There have been lots of demos and betas that have come out since the Game Awards last week and since we are about to enter the new year with lots of new and exciting games coming out, I decided to play these to see what next year in gaming could bring. Forspoken
This is a game that has been pushed back multiple times but should be coming out on January 23rd, 2023. This is coming from the studio behind Final Fantasy 15, and it is extremely obvious from first glance. The demo itself kind of just drops you into the world after playing a short video that quickly speeds through the story setup. The main point of the demo is to highlight the combat and give you a slice of the open world traversal you will be doing. I wish the demo had more story stuff in it, or at least a cutscene that helps give context to what is going on because without that none of the open world stuff made any sense. With none of that, the combat is supposed to do the heavy lifting in this demo, and it did not do an excellent job. There was something that felt weird and off-putting about it. The gameplay is magic based and is controlled by the R2/L2, the right side is your offensive magic, and the left side is your support magic. I could not find my rhythm with the combat, I was doing things, but it did not feel like I was getting better instead the magic was just happening around me.
To me demos are supposed to give you a taste of what the player can expect without giving too much away, what the Forspoken demo did was the opposite. I needed more than what this demo gave me to counteract the lackluster trailers that Square Enix has released promoting the game, instead of walking away from this demo being more excited I am just shrugging with indifference.
Street Fighter 6
This was the beta I was most excited about since I got the email from Capcom that I got accepted into the second closed online test. I like fighting games more than they like me, I usually stick to just the arcade and story modes unless it is Mortal Kombat (MKX was the last fighting game I put hundreds of hours into to hold my own online). Street Fighter V had no story mode at launch and then when Capcom decided to add it, the mode was lackluster. Seeing that they are doing a story mode called World Tour for the next installment has me excited but that is not in the closed beta test. This beta is just for the online Battle Hub mode where you create an avatar and matchup with other players in a hub area.
The hub area is generic, it has fake SF6 arcade cabinets to matchup with players, a shop to buy clothes for your avatar, a place to play Final Fight (the old arcade game) and a couple other areas that were unavailable. I would rather instead of a hub area to play online it just be menus because I want to be able to jump into a game quickly instead of running around waiting for a game at these fake arcade cabinets.
The actual game feels amazing. I am terrible at Street Fighter and was getting destroyed by every player I went up against, but it felt incredible to play and makes me want to get better. The parry system seems neat once you get adjusted to it. The character models look incredible, and the art style with the Drive moves using this spray paint aesthetic looks like nothing I have seen in a fighting game before. Once the full game comes out and there is a tutorial with a hopefully decent training mode, I will be excited to drop back into the Street Fighter world and this could be the one I get good at. Season: A Letter to the Future
This is the indie game that I am most looking forward to coming out next year. Season: A Letter to the Future is about a character named Estelle who is leaving home for the first time to record the world around her before a catastrophic event comes to wipe it away. The gameplay loop revolves around recording and taking photos of the world for posterity. In this world a season is the end of an era, and by using the tools at your disposal Estelle is going to unravel the mysteries of the world around her.
The demo that was up for a brief time on PS5 was a small vertical slice of what the gameplay will be like for the game. Estelle is about to leave her city right after they have given her a going away party. The demo introduces you to how to record sounds (playing with headphones on is the right call here) and how to take photographs. The camera feels like you are using a manual camera with the control given to you over things like focal range, I could see the camera being satisfying to tinker with as the game goes on. This game has such exciting potential, and we have not even gotten to the bicycle gameplay, which is going to be your main mode of traversing the world. If Scavengers Studios can nail the atmosphere,
coupled with gameplay that feels like part of the world then this could be the next huge indie hit in 2023
Thirsty Suitors
This was an indie game that completely surprised me by how much I enjoyed playing through the demo on PlayStation. Thirsty Suitors is an adventure game developed by Outerloop Games (Falcon Age) that the developers describe as “a game about culture, relationships, family pressures, and expressing oneself.” From the jump of this game, I can tell that it is dripping with STYLE. From the UI to the choices you make, I have never seen an adventure game like this before. As someone who has dealt with family pressures and tried to figure out how to express myself, I really feel like this game could speak to me.
In the demo you start as the main character Jala on the way back to her hometown after being away for some time. You take a relationship test in a magazine while talking to your inner monologue and this is how the demo introduces another gameplay feature with skateboarding. You then run into one of your exes and a Scott Pilgrim vs the World-like turn based battle begins. I absolutely love the cultural style of the combat and how deeply integrated into how the combat works. Everything is quick time or rhythm based which makes the combat engaging without it feeling too difficult to pick up. I am excited to get further into the story and to see how the cooking gameplay that is also in the game factors into it. Thirsty Suitors does not have a date yet, but hopefully it will be ready for 2023 Getting a small preview of these four games that are hopefully all coming out in the next year has me excited for what this next year in gaming could have in store for us. It seems like 2023 will have a decent mixture of big budget AAA titles with interesting and provocative indie games. It really seems like the industry is hitting its stride after the last few years have been riddled with delays and supply chain issues with the pandemic, and I for one am ready to get lost in this next year of digital worlds.