Not E3 2023 liveblog
Rolling news and highlights from Not E3 and SGF 2023
The E3 / NotE3 / Summer Game Fest news bonanza is upon us, and we'll be highlighting all the biggest and best announcements that catch our eye right here over the course of the coming week. We'll be keeping this liveblog up to date over the next few days with all the latest news, trailers, and links to our coverage from Summer Game Fest and the wider notE3 season, including the Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, the PC Gaming Show, Wholesome Direct, Day Of The Devs and lots more. So make sure you check back regularly for everything Geoff Fest.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
Welcome to NotE3 season everyone! We'll be kicking off this liveblog soon with the first stream of the week, which is the Guerrilla Collective Showcase.
The first world premiere of the Guerrilla Collective stream is Forgotlings, a new Metroidvania from the makers of Forgotton Anne. As luck would have it, we have a whole news post on it right here!
Forgotlings is coming in 2024, and everyone on the team is terrified of the hero's torso face.
This next one looks lovely. It's called Europa, and it's got big colourful Ghibli vibes and a Breath Of The Wild-style glider power. Not a new game - its Steam page has been up for a while - but always lovely to see it again. Should be out later this year.
Here's that new gameplay trailer:
If digging holes in Minecraft is your jam, you might want to check out Dwarf Delve, a new voxel mining roguelike game. Here's its Steam page for more info.
I could listen to the music from Super Space Club's new trailer all day. Luckily, it's coming to Steam on August 4th, so we won't have to wait too long to play this delightful arcade space shooter.
One of my favourite highlights so far is wizard-y typing RPG Leximan. Very big Undertale vibes with the battle system here, but . It's coming to PC in 2024, and you can check out its Steam page here. There's also a free demo you can play right now!
Aww yeah, it's time for the ultra spooky World Of Horror to leave early access. It's launching in full on October 19th, just in time for Halloween - see our news story on it for more details - and make sure to check out its Steam page too.
Sacrifire looks better and better every time I see it. Very much looking forward to this sidescrolling RPG. Still no release date info, but the new trailer sure looks cool. I'll add it here as soon as it's up. In the mean time, hit up its Steam page to find out more.
A blatant pull at my Dorfromantik heartstrings here, but hey, I'll give hexagonal puzzler Growth the benefit of the doubt here. Find out more on its Steam page.
A lovely in-depth look at the very exciting Jumplight Odyssey from Armello devs League Of Geeks here. You can read all about this spacefaring roguelite colony sim in my preview from last year, but the new trailer shows off the jumplight drive, which is what you'll be powering up to jump from system to system as you escape the evil Zutopans. Check out its Steam page here.
Corponation: The Sorting Process looks like Papers Please meets Severance, and yep, sign me up. I'm in. Here's its Steam page and there's also a free prologue demo you can try right now. Excuse me while I go download it immediately.
Rachel and Liam had a grand time with Pizza Possum at PAX East this year, and the new trailer sure looks quite the riot. There's a new co-op demo coming for Steam Next Fest in a few weeks too, so you can try it out for yourself. Check out its Steam page for more info.
I'm quietly looking forward to Lil Guardsman, even if it is a very clear Papers Please-like. Here's its Steam page - and why not check out the free demo while you're there? It's coming out in full later this summer.
If you ever thought Hyper Light Drifter would be infinitely improved by cute ghost cats, then Crypt Custodian might be up your street. I dig its cute critters and large, Metroid-like world map, and you appear to have a broom as your main weapon, too. Outstanding. Here's the Steam page if you want to keep an eye on it.
That's a wrap on the 2023 Guerrilla Collective Showcase! We only covered a tiny fraction of the games announced during tonight's stream, so here's the stream so you can catch-up on the full two hours of new indie game trailers.
The next showcase is Summer Geoff Fest proper, starting at 8pm BST / 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT on Thursday June 8th. We'll be doing a whole separate liveblog for that one on the night, but we'll also post the highlights here as well. Catch you then!
Morning folks! We've updated today's schedule with all the big streams coming today, including the big Geoff Fest itself, plus Day Of The Devs and Devolver Digital's Direct showcase. Festivities kick off this evening for us in the RPS Treehouse, so we'll catch you later on.
