Arrowhead Game Studios (Magicka, Gauntlet, Helldivers)

Testament
In 2016, Arrowhead started to work on their first ever AAA game - a project that would require not only the attention of the entire team, but also to grow the studio way beyond the 35 employees that worked on Arrowhead around that time. That's why in 2017 they moved into a bigger office where they could accommodate all of their staff - both old and new.
Then in 2018, Arrowhead's co-founder stated in an interview that they were making a third-person game this time around and, due to the change in perspective, moving the focus from local co-op to making it purely online co-op. Friendly fire is confirmed to be making a return.
In early 2019, some Arrowhead developers were spotted at GDC wearing jackets with a "Testament Dev Team" written in the back. While recapping 2019, it was stated on the Arrowhead website that they had made a "butt-ton of progress" on the game and that by the end of the year the studio had already grown to roughly 60 people.

Bend Studio (Siphon Filter, Days Gone)

Days Gone
Days Gone ends on a cliffhanger, but so did The Order 1886 and, well, we all know how that ended up - so let's delve a bit deeper into why Days Gone 2 will be a thing.
In 2019, a couple of weeks before the game's launch, a Sony PR guy said that Days Gone was seen as a "franchise" in Sony's eyes, stating that "the goal is always to make a game that people love and want more of". One month later, the game came out and delivered some surprisingly solid numbers not only at launch but also throughout the year, thanks to the good word-of-mouth it had amongst the community.
According to snort_cannon, the success of the game came as a surprise even to Sony, who was expecting Days Gone to be the disappointment and Death Stranding being the one doing crazy numbers.
Later that year, Bend Studio managing director Chris Reese kind of teased that a sequel was in the works when asked about it during an interview: "This is a world that we want to keep breathing more life into, and explore many, many different avenues. So who knows, we'll see!"

Bluepoint Games (Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, Demon's Souls)

Bloodborne Remastered
In May 2020, NeoGAF user Celine.D.Sykes - who previously discussed this project in February 2019 on the ResetEra forums - talked about the Bloodborne remaster in greater detail: "During my time on ResetEra, I only knew that From Software wanted Bloodborne to release on PC. Unfortunately, a PC port would need a lot of work […] and reworking Bloodborne's engine would take a great amount of work. The game logic is tied to framerate, among many other baffling decisions. The last time From Software tried to change the inner logic of an engine; it resulted in the infamous PC port of the first Dark Souls."
"Making a long story short, Sony said they were interested in a potential Bloodborne remaster for PS5, with a lot more work done, like some QoL added and some cut-content being introduced. Both From Software and Sony agreed to not just up the resolution and the framerate, but to make something great. FromSoftware has been authorized to release the game on PC, but only some months after the remaster hits PS5."
"Last time I heard about it, Bloodborne remaster would be part of PS5 line-up, but I don't quite believe it since I think the spotlight will be stolen by another similar title [Demon's Souls] that should be announced in June. I think they might save the Bloodborne remaster for some months after PS5 release, but I could be wrong about that particular point."
According to another report by a different source, the game is being developed by both QLOC - the studio behind 2018's Dark Souls: Remastered - and Bluepoint Games. Now that Demon's Souls is out and considering how far along Bloodborne Remastered has been reported to be, I wouldn't be surprised if it is currently planned to be revealed at The Game Awards.
Unannounced
On November 20th 2020, in response to a user who claimed that the rumored Bluepoint acquisition by Sony would be very boring as far as hype goes, KatharsisT said: "If you knew what Bluepoint is on at the moment, you wouldn't say that (Yeah, it's a hype post [and] you'll have to wait to know what it is)". Shortly after that, a mod stepped in to say that "KatharsisT has shown sufficient evidence to support this claim."
A couple of posts later, MarsipanRumpan - the guy behind the Bluepoint acquisition rumor - also backed the statements made by KatharsisT "I’m totally on your side. Talked with my source, I think we have the same info regarding their next remake. People who aren’t hyped for Bluepoint don’t know what their next project is as you said. Because that shit is [mindblowing]."
Regarding the rumors of a Metal Gear Solid remake, all I'm gonna say is: don't listen to what Moore's Law is Dead and other youtubers are saying, it is all bullshit; but at the same time don't lose faith, as chances of Bluepoint's next remake being MGS are high, considering how it seems they're working on a bigger and more prestigious title than Demon's Souls and also the good relationship Sony currently has with Konami.

