house to become a potential nightmare.
That’s our picks! What are yours? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
35 responses to “The Video Games We’re Most Looking Forward To”
Chris Jager, we should be friends.
Look. Destiny has problems. Lots of them. It’s corporate and soulless; it’s expensive and it has no story.
You’re not doing a good job on selling it to me.
I think I’m in the same boat as him.
I’m (surprisingly) looking forward to it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone yet.
I WANT TO BELIEVE.
I wish I could expunge it from my Playstation account. It’s not installed on my PS4 but I just want to be further away from it…
What’s so bad about it?
Ooh… I forgot about SOMA.
Needless to say i will be playing it with a bunch of fresh undies in a brightly lit room… yes i am a wuss.
Pish posh! Midnight, lights out, headphones on…
For about 30 seconds. Then I’m gonna turn on every light in the house and stay up til dawn watching Futurama DVDs!I’m noticing a very distinct lack of Spartans in this list
I’m not surprised 😉
The final chapters in Life is Strange and Tales from the Borderlands are the titles I am most looking forward to.
I will give taken king a look, I may give fallout 4 a look if I like what I see of my brother’s copy (never a huge fallout fan though I did enjoy skyrim where I failed to see the allure of the previous ES games so there may be hope yet). I am optimistic about mario maker but at the same time, I know myself and know that I will maybe play it for a week or 2 and then let it be.
I love the premise of Fallout and Skyrim but both with Fallout 3 and Skyrim I had game breaking bugs half way through and lost the motivation to play on. I’ll wait and see how buggy Fallout 4 is before I jump on board.
I bought FO3 the other day, having always meant to play it and never gotten around to it. Didn’t even make it all the way through the tutorial before the game broke.
10/10 would purchase again.
Screw you, rae johnson. And your 3 pip boys.
*evil laugh*
MGS V and F4, everything else is filler..
Definitely Halo 5, been going through the books, terminals, etc and really curious to see where it goes next regarding the Chief, Oni and Halsey. And final episode of Tales from the Borderlands.
Want to say Fallout 4… but will probably wait for the Christmas minor discount on XBL and hopefully at least a patch has dropped by then.
My list is:
– MGS V
– Fallout 4
– Star Wars Battlefront (please work on day one)
– Hitman (digital release)
Shaping up to be a great Q4, good year for AAA games overall really.
Damn after seeing the new Hitman video yesterday – I can’t wait for that, they look to have solved the problem in Absolution of being instantly recognised by anyone wearing the same outfit!
Fallout 4 and Battlefront. November will be the month I go deep into hibernation
Fallout 4 and Taken King, in that order. Which sucks because that’s the opposite of the order they’re released in. >:(
F4 and Battlefront are the major highlights for me, with the new Rainbow Six and possibly the new Assassins Creed thrown in (but only if they release a product that works) …
Metal Gear Kojima FTW!
F4
H5
SW
Unfortunately they all come out pretty close to each other so I’ll keep a photo of the wife and kids in the top corner of my screen to remember what they look like.
Pretty much only looking forward to Squad since I have it pre-ordered. However I wouldn’t mind picking up MGS 5 on launch.
Star Fox Zero. Ain’t nothin’ else matters.
I just want the Bloodborne DLC but Fallout 4 will hold me over till then.
Firewatch.
This question gets asked a lot around here, haha.
I second this! I am more keen than I thought I was. It seems like a leisurely paced thriller
My list….
…. Oh, now I feel sad 🙁
Here’s hoping next year is a bit better for my tastes.
Myself its definitely going to be TTK expansion – I like the idea of FO but have never gotten too invested into it.
But the reality is all my thumbs and eyes want is ff7: Remake 🙁 bring 2016!.. or 17.. or 18 which ever year it eventuates too…
200Never
MGS V
Armikrog
Starfox Zero
I’m excited!
Fallout 4 on my new PC I will be getting in November, I have become picky with my game purchases, the pile of shame grows otherwise
47 has his barcode back? I thought he removed it in the previous game…
I’m surprisingly hyped for Mad Max. I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor immensely, so I’m hoping for a similar experience.