After a one-week delay in response to the worldwide protests following the death of George Floyd, Sony’s Playstation 5 event is going to be happening tomorrow at 1PM PT/4PM ET. We know very little though about what we’ll be getting from this event aside from looks at games. Everyone on in the internet has been speculating and I have some thoughts of my own, so let’s talk about what I’m expecting from this Playstation 5 event.

First-Party Games

It’s basically a forgone conclusion that we’ll be getting a look at some titles from Sony’s Playstation Studios. The longest running rumor, and most likely candidate to lead the charge is a sequel to Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn. It hasn’t been announced yet, but the original did well critically and commercially, and there have been a number of leaks that all point to the game being real. Sony will want to show off a huge heavy hitter so I’m expecting to see this game during the show as either the opener or the closer. It’s also possible that the game will be a launch title for the PS5 as Sony will want the system to launch with something big, so getting confirmation of that would be great too.

Then there’s also whatever game Bluepoint Games is working on. They’ve been teasing a new project for a long time now and have let fans speculate what it could be. The popular theory is either a Demon’s Souls or Metal Gear Solid remake, but now there are rumors saying that they’re also working on a Bloodborne remaster. Whatever they have is likely to appear at the show and will make waves regardless of what it is.

These two are the only first-party games that are practically guaranteed to appear at the show. Aside from these I feel like anything could appear. We could possibly get a tease of a sequel to Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man. I don’t think it’ll be coming out at launch or near launch, but I could see it coming out in the second half of 2021 at the earliest. Teasing it tomorrow would be a great way to garner excitement for it and get people more hyped for the console.

The same goes for God of War, although I feel like there’s a much lower chance of us seeing it at the event. Given how critically acclaimed the last one was, I can see Sony wanting to give Sony Santa Monica the time they need to work on the game, leading to a 2022 release at the earliest. Announcing it too early might get people super excited, but it could work against Sony at the same time, so announcing it at a later date may be the better move.

Gran Turismo 7 is a likely candidate to pop up because a racing game is always shown off for console reveals. Japan Studio may show up with a new game as well, and it’s potentially Silent Hill if rumors are true. If that’s true, the internet would lose their mind. And that’s not even to mention Sony’s back catalog of first-party titles that could be brought back. The sky really is the limit! I’m not expecting Sony to blow their load at this first event though. There are more to come later this year, so it’s possible that they ‘ll announce some tomorrow and a few more at a later event, or even just wait until next year to reveal some of these highly rumored titles.

Third-Party Games

The first-party slate is a bit easy to speculate, but third-party titles are harder since anyone could show up with quite literally anything. I would expect Godfall to have some sort of presence during the event. The game was the very first game officially announced for the console during The Game Awards last year, so it only makes sense for it to appear here. Giving that game a fair amount of time to be shown off would be a great way to build excitement for it.

This year’s installment in the Call of Duty franchise could also make an appearance. The series has had marketing deals with Sony for the past few years, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the new game is debuted at the show. Normally the game would’ve been announced by now, and details about the game have been leaking bit by bit in recent weeks, so it’s possible that Activision was waiting for Sony’s event to make their big splash. My one layer of doubt for this is the fact that there’s normally a marketing tease rollout that happens prior to a Call of Duty announcement, and there hasn’t been anything like that. Maybe Activision is doing things differently this year?

Multiple different developers from across the industry have teased that we should watch the event, but we have no idea what they’re working on, so it doesn’t paint a clearer picture for what we should be looking forward to from them. We just have to wait and be surprised by what we see tomorrow.

Gameplay

I hate that I have to say this, but I’m 100% expecting there to be some actual gameplay at this event. I’m not expecting every game shown to have a large gameplay blowout or even to have gameplay period, but there needs to be gameplay from a good number of the games shown. Microsoft’s next-gen gameplay debut fumbled out the gate because there was really no gameplay in the showcase. I hope that Sony saw the reception to that presentation and actually has gameplay to show us from these titles. At the very least from some of the first-party titles. Give us that Horizon gameplay Sony!

The Console, Release Date & Price

Let me say right away that I don’t think we’re going to get the console’s hard release date or price at all during tomorrow’s event. Sony has already said that this event is the first of many and that we’ll be getting more information at some point in the future, so it’s highly unlikely we get those two, especially since Microsoft has yet to reveal their date and price.

What I’m torn on is whether or not we’ll actually see the console. The company was clear in their announcement of the event that we’ll be seeing games, but said nothing about the console. That doesn’t mean it can’t show up as a surprise at the beginning or end, but it also means that we shouldn’t expect it either. The event is also just over an hour, so if it does appear it’ll be very brief. Possibly even as a silhouette at the end of the show to tease the next event. I imagine that one of Sony’s future events will be focused entirely on the hardware, detailing the features and UI of the system, and possibly revealing the price and release date. At the end of the day, Sony has everything to gain by revealing the console tomorrow, but not much to lose by not showing it.

The show is just over 24 hours away, so we don’t have much longer to wait before we get to see what Sony has in store for us. You can bet that I’ll be posting all the news here and following the presentation up with my thoughts as well.