From Software (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Deráciné)

Unannounced
A couple of weeks ago, MarsipanRumpan - the guy who recently reported about Bluepoint's acquisition on ResetEra - said that he has heard that Sony is in talks with From Software regarding the making of a new PS5 exclusive directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. This would be the third game From has currently in their pipeline, with Elden Ring and a new Armored Core being the other two.
MarsipanRumpan also clarified that it will be a while before we see this new game in motion anyway.

Guerrilla Games (Killzone, Horizon)

Unannounced
In February 2018, Simon Larouche - former multiplayer designer on Killzone 2, R6 Patriots and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, as well as game director on R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as game director, starting to work on an unannounced project completely unrelated to the Horizon sequel (now known as Forbidden West), which was also in development at the time. Then in July, Hermen Hulst announced plans for Guerrilla to move into a new, bigger office where they could expand their staff count from 250 to 400 people, allowing them to make games faster and release a new title every two to three years.
In October 2018, Chris Lee - former multiplayer designer on several SOCOM titles at Slant Six Games and on Ubisoft's R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as principal game designer on Larouche's project. Apart from the fact that Lee's hiring makes it pretty clear that Guerrilla's second team is working on a shooter game of some sorts, it's worth pointing out that Lee lists "cooperative and competitive multiplayer, open world systemic gameplay and online social experiences" as his current interests on his LinkedIn profile - with the open world bit being especially interesting as it was also mentioned in certain job listings for the project in 2019.
In August 2020, Guerrilla finally moved to their new office, which means the studio is now ready to begin large-scale recruiting on its second project once they see it fit - although I don't expect to hear about this project until after the release of Forbidden West in the second half of 2021.

Insomniac Games (Resistance, Ratchet & Clank, Marvel's Spider-Man)

Marvel's Spider-Man 2
The recently released Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales entered development in May 2018 under the direction of Brian Horton, while Bryan Intihar was finishing up his work on the original Marvel's Spider-Man, which came out in September of that year. So right after wrapping up the first game and with Miles Morales in the hands of a separate team, Intihar started preparing the next main entry in the series as teased in January 2019 when he posted on Twitter "Few things are more nerve-wracking than sharing your first story draft to others."

Japan Studio (Gravity Rush, The Last Guardian, Astro)