Just a heads-up, we'll be posting highlights from tonight's Summer Game Fest show here after the stream has finished, with full links to our own news stories along with proper trailers and images and the like. For a more classic RPS liveblog experience of tonight's Geoff Fest, make sure to head over to our dedicated Summer Game Fest liveblog, where James will be guiding you through tonight's trainer (and trailer) watch.
Evening folks! (Or should that be a very early good morning?) In case you missed the action, Summer Game Fest (the show) is done and dusted for another year. I'll be posting individual highlights over the next 24 hours or so, but if you want a full recap of tonight's action, you can read up on everything that was announced tonight right here.
Similarly, here's a full recap of all the great indie games announced at Day Of The Devs.
The first major reveal of SGF was a brand-new Prince Of Persia game from Ubisoft Montpellier.
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is a new sidescrolling Metroidvania that sees you step into the boots of Sargon, who will be jumping, dashing and rewinding time as he and his fellow guardian pals The Immortals journey to Mount Qaf in search of their abducted prince. I actually went to Ubi Montpellier to play this in person, so make sure to check back for my full impressions on Monday, after Ubisoft's Forward showcase.
Until then, have a look at its excellent reveal trailer. I'm pumped for this one.
We also got our first look at Mortal Kombat 1, which both an extended gameplay trailer and a big, on-stage chat segment with MK creator Ed Boon.
And yep, it sure does look like Mortal Kombat. Except Sub-Zero and Scorpion are apparently brothers now? Not sure how I feel about that. In any case, there's a very good "GET OVER HERE" to be heard in the trailer, so consider my MK bingo card checked.
I knew I'd seen Sand Land in video game form somewhere before last night's big unveiling from Bandai Namco and Ilca Inc., and that's because they did technically announce it in the form of a "visual adaptation clip" at the end of last year.
In case you're unfamiliar with Sand Land, it was originally a manga series by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. Now it's being turned into an action RPG. Set in a desert world where humans and demons are suffering from severe water shortages, you'll play as three characters (pink fiend prince Beelzebub, sheriff Rao and the demon Thief) to find the Legendary Spring to solve your water woes. Expect lots of character quests and vehicular sand battles along the way. No release date yet, but the trailer promised us more info soon.
We also got a chunky look at Alan Wake 2, including a horrible goaty monster lad who I'm not looking forward to meeting when the game comes out on October 17th.
Remedy's Sam Lake (aka: the face of Max Payne, and now also Alan Wake 2 FBI agent Alex Casey) came out on stage to introduce the game and talk a bit more about its survival horror-y-ness and the ritualistic murders you'll be investigating, and I'm very much looking forward to swapping between our man Alan and FBI Agent Saga Anderson at will to unravel its mysteries. For now, the gameplay trailer below only shows off some of the stuff you'll be doing as Saga, but I'm sure a proper glimpse of Alan isn't far off now.
Sonic is back for a new 2D outing as well in Sonic Superstars. I'm sure the three Sonic fans left who haven't been burned by the mild disaster that was Sonic Frontiers will be delighted.
Paradox had a surprisingly robust showing at SGF as well, announcing not one, but three new games. The one I'm most interested in is Stellaris Nexus, which aims to condense the main game's grand strategy 4X-ing into fast, 60 minute games. Like Slipways, essentially, but Stellaris.
At the opposite end of the scale, they also announced a new Star Trek grand strategy game called Star Trek: Infinite, that sees you play as one of the four main powers of the galaxy (the United Federation, Klingons, Romulans or the Cardassians). It's also set ten years before Star Trek: The Next Generation, and its key art contains a character who is 100% legally distinct from Patrick Stewart.
Fans of Yes, Your Grace will also be pleased to hear it's getting a very fancy-looking sequel called Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall.
Not that Geoffrey was in any way useful in telling us this, I should note. We had to look at the Steam page for full confirmation. But I very much enjoyed the original a couple of years ago, and am well up for returning to its brutal kingdom and tough decision making.
In another first look trailer, we got a proper glimpse of Yakuza side-story Like A Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name, which sees Yakuza hero Kazuma Kiryu take centre stage again as we find out exactly what happened to him after the events of Yakuza 6.
