Sony’s live-service ambitions for PlayStation have been the subject of ire for many since their inception, and last week those frustrations reached a fever pitch with the news that two more in-development live-service games were being canceled at Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. These latest cancelations have put a spotlight on just how poorly the company’s plans have panned out and highlighted a couple of truths that need to be addressed.
2025 is finally upon us and if the current game release calendar is anything to go by, there’s a lot to look forward to. Today, I wanted to share the games that I’m most excited about that (as of writing) are planned to release this year. Let’s get into it!
Death is something that I’ve become more acutely aware of in recent years. It started with the anime Death Note instilling the fear of a random, spontaneous death in me. Disney and Pixar’s incredible movie Coco elevated this fear to an existential level as I grappled with the terrifying thought of truly being gone because there was nothing to remember me after death. And now my latest playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 put me on a collision course with my fears as it made me ruminate on the concept of legacy.
Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In the final part of this series, I’ll be talking about Kingdom Hearts III, and what makes it the quintessential Kingdom Hearts experience.
Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part five of this series, I’ll be talking about Dream Drop Distance, and my newfound love for this underrated game.
Months of speculation and rumors have finally come to an end as Sony officially announced the PlayStation 5 Pro and its November 7, 2024 release date. Aside from questions surrounding what the technical improvements the PS5 Pro would be, the biggest question mark concerned its price, and now we know that it’ll cost $700 in the U.S. Just like the PS4 Pro before it, the PS5 Pro is a refreshed version of the original PS5 that came out in 2020 and features some technical improvements. But the $700 price tag has raised eyebrows and is the biggest point of contention many have with the console, myself included.
Last week was a bit rough for PlayStation. The same day they released Astro Bot to rave reviews across the industry, Sony shut down Concord, their latest attempt at breaking into the live-service space. A small community of fans might have enjoyed Concord during its two weeks on the market (myself included), however, with estimates of abysmal sales across PS5 and PC and an equally tragic amount of players, the game was dead on arrival. It’s left the future of Concord and its developer Firewalk Studios up in the air as they plan their next move. No matter how you look at the situation, this sort of failure is unprecedented in the games industry, especially for PlayStation which prides itself on releasing high-quality games. With more live-service games in development across their first-party teams, the question has to be asked: In a time where the live-service bubble is bursting, what chance of success do these other games have and what’s Sony’s strategy going forward?
Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part four of this series, I’ll be talking about Birth By Sleep, and my complicated feelings on this pivotal game in the franchise.
Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part three of this series, I’ll be talking about the franchise’s golden child, Kingdom Hearts II, and how its exploration of identity makes it a defining moment in the series.
Microsoft’s first-party exclusive Hi-Fi Rush came to PlayStation earlier this year, along with three other first-party Xbox titles. Sony’s Horizon franchise is breaking out of PlayStation exclusivity and jumping to the Nintendo Switch later this year with Lego Horizon Adventures. These moves may not spell the immediate end of console exclusives for PlayStation and Xbox, but the fires have been lit and the future is clear: first-party exclusivity for them will eventually be no more.
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