RaySpace
Sometime in spring 2014, a couple of weeks before E3, Reddit user Ruin4r leaked a number of titles in development exclusively for PS4, including a new God of War, The Last Guardian, a The Last Of Us sequel, Dead Don't Ride (later confirmed to be Days Gone's codename) and an "unnamed space game" - which by the way wasn't Santa Monica Studio's cancelled new IP for PS4, as that project was axed earlier that year.
A year later, Shuhei Yoshida stated in an interview at E3 2015 that "Japan Studio is now producing a really great project that I'm really excited about" - which also wasn't Gravity Rush 2, as that title was referenced as a different project later in the interview.
In April 2016, Ruin4r said that all the games previously teased by him were still in development and clarified that many of them - God of War, TLOU2, Days Gone and the "unnamed space game" - were in early stages when he first talked about them.
Then on June 6th 2016, during a livestream in celebration of Famitsu's 30th Anniversary, SIE's Yasuhiro Kitao teased a a new title to Famitsu's editor-in-chief Katsuhio Hayashi by letting him read some text from his tablet, as Kitao didn't have any images to show. Hayashi was blown away by whatever thing he read and stated that "this will definitely be worth waiting for."
In December 2017, SIE trademarked "RaySpace" in Canada - which most probably was the final title for the "unnamed space game" mentioned by Ruin4r. That same month, Japan Studio's award-winning creative director Tsutomu Kouno stated in an interview "I have not been able to announce a new title in a long time, but in 2018, I would like to announce what I am preparing". Japan Studio producer Teruyuki Toriyama - who has been teasing this project since 2015, describing it in multiple occasions as an "ambitious title" - also promised an announcement in 2018.
Sometime in 2018, an interview to a Japan Studio employee was posted on the SIE website; in it there was an image that contained shots of two upcoming games in the background: the Demon's Souls remake (top right corner) and some sort of sci-fi first-person game.
But 2018 went by without any sort of reveal regarding this project and in December, Toriyama once again teased an announcement for the coming year "In 2019, we are preparing for the debut of unannounced title(s) currently in production". It is worth noting that Japan Studio didn't reveal any new games in 2019.
I doubt that RaySpace was cancelled, as you don't pull the plug on a project that has been in the works for four or five years and was so close to being revealed. So what I believe is that they decided to move it to PlayStation 5 - just like they did with other projects such as Sackboy: A Big Adventure or Horizon: Forbidden West - and maybe even bring it back to the drawing table a little - which would explain why we haven't seen it this year during the PS5 reveal events.
Silent Hill
In 2018, Konami reached out to various developers to pitch ideas for two Silent Hill games: one a soft-reboot of the franchise; the other an episodic Telltale/Until Dawn-style game to go alongside the reboot. In fact, one of the studios contacted by Konami was Supermassive Games, creators of Until Dawn, although they ultimately didn't get the job.
Japan Studio's creative director Keiichiro Toyama, who had been wanting to work on a new horror game for quite some time, was developing a new entry in the Siren franchise at the time. Sony, who weren't fully keen on the idea of investing on a niche series such as Siren, decided to pull the plug on the project as they started negotiating a deal with Konami for getting Japan Studio to work on the Silent Hill soft-reboot - a prestige project for the PS5 lineup based on a globally renowned IP, something that would allow Toyama to have a bigger budget and more resources at his disposal.
Eventually the deal would get finalized, putting Sony Interactive Entertainment in charge of developing, funding and publishing the title in exchange for keeping the exclusive and most of the revenue, with Konami being indirectly involved by outsourcing the IP against an 8% of the revenue. And that way, the game entered development in early 2019, salvaging as much from the technological work done for the Siren game as possible.
At some point in 2019, an interview to a Japan Studio employee posted on the SIE website showed a developer working on a handgun model - something that, if we consider the other projects Japan Studio has in the pipeline, would only align with Silent Hill.
On January 21st 2020, Rely on Horror reported that they've heard from a source of their own that a new Silent Hill game was in development. A day later, movie industry insider Emre Kaya posted on Twitter that he has learned that Sony is working on a new horror game for PS5.
On March 12th 2020, Rely on Horror stated that Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and creature designer Masahiro Ito are returning alongside the series creator Keiichiro Toyama to helm a soft-reboot of the franchise developed by Japan Studio, just called Silent Hill. Both of their sources mentioned Sony as the driving force behind bringing the series back. That same day, Emre Kaya said on Twitter that this was the Sony horror game that he talked about back in January.
In April 2020, ResetEra user KatharsisT backed Rely on Horror's information regarding the Silent Hill soft-reboot and confirmed a third-person perspective and that the game was playable already. She also said that it is planned to be announced before PS5's launch, with a release in spring 2021 - although these reveal and release windows were from before COVID started to fuck up their schedule. Shortly after, a mod stepped into the discussion to state that they've verified her information on the subject.
In May 2020, Reddit user snort_cannon, who had already discussed the game months ago, said that "the game was planned on being shown off this summer. Unless something bad happens, it should happen. The plan at first was just to do a CG trailer to announce that the game exists, but I personally think at this point [they] might delay the reveal and add some gameplay footage as well". When asked about his sources, he answered "Same source that told me about the Sony deal, albeit last update came in early February and COVID didn’t rampage as hard as it’s going now."
On August 3rd 2020, ResetEra user Navtra, who leaked a list of games that went on to be present on both PS5 events days in advance to June's The Future of Gaming, commented on the Silent Hill rumors "I can only confirm one thing: it was never on the table for June's event. FFXVI and Marvel's Avengers Spider-Man character announcement were among other things that were supposed to be there and were moved last minute. Silent Hill never was". If we look at both KatharsisT and snort_cannon's comments in regards to the reveal window for the game after having learned this, it becomes clear that the reveal was initially planned for the second PS5 event, that being September's PS5 Showcase - an event that the game missed because of delays in production related to the COVID pandemic.
On October 31st 2020, KatharsisT stated that something had just made her expect a reveal at The Game Awards. A couple of days later, Rely on Horror reported that recent rumors of a Silent Hill announcement at The Game Awards line up with some information they received a while back but choose not to report on.
On November 21st 2020, KatharsisT once again teased a Silent Hill reveal at The Game Awards "You'll celebrate it before the end of the year if everything goes as planned" while also stating that she thinks the game is still planned for 2021.

