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Horror, space marines, and paper mache highlight Sony’s Gamescom reveals

Adam Rosenberg
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aliens horror paper cutouts highlight sonys playstation reveals gamescom until dawn
Image used with permission by copyright holder
PlayStation fans have a lot to look forward to between now and the end of 2015. We don’t know exactly when all of this is supposed to arrive, but Sony revealed a whole slew of upcoming PlayStation titles during its Gamescom 2014 press conference. We’ve already looked at a few of them a little more closely, but here’s a rundown of some of the exciting offerings that we missed.

First off, Until Dawn is really real, and it’s really coming to PlayStation 4. The horror title from Supermassive Games was announced ages ago. Featuring a script from Hollywood’s own Larry Fessenden (Habit, Wendigo), the story follows eight teenagers who head off to the mountains for a ski trip on the one year anniversary of their friend’s death. Terrible things happen from there.

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The first-person perspective game was originally revealed as a Move-powered game for PlayStation 3. Keep your eye on this one, folks. It’s coming to PlayStation 4 in 2015, and you can bet that Sony is at least looking into the possibility of offering it up as an early Project Morpheus game. There’s still no release date for the PlayStation’s VR headset, but if ever there was a game that was ripe for a VR treatment, Until Dawn is it.

In related news, Sony also confirmed that Journey and The Unfinished Swan are coming to PS4 sometime before the end of 2014. Both of those games, along with Until Dawn, were previously pegged for a PS4 release after a mistakenly posted Gamescom title list was quickly scrubbed from the Internet.

Not enough horror for you? Take a look at P.T., the newly announced PlayStation Network title that’s got an interactive teaser available right now in the PlayStation Store. Little is known of the game from newcomer 7780s Studio, but it certainly seems to be creeping people out.

We’ll be taking a closer look at the interactive trailer soon, but you can get some brief, disorienting glimpses of the game in this teaser that ran during the Gamescom press briefing.

Moving on, we turn our attention to The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which was previously revealed as a PC release. It doesn’t appear to be strictly a horror game, but a spooky atmosphere definitely pervades what we’ve seen so far. It’s a mystery game, so expect to use your noggin while playing, rather than wiping away cold sweats.

Ethan Carter comes to PS4 in 2015, but PC gamers get to play it first. Developer The Astronauts expects to kick off pre-orders very soon, and the game will be out before the end of 2014. Seems like a perfect candidate for an October release, no?

Take a look.

If you’re not a fan of things that go bump in the night, take heart. It’s not just horror and fear in Sony’s upcoming PlayStation games crop. Housemarque, the studio behind the wonderful twin-stick zombie shooter Dead Nation (also Resogun and Super Stardust HD), has another game of shooty shooty lined up for PlayStation 4: Alienation.

All we’ve got to go on at this point is a trailer, but Alienation appears to be a space marine shooter in which a player (or players) take on hordes of alien beasties. There’s both competitive (invade other players’ games!) and cooperative play, as well as a whole mess of particle effects. Unfortunately, it seems that Alienation has no relation to the wonderful, unforgettable Alien Nation. We won’t hold that against Housemarque though.

Let’s put all the serious business aside for a bit and look at something that’s a bit more whimsical. LittleBigPlanet creator Media Molecule is no stranger to wit and whimsy, as evidenced in both LBP and the studio’s PS Vita hit, Tearaway. In fact, if you liked Tearaway and you own a PS4, then this one’s for you.

Tearaway Unfolded is coming to PS4 in 2015. It’s not a direct port of 2013’s game, since all those Vita-specific controls wouldn’t work with a DualShock 4. Instead, Media Molecule took the opportunity to rework its Vita game for the console’s controller, coming up with a whole new set of interactivity tricks that make use of the DualShock’s lightbar, motion-sensing capabilities, and touchpad. Take a peek.

Thomas Was Alone has been a popular item on PlayStation devices, and creator Mike Bithell (not Bit-Hell) isn’t done working with Sony yet. His next game, Volume, is coming in 2015, and it’s now confirmed as a “first on PlayStation” release, making it a timed exclusive.

Volume is a stealth game that finds its inspiration in Bithell’s memories of playing the original Metal Gear Solid. The game’s he crafting features a modern-day story spun from the legend of Robin Hood, and everything we’ve seen so far looks very promising. Not unexpected from the guy behind Thomas Was Alone.

Media Molecule isn’t the only longtime PlayStation mainstay that made an appearance during the Gamescom showcase. Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert stepped up in front of the audience to reveal the studio’s next game, which is a collaboration with SCE Worldwide Studios. Shockingly, it is not a Pixeljunk game.

Called The Tomorrow Children, the game is set in a world in which almost all life on Earth has disappeared following a failed experiment that was meant to join all of the planet’s people in some sort of giant mind-meld. The result is an empty space known as “the Void,” which players explore by creating “projection clones” in one of several classes. You equip your clones with different skills and tools, then send them off to explore the Void, gather resources, and rebuild what was lost.

It sounds a little bit Minecraft, but the look is totally unto itself. Check it out here.

Finally we come to Hollowpoint from Ruffian Games, the first game that will be released under Sony’s partnership with publisher Paradox Interactive. The indie publisher also revealed the title Runemaster as the second planned release in the partnership, but no other details were shared.

Hollowpoint is a 2D side-scrolling cooperative action game set in the 22nd century. Players oversee an organization that works with corporate mercenaries, who are dispatched on missions with up to three other players at their side. It’s coming to PC and PS4 in 2015.

But wait! There’s more!

It’s also worth mentioning that Bohemia Interactive’s Dean “Rocket” Hall, the creator of DayZ, stepped up in front of the Gamescom crowd to confirm that the standalone version of his popular persistent world zombie sim (it started life as an ArmA 2 mod) will be coming to PlayStation 4… eventually. There wasn’t any trailer, nor was there a release date, just a promise of some zombie-mashing PlayStation action enhanced by souped up visuals.

What this means for Sony Online Entertainment’s strikingly similar persistent world zombie sim H1Z1 remains to be seen. There’s so little info available on either of these games, it’s anyone’s guess what’s happening with them. Stay tuned for more when we hear it.

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Adam Rosenberg
Adam Rosenberg
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…
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