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E3 may be dead, but we’ll always have … a bunch of video game trailers in the summertime.
Geoff Keighley’s annual Summer Game Fest kicked off on Friday with a lengthy keynote full of announcements and updates on hotly anticipated titles. Here are the biggest reveals you need to know about.
Summer Game Fest 2024: Biggest announcements
There were far more games featured at Summer Game Fest, but these were the 10 that stood out to us.
Lego Horizon Adventures
SGF got off to a bizarre start with Lego Horizon Adventures. You know Horizon, the series of open-world PlayStation-exclusive adventures about killing robot dinosaurs? Well, now it’s made out of LEGO, intended to be played in two-player co-op, and no longer exclusive to PlayStation consoles.
This seems to be a very different game from its predecessors, but maybe that’s a good thing. Lego Horizon Adventures launches later this year on PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Neva
Neva is an upcoming side-scrolling action-adventure game from the folks who made Gris, a beautiful puzzle game that came out in 2018. Nomada Studio’s next effort looks to be a bit more complex as a game than Gris was with the addition of combat, but the hand-drawn visuals are as striking as ever. Neva is coming to every major gaming platform later this year.
Civilization VII
The words “Sid Meier’s Civilization VII” speak for themselves. The legendary turn-based strategy series is back, and while the cinematic trailer didn’t have much in the way of useful info about the game itself, that doesn’t really matter. While the Civ franchise continues, all is right with the gaming world.
Civ VII is coming out next year.
Blumhouse Games
Blumhouse Productions, the studio known for bankrolling well-liked horror movies like M3GAN, is getting into the games business. The folks from Blumhouse showed off a little sizzle reel of neat-looking mostly horror-based games, including one that looks like Stardew Valley added a scary monster that lurks around your farm. Creators such as Sam Barlow and Brandon Cronenberg were also name-dropped in the announcement.
If you like horror and games that don’t have bloated budgets, this trailer is for you.
Slitterhead
Keiichiro Toyama is a distinguished video game creator who helped birth a few popular franchises, but most relevant to this announcement is the fact that he created Silent Hill. His new game is called Slitterhead and it got a fresh gameplay reveal at SGF this year. It looks like…a lot.
As far as we can tell, players can jump between the bodies of various human bystanders in dark city streets and alleyways while fighting and/or running from horrifying nightmare creatures. The combat looks a little clunky for our tastes, but many Silent Hill fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
Slitterhead launches on Nov. 8 for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series consoles.
Cairn
Cairn is the latest work from one of the best-named development studios on all of gaming, The Game Bakers. The makers of two wildly different (but both very cool) indie games in Furi and Haven are back with something that looks, well, totally unlike what they’ve made before.
While Furi was a sweaty action game and Haven was a more peaceful outer space take on Romeo & Juliet, Cairn is a game about climbing up a mountain. A very dangerous-looking mountain, at that.
Wanderstop
Wanderstop is the newest game from creator Davey Wreden, best known for two metatextual narrative adventures called The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide. His new game looks wildly different from those two, in that it appears to be about running a peaceful cartoon tea shop in a fantasy world and doing chores.
Of course, there will almost assuredly be some kind of wild twist that up-ends the whole thing. We can’t wait to find out what it is when Wanderstop launches on PS5 and PC later this year.
Alan Wake II DLC
Alan Wake II was the best video game of 2023. There is DLC for it coming out this weekend, on June 8. It has three new playable characters, one of whom is Jesse Faden, star of Control, which was the best game of 2019. That’s a lot of good things happening at once.
Skate
Electronic Arts announced a couple years ago that it was reviving its long-dormant series of skating simulations, Skate, in a free-to-play format. Very little news followed in the two years since, but now Skate fans have a new trailer — starring the always-fun-to-see Tim Robinson.
There was really only a tiny bit of gameplay shown, and the trailer is very clear about the fact that Skate is still a work in progress. But the good news is there will be console play tests this fall.
Phantom Blade Zero
Phantom Blade Zero was first announced last year, but a new gameplay trailer at SGF made it clear that fans of high-octane action games should pay attention. In short, it looks like a game for people who want highly skill-based samurai combat with very violent finishing moves.
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The annual Summer Game Fest keynote gave us at least a few cool games to look forward to.