London Studio (The Getaway, PlayStation VR Worlds, Blood & Truth)

Horizon VR
On October 2019, VR consultant Callum Hurley posted on Twitter that he had learned about an "exciting new PlayStation VR game coming out of London Studio" through someone who had just playtested the title. He also vaguely implied it was a Horizon VR game and, when news outlets started to report on his tweets, he apologized to the development team as he didn't expect such coverage.
Same as the unannounced VR titles from Supermassive Games, I do expect this Horizon VR game to be a cross-gen release sometime next year.

MediaVision (Wild Arms, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Valkyria Chronicles 4)
Wild Arms

In July 2018, we've learned thanks to a job listing that MediaVision was working on a new PlayStation 4 RPG. It is worth noting that a year earlier Sony stated that, even though their investments have been mainly focused on titles aimed to a global audience do to the soaring in development costs, the success of recent titles such as Persona 5 or Nier Automata amongst overseas audiences has made them consider a return to first-party JRPG development.
Then in June 2019, DasVergeben posted on Reddit "Something I have heard for a while now is that a new Wild Arms game is in development but it has been over a year long journey getting that verified. I still struggle to get definite enough confirmation but I think it might have been because I heard about it too early". In a separate post, Vergeben added "I don't know much other than that it apparently is in development by Media Vision for PS4. I haven't been told anything specific yet at least. I do wonder if Sony might try and shift over to push it as a PS5 launch game or something if they don't reveal it this year [...] but that's simply speculation on my behalf."
At this point I expect the game to be a cross-gen release, as it wouldn't make sense to leave the PS4 users behind with a title that surely won't be a technological showcase unlike native PS5 games such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last Of Us)

The Last Of Us: Factions
On September 26th 2019, Naughty Dog posted a statement on Twitter in which they basically announced that the multiplayer mode they had planned for The Last Of Us: Part II had grown beyond an additional mode that could be included alongside the game's enormous singleplayer campaign, so they decided to turn it into a standalone game in order to not compromise on the ambitions of the studio's multiplayer team.
Then in April 2020, a short gameplay clip from a March 2018 build of the multiplayer leaked online as part of a bigger leak that revealed tons of story spoilers and cutscenes from The Last Of Us: Part II. Assuming that this TLOU multiplayer game is planned for a release on both PS4 and PS5 sometime next year, we would be in front of a title with over four years of overall dev time - meaning that the project might be greater in scope than what most of us are expecting it to be.
Unannounced
On October 10th 2018, movie industry insider Daniel Ritchman reported that Naughty Dog was in the process of casting an actor to play the lead role on an upcoming game. According to the casting description, the studio was looking for a "Black/African American male, 40s to 60s, short to medium length hair, with a body type similar to those in the images below, strong but not chiseled". But since this doesn't tell us much about the game, apart from hinting at it being a new IP, let's go a little back in time in search of more potential details.
During the The Last Of Us: Part II panel at PSX 2017, Neil Druckmann stated that Naughty Dog will "forever continue to make singleplayer, linear, narrative-based games". He also mentioned during an interview from February 2018 that the studio was totally open to make a first-person game in the future - and, since they seem to be making a new IP, this new project might be the perfect time for them to try a different camera angle in their games.

