Sony’s got the video game industry in a speculative froth with a week and a half to go before it’s big press conference in New York. The PlayStation company is expected to reveal the PlayStation 4, possible named Orbis, on February 20. A brief video teasing the event promised that the future of the PlayStation name will be the topic of the day. Two weeks later, some of Sony’s key game making partners are starting to tease new announcements on their own. The PlayStation 4 may be announced alongside new games from the people behind LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm, and Killzone.
For starters, LittleBigPlanet creator Media Molecule added a teaser for a new title on its website. Sitting alongside its famous platformers, Rag Doll Kung Fu, and PS Vita exclusive Tearaway is a new page for “?,” which links to a thirty year-old MTV video for Toyah’s “It’s a Mystery.“
Video Gamer meanwhile claims that Killzone 4 will be a PlayStation 4 launch title. According to the site’s source, series creator Guerilla Games is still in charge of its franchise and will show off footage of the game at Sony’s event. Sony famously announced Killzone 2 alongside the PlayStation 3 in 2005, claiming that pre-rendered footage of the game was actually in-game footage.
Also shown at the PlayStation 3’s debut was target footage for the company’s off-road racing series MotorStorm. Evolution Studios, creator of the MotorStorm series, is also hinting at a PlayStation 4 title in the works. MotorStorm RC director Paul Rustchynsky took to Twitter to count down to Sony’s event on Sunday, exclaiming, “10 days!” As noted by Eurogamer, Evolution’s Simon Barlow is currently working on a “AAA first-party exclusive title” according to his LinkedIn profile.
Evolution Studios, Guerilla Games, and Media Molecule are just the most recent of Sony’s first-party partners to start hinting at PlayStation 4 projects. Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain creator Quantic Dream registered the domain name SingularityPS4.com in November 2012. Previous Quantic Dream websites bear the platform name in the title, including BeyondPS3.com and HeavyRainPS3.com. Particularly interesting about this is that it suggests that Sony will in fact stick with the PlayStation numbering rather than changing the name to Orbis.
