If you like playing a lot of big new video games at the same time, next February is going to be your month.
A monster from Anthem simulates what next February is going to try to do to your wallet.
As the flood of E3 press conferences washed over us these last few days, I and many others started to notice we kept hearing the same release month: February 2019. Seemingly every press conference had at least one major game announced for that month.
Actually, three of the big games announced for February are coming on the same day: February 22. “More like February twenty-too much,” my colleague Nathan Grayson quipped in Slack yesterday.
On February 22, we’ll get:
- 4A games’ massive open-world FPS Metro: Exodus.
- Sony Bend’s ambitious PS4 open-world exclusive Days Gone.
- BioWare’s mega-hyped online loot shooter Anthem.
That would be a lot of video games to deal with in a single month, let alone a single day. Takes me back to October 27 of last spring.
But wait, there’s more! Microsoft’s long awaited Crackdown 3 is also finally coming out in February. As is Ubisoft’s Trials Rising, with their massive online RPG The Division 2 hitting just a couple of weeks later on March 15. Additionally, on January 29, Kingdom Hearts 3 will make its long-awaited debut. Not quite February, but close enough.
Taking into account that any games with currently vague “early 2019” release dates – Jo-Mei’s Sea of Solitude, maybe even From’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – could also wind up coming out in February or thereabouts, it seems safe to say that the first few months of 2019 are going to rival that same period in 2017 when Horizon: Zero Dawn, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nier: Automata, Persona 5, and Yakuza 0 all came out within the space of a few weeks.
It’s possible one or more of those games might get a delay, and the safest bet would be that Anthem gets one more short delay before it finally comes out. Even if that happens, next February is still gonna be a hell of a month for video games.
Comments
15 responses to “Next February Is Gonna Be Lit”
2019’s looking pretty good. 2018’s been fucking KILLER on AAA, let alone all the surprise indie gems. (Eg: Why are more people not talking about Cultist Simulator? It’s fucking amazing!) 2019 doesn’t look like 2018 by any means, but it should be pretty good if the E3 announcements are anything to go by.
A lot of stuff I thought I’d be into I’m now less excited about/more cautious about/utterly-turned-off after seeing more E3 footage/dev notes. Won’t be getting FalloutZ until they come to their fucking senses and do PVE-only servers, Rage [reboot] looks utterly unremarkable (why wouldn’t I just play Borderlands?) and difficult to connect to the first, TLoU 2 I can’t believe will capture the magic of TLoU because a large part of that was its story and that story is… well, done, and Skull & ePeen is literally the worst thing I could think of doing with a Black Flag spin-off, inferior to what inspired it in every way that matters. I actually agree with William Gibson that Cyberpunk’s teaser looks a HELL of a lot more like GTA 2077 than I expected, too, and the Australian RC concerns are real.
But a whole lot more I’m super interested in…
Anthem’s looking a lot better than I thought it would, especially with the announcement there’s no PVP. Dying Light 2 was a big – welcome – surprise, Days Gone and Metro: Exodus are no-brainers, the three Samurai games all look like must-haves, TES 6 was a surprise that I only ASSUME will be fantastic, similar with Starfield, AC: Odyssey looks badass, Captain Spirit should be worth trying at least. Looking forward to seeing if Battletoads can be more than nostalgia, Deracine might be when I finally pick up PSVR, Doom Eternal seems like a no-brainer if they just keep providing more of what made Doom great. Dontnod’s Vampyr has been seriously satisfying so far which makes me pretty hopeful about Twin Mirror.
Too. Many. Games.
My backlog is screaming in pain right now.
Just to note, Metro isn’t ‘open world’, its instanced areas that aren’t linear.
Small distinction maybe, but the game isn’t letting you roam free.
Video game companies need to start the same approach as film houses with movie releases. Staggering launch dates so that you do not have games competing for the same dollars potentially harming the profits of an awesome title.
Not quite the same. Video games don’t face the same fate of being yanked from distribution after a week if they underperform unlike movies at the cinema.
For the most part, they do. Most times AAA games come out on the same day, they’re different genres. You don’t see CoD and BF games release the same day for example. Theres usually a week…
Movies are the same. Blockbuster movie this week (Incredibles 2), and next week (Jurassic World), so plenty of people wanting to see both will end up seeing just one. They’ll need to choose. But most people will want to see one far more than the other, so it’ll be an easy decision.
More than once two major movies have released on the same day though.
The games in this story have some crossover, but two of them are single player games, so not as time sensitive as Anthem is. Online versus offline will attract different gamers, so theres not AS much conflict for sales.
For that, I think Anthem will be by far the bigger seller on the day, assuming they all stick to that date.
I’m struggling to think of too many Sony first party exclusives that have generated less buzz and excitement than Days Gone. Knack 2, perhaps?
Hey, speak for yourself. Knack 2 was the announcement of the Century!
Days Gone looks OK too. Those freakers can definitely move – bloody hell! I’d be pissing myself! The Walking Dead this ain’t!
This seems to be something that regularly happens when you show a game at several consecutive E3s.
If it’s not coming out before the next E3, don’t show it. Each showing without fulfilment kills hype instead of building it.
Just look at the hype around Star Citizen… Has that had any showings this year?
There’s Star Citizen hype? I was pretty sure that particular vaporware-worshipping cult has been disregarded by everyone who wasn’t up for dropping thousands of dollars on new ships every time they make an announcement and has segregated itself off into its own little virtual compound/echo chamber?
Not so much these days, but it certainly got attention in previous years. Was just using it as an example of how hype dies after something’s been shown several E3’s in a row. Its now one of The Games That Cried Wolf, like Duke Nukem did for all those years.
I genuinely don’t know if Star Citizen made an appearance or not this year, but I doubt it would have gotten much attention because of what you say. People call bullshit, because they’ve been bluffed too many times in the past.
I like Bethesa’s approach myself. “We’re doing this game, it looks like this. Oh yeah, its available tonight/next month/next quarter” with very specific release info. No faffing about, just hard info reasonably close to release.
That doesn’t mean they don’t do early teases, but theres no depth to something like ES VI or Starfield to hang your hopes on. Just an announcement that they’re in the plans.
It showed up at the PC Gaming Show.
That’s what I’ve loved about the last two Fallout announcements -“Hey, we’re making it, and you’ll have it in November!”
No prolonged hype train.
“Lit”
F*** you.
I’m almost 3 years behind on games, I don’t play them when they’re new or jump on the hype train, but it’s good to know that a lot of the games I’ll be playing have sequels I won’t have to wait for :p
“lit” *cringe*