New San Diego Studio
Unannounced

In April 2018, David Hall - former Double Helix/Amazon Game Studios - joins an unnamed SIE studio in San Diego as game director on an unannounced title. Since then, rumors about a new Sony first-party studio have been circulating due to a job listing - also from April - in which it was stated that "PlayStation is building a new game development team in partnership with the Visual Arts Service Group" to work on a "high visibility project" described as a third-person action/adventure game "developed in collaboration with a major Sony studio."
A month later, Quentin Cobb - former singleplayemultiplayer designer at Naughty Dog on the Uncharted series and The Last Of Us - also joins this new studio in San Diego and in December a new job listing mentions that the team was looking for a lead character artist to work on "the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In January 2019, James Martinchek - former cutscene/gameplay animator on The Last Of Us, Uncharted 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 - joins the studio as a lead gameplay animator. Also in January, Cobb was asked on Twitter why he couldn't even reveal what studio he was working for, to what he replied that "it is difficult to explain why" - further reinforcing the theory that Sony has assembled a secret studio in the San Diego area.
Then in November 2019, Sony announced their plans to set up a support studio in Malaysia and, just a couple of weeks ago, a job listing from SIE Malaysia unveils that they're currently working on "one of PlayStation's [most] well-known and well-loved franchises" for which they are looking for "talented, highly-motivated and creative animators to breathe life into the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In November 2020, both Quentin Cobb and John Bautista left the studio and the internet started to speculate that Sony had shut down the studio and cancelled the project, something that Bautista denied by stating that "the studio is still there and the project is still ongoing."

Santa Monica Studio (God of War)

Unannounced
On April 12th 2018, Cory Barlog spoke during an interview about his desire to work on a new IP "I really would love to create something of my own next. Something that really, really is truly 100% coming from my original vision. That would be awesome, but we have to see if I can convince Sony on that one". Over half a year later, in November, film director Duncan Jones - who had just met with Cory looking for his opinion regarding a certain script - said on Twitter that "If you think that God of War is [Cory’s] magnum opus, just you wait!"
Since then, little we've learned about the development of this project, other than the recent news that Alanah Pearce has joined Santa Monica Studio as a junior writer on, apparently, Cory's game. And I say that mainly because, while members of the team behind the next God of War were able to publicly announce their involvement in the making of said title on social media, Alanah is not allowed to reveal what she is working on over at SMS - that being due to the fact that, unlike the upcoming GOW game, Cory Barlog's new project hasn't been revealed yet.

Sucker Punch Productions (inFAMOUS, Ghost of Tsushima)

¿Ghost 2?
Look, I haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet, so I don't know how it ends or if it sets up a sequel or not - but a few weeks ago a job listing from Sucker Punch mentioned that the studio "is looking for a narrative writer for our upcoming projects" and that the ideal candidate would "have previous success as a game writer, outstanding dialogue skills and an excellent understanding of how to tell impactful, character-driven stories within a AAA open-world game" and also "knowledge of feudal Japanese history". That last bit kind of screams some sort of GOT sequel to me.

Supermassive Games (Until Dawn, Hidden Agenda, The Inpatient)

Unannounced Titles
In November 2018, Supermassive Games managing director Pete Samuels confirmed that the studio was "working on several unannounced PlayStation exclusives" and stated that their relationship with Sony "is still excellent", even though they choose another publisher for The Dark Pictures Anthology as they wanted to reach the widest possible audience.
What that might mean is that they wanna go the multiplatform route with their biggest titles - that being The Dark Pictures Anthology, their response to the requests of an Until Dawn sequel - while keeping the most experimental and smaller stuff exclusive to Google or Sony - meaning that these unannounced titles would probably be cross-gen PSVR games, as Jim Ryan stated that they will not be releasing VR titles exclusively for PS5 until the new headset comes out in a couple of years.