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Some, including our own Alice0, may wish the Sega had let poor Kiryu retire peacefully at the end of Yakuza 6, but alas, his calling to whack thugs over the head with bicycles clearly isn't over yet.
The final big highlight of SGF was a honking great trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It's not confirmed for PC yet (although it's almost certainly only a matter of time until it is), but I'm very much pumped for more FF7 timeline shenanigans.
Outside of Summer Game Fest, the Day Of The Devs stream was a veritable treasure trove of lovely looking indies. I could feasibly post about all of these, as every last one in our round-up. Selfishly, though, I'd like to call out the lovely-looking Saltsea Chronicles, which is the next game by the Mutazione devs.
I say selfishly, because I've actually played a bit of this myself back at GDC, and wrote a big long preview on it. You should check out it! Then pop it on your wishlists. And of course watch the trailer below on repeat until it comes out.
I'm also going to call out one highlight from Devolver's Direct as well, the brilliant-looking Baby Steps, which is a new game from Bennett "Getting Over It" Foddy and the makers of Ape Out. The trailer looks wild.
This extended look at Beastie Ball seems as good a time as any to remind you this was one of several cool-looking indie games first revealed at The Day of The Devs stream the other day.
Smushi Come Home is a cute Short Hike-like that's... out now! Read our news story for full details.
Ahh, a release date for cute cooking game Venba has been announced! A lot of the RPS Treehouse have been eagerly waiting for this one, so mark your calendars for July 31st, folks!
A Little To The Left likers will be pleased to hear there's more DLC on the way, too. Cupboards & Drawers will be releasing on June 27th.
I'll be hopping over to The Future Games Show in a sec, but you can catch more highlights from the Wholesome Direct right here in our round-up.
Soulslikers, rejoice, Lords Of The Fallen's release date has been confirmed for October 13th.
Well, that's a surprise. The Deponia series is back with Surviving Deponia, which as the name implies is a survival, base-building take on the adventure game series, that the devs say takes place seven years after the last one. It's coming to early access later this year.
Finally, a game worth talking about, even if the trailer shown was less than a minute long. It's SteamWorld Build! We got to see a fraction more of its underground mine layers in this latest trailer, although alas, still no release date.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is an odd one all right. I love a good musical, but will I be able to stomach a musical-style game? Who knows. But this latest trailer for it does, at least, introduce us to some of its romanceable characters. It's coming out August 3rd.
Now we're talking. A nice long look at driving roguelike Pacific Drive here. I got to play a bit of it at GDC earlier this year (article still incoming), and it was every bit as good as the initial preview presentation I saw back in February. Not a lot of new information per se, but a good explanation of what we can expect when it launches later this year. Still no release date, though.
Join us again tomorrow for the main event: the triple whammy of Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase, the Starfield Direct, and the PC Gaming Show. Hardware editor James will be liveblogging the whole night over in our dedicated liveblogs for each event, so keep your eyes peeled for those tomorrow. Once the shows have finished, we'll be posting our top highlights right here.
Welcome back to Day Four of NotE3 season. Today's line-up is the big one: Xbox, Starfield and the PC Gaming Show. Like we did for Summer Game Fest, we're running dedicated liveblogs for these shows today, and I'll be posting highlights from each right here after each show has aired.
For our combined Xbox and Starfield liveblog, James and Liam have you covered here.
They'll also be taking you through everything that's going on at the PC Gaming Show, too, right here.
It's time for Ubisoft Forward, and first up we have a fresh look at Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora. It's been a while since we've seen Avatar at an Ubisoft Forward, and it's looking pretty swish now we've seen some actual gameplay footage. We even got a little chat from Avatar film boss James Cameron.
Next up is a nice chunky look at Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, a game I played a sizable amount of at the end of May and liked very much. Full thoughts on the site very soon! And in case you needed reminding, it's coming out on January 18th 2024.
Big look at Assassin's Creed Mirage next, which is coming out on Ocotber 12th. This is a much more traditional Assassin's Creed than recent efforts, and yep, this new gameplay trailer sure looks like classic AssCreed 1 and 2.
Time for a proper look at Star Wars Outlaws now, which was announced with a CG reveal trailer at yesterday's Xbox Games Showcase.