Wild Sheep Studio

WiLD
During Sony's GamesCom conference in 2014, Michel Ancel took the stage to introduce WiLD, a new PS4 exclusive developed by his recently formed indie studio. It was described as a title with an open-world "potentially as big as Europe", day and night cycles, dynamic weather and seasons, as well as a seamless online system, in which you could play not only as a human but also as any living creature. Ancel also stated that for the past year, the studio had been working very hard on the proprietary technology and tools they would be using in order to create this very specific type of game that was WiLD.
A year later, this time at Sony's Paris Games Week conference, Ancel showed a super early gameplay demo of WiLD. This was the last time we saw WiLD in action, as the information drops regarding this title started to slow down over the years - with most updates consisting of Sony denying cancellation rumors, trademark renewals or off-screen pictures of the game posted on Michel Ancel's Instagram.
The most notable piece of news from this period however, was an interview with WiLD producer Mitsuo Hirakawa from November 2017. During said interview, he stated "We are not going to rush [Michel Ancel] to make something that he doesn't want to compromise on." and then he followed "Even experienced developers make mistakes. We have to make mistakes to find the right choices for the design of the game and we want to provide [Wild Sheep Studio] with all the support necessary, so that's why things sometimes do take a lot longer than we expect but we feel that WiLD deserves the extra time and quality before it comes to public."
A creative that doesn't want to compromise on his vision? Mistakes that lead into things taking longer than expected? Call me crazy, but I think those statements are pointing directly to some heavy project mismanagement on Ancel's part, as we've seen reports of similar things happening during the development of Beyond: Good & Evil 2.
According to snort_cannon "[BG&E2] has been a mess behind the scenes for a pretty long time. To give you a rough idea of how bad it's going, the game was supposedly gonna come out next year [in 2021], but it's not even 50% done. I wouldn't be shocked, if we get an investigation article on its development troubles, soon". Which did in fact happened, as, a couple of months ago, national newspaper Libération published an article on BG&E2's troubled development "Ganesha City, which [he] asked us to do with a completely stupid level of detail, we only just finished it three years later, and we've had to redo it four or five times. Knowing that we have to do several planets, you can imagine the absurdity of this kind of reasoning." "When [Ancel] was spoking to the press, we were taking notes because [...] it could concern points on which we would have been stuck on for months, waiting for directions."
Moving onto something else, in July 2018, both Michel Ancel and Wild Sheep's CEO and art director Celine Tellier visited Guerrilla Games. This is interesting, because considering that WiLD went through some serious development hell difficulties, it is not farfetched to think that one of the solutions proposed by Sony to one of the several the problems the game was facing at the time was to drop the in-house engine that Wild Sheep was using up to that point and move the game over to DECIMA - the Guerrilla Games engine that has powered PS4 titles such as Killzone: Shadow Fall and Horizon: Zero Dawn but also Until Dawn and Death Stranding. Such a change could come in handy, especially when we take into account that, just like Horizon and Death Stranding, WiLD is an open-world title that takes place in natural environments.
On September 18th 2020, Michel Ancel announced his departure from the games industry and regarding Beyond: Good & Evil 2 and WiLD he stated that "since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon". Hopefully we get to see something next year.

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-3-pre-launch-guide/
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Welcome to the HITMAN 3 Pre-launch guide. This blog post will be our place to share in-depth details about HITMAN 3, including how to carryover your progression, our new Access Pass system, what to expect on launch day and more.
We are excited to see all of our players embark on Agent 47’s next journey and experience the dramatic conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy.
Before you start reading, this is how the game begins.

Release Details

HITMAN 3 will be available on 20 January 2021 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Stadia, Nintendo Switch and PC.
We’re happy to confirm that the Nintendo Switch version of HITMAN 3 will also launch on 20 January. The Switch version of HITMAN 3 is playable via cloud streaming technology. A stable and permanent internet connection is required to play.
Release Time HITMAN 3 will release simultaneously on all platforms at 13:00 UTC on 20 January 2021. To see the exact release time in your timezone, follow this link. This release time will ensure that the IOI teams in Copenhagen and Malmö are best-placed to ensure a smooth launch. At that time, digital copies will be available to play and the games servers will be online.
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Pre-load It will be possible to pre-load HITMAN 3 on PlayStation and Xbox platforms. Make sure that you’ve configured your console to do that and the downloads will begin when they have been prepared and certified. On PC, there won’t be a pre-load option for HITMAN 3 and downloads will begin at the above release time.
(For PS4 and PS5 owners in Asia, please note that HITMAN 3 will not be available for pre-order or pre-load. This is due to recent changes in the age ratings systems in those regions. HITMAN 3 will be available for purchase at the above time.)
Day One Patch HITMAN 3 will require a day one patch for all disc users. The day one patch will be automatically applied to digital players. This patch will include access to the VR mode for PlayStation users and will include the remaining locations that are not included on the disc.
Game Size HITMAN 3 will take up approximately 60-70 GB of storage space on all platforms, with the obvious exceptions of Stadia and Switch. The data that you download will also include all the content required to access HITMAN 1 and HITMAN 2 – but you are still required to own/purchase access to those games. To underline that; purchasing HITMAN 3 does not grant access to the previous two games by default.
Using this method allows us to reduce the file size for all players to 60-70 GB and has the benefit of making the process of redeeming or purchase access to HITMAN 1 and HITMAN 2 as simple as possible. (We talk about that more later). Also, we want to clarify that reducing the file size doesn’t mean that we’ve made any compromises on the visual/audio quality of the game. If you’re curious about the technical aspects that made this possible, we recently talked to PC Gamer about it.

HITMAN 3 - Editions

There are two editions of HITMAN 3; The Standard Edition and the Deluxe Edition.
– The Standard Edition includes the HITMAN 3 base game. Nice and simple. – The Deluxe Edition includes the HITMAN 3 base game and the Deluxe Pack. Again, nice and simple.
The only difference between the two editions is the Deluxe Pack, which includes 6 Deluxe Escalations, in-game suits, items and weapons, a digital soundtrack for each game in the World of Assassination trilogy, an introduction to each HITMAN 3 campaign mission by the Game Director and a digital artbook that highlights the characters, targets and missions included in the trilogy. A free IOI Account is required to download the digital soundtracks and World of HITMAN Art Book.
Here’s a visual look at everything that’s packed into the HITMAN 3 Deluxe Edition:
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Next-gen Upgrade Console players who pre-order or purchase a physical or digital copy of HITMAN 3 (either Standard or Deluxe) on the current generation of consoles (PS4/Xbox One), will receive a free upgrade to the next-gen version of the game for no additional cost. Note that you won’t be able to receive the next-gen upgrade if you purchase HITMAN 3 on disc and you own a disc-free next gen console.
When making a digital purchase, you will automatically be entitled to download the next-gen version when you access the game on that console.
When making a physical disc purchase, you’ll need to insert the current gen disc into your next gen console and you’ll be able to download the next-gen version for no additional cost. Simply keep the disc in your machine whenever you want to play and you’ll be good to go.
Pre-order Bonus The HITMAN 3 pre-order bonus celebrates all three games in the World of Assassination trilogy. Introducing the Trinity Pack. You’ll get it just by pre-ordering the game, no matter what platform or edition.
The Trinity Pack includes a total of 9 items, with 3 distinct sets that represent a different game from the trilogy. Each set includes a suit, briefcase and weapon. From the White of HITMAN 1, the Red of HITMAN 2 or the Black of HITMAN 3, you’ll have all 9 items in your inventory to mix and match as you like. The classic Hitman insignia is etched onto the items in gold to add an elegant flourish.
Note: The Trinity Pack will not be included with either the Standard Edition or Deluxe Edition after January 20.
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At selected retailers, pre-ordering a physical edition of HITMAN 3 will also include an exclusive physical passport. This unique item is filled with details and references from Agent 47’s career and commemorates 20 years of Hitman. See the list of retailers in our previous pre-order blog post.

Progression Carryover

All current HITMAN 2 players will be able to carryover their hard-earned progression into HITMAN 3.
After completing the carryover process, HITMAN 2 players will be able to start HITMAN 3 with their existing player profile, XP rank, location mastery levels, location mastery unlocks, challenge progress, challenge unlocks and Elusive Target suits/unlocks. All of those things are what we call ‘progression’. It’s not possible to pick and choose elements to carryover. It’s all or nothing.
The carryover process requires an IOI Account and can only be done through a web browser, it’s not possible to do it in-game. We will have the website ready to go before launch, but it is not live yet. Once it is ready, we will share the news via ioi.dk and update this post.
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Here’s more about how it will work:
– Progression can only be carried over from HITMAN 2, including progression you have from the Legacy Pack (HITMAN 1 locations within HITMAN 2).
– Progression can only be carried over from within the same platform. There are only three options:
HITMAN 2 (PlayStation) → HITMAN 3 (PlayStation) HITMAN 2 (Xbox) → HITMAN 3 (Xbox) HITMAN 2 (PC/Steam) → HITMAN 3 (PC/Epic)
Note: “PlayStation” = PS4, PS4 Pro and PS5. “Xbox” = Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
Essentially, it doesn’t matter what specific console you have earned progression on. It only matters that progression can only move forward and within the same console ‘family’.
– Progression carryover is a one-time process, meaning once you have performed a carryover for a particular platform, you will not be able to do so again at a later time.
– If you have played HITMAN 2 on multiple platforms, you CAN perform a carryover for EACH of those profiles, but only within the same platform, as listed above. For example, if you play H2 on Xbox and PlayStation, you can carryover your H2 Xbox progression into H3 Xbox and independently carryover your H2 PlayStation progress into H3 PlayStation.
– When you complete the carryover process, your existing HITMAN 2 progress will remain as it is (i.e it will not be removed/deleted). However, your progression in H2 and H3 will NOT be synchronised.
– If you have already started playing HITMAN 3 and THEN choose to perform the progression carryover process, you will lose all progression earned within HITMAN 3 up to that point. We recommend you carryover progress before starting HITMAN 3.
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What exactly will be carried over?
When you start the process, you will need to select an account that you have linked to your IOI Account. You will then be able to review the HITMAN 2 progress earned on that account and confirm that you want to perform the carryover process into HITMAN 3.
The following progression will be included in the carryover process: player profile, XP rank, location mastery levels, location mastery unlocks, challenge progress, challenge unlocks and Elusive Target suits/unlocks. Savegame files are not carried over.
Note that there are a small amount of items/unlocks that are not carried over through this process, such as the rewards unlocked through the HITMAN 1 GOTY Escalations, becuase they are linked to a purchase. Those items will be available in HITMAN 3 when you redeem access to the associated content. In addition, the ICA Electrocution Phone has been retired and will not be available in HITMAN 3.
HITMAN 3 on Stadia On Stadia, all progression that players have earned in Hitman: World of Assassination (from both H1 and H2) will automatically ‘carryover’ to HITMAN 3. For additional clarity, Stadia and PC are two different platforms and progress cannot be shared or carried over between them.
HITMAN 3 on Nintendo Switch Progression carryover is not possible on Nintendo Switch because HITMAN 2 is not available on that platform as a standalone game.

Access Pass FAQ

HITMAN 3 allows players to access locations from the previous games in the trilogy (H1 and H2) and play them all under one roof. Essentially, we have setup H1 and H2 as DLC for HITMAN 3. You can buy or redeem/download an Access Pass and get access to its content within H3. For example, if you buy the HITMAN 2 Standard Access Pass DLC for HITMAN 3, you’ll get access to the locations and missions included in the HITMAN 2 Standard Edition within HITMAN 3.
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In addition to the option of purchasing an Access Pass, it is also possible to redeem/download an Access Pass for no additional cost, if you have already purchased that content from the same store that you have pre-ordered or purchased HITMAN 3.
To make this happen, we detect what you already have installed for HITMAN 2 and can make the corresponding Access Pass available for no additional cost on the same store. Note: If you only own HITMAN 1, you will need to import that content into HITMAN 2 first, via the instructions in our Legacy Pack FAQ.
This process will work between console generations. For example, if you own HITMAN 2 on PS4, you’ll be able to download the HITMAN 2 Access Pass DLC in HITMAN 3 for both PS4 and PS5. The same applies for the Xbox family of consoles as well.
We know that’s a lot of information, but once you’ve seen all of the Access Pass options, and there are five in total, it will make more sense.
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HITMAN 1 GOTY Access Pass Includes: Locations and missions currently available in the HITMAN 1 GOTY Edition: ICA Facility, Paris, Sapienza, Marrakesh, Bangkok, Colorado, Hokkaido, 3x GOTY Escalations and rewards and 4x Patient Zero campaign missions
How to get it – Consoles: If you have previously downloaded the HITMAN 1 Legacy Pack, HITMAN 1 GOTY Legacy Pack or HITMAN 1 GOTY Upgrade for HITMAN 2, you will be able to download it for no additional cost. (Yes, that’s a free upgrade to the GOTY Edition if you only own the Standard Edition of H1!). The price for this Access Pass will be listed as ‘free’ when you look for it in the store. – Disc: If you own a version of H1 on disc, you must follow the process in the Legacy Pack FAQ to access that content in HITMAN 2 – and then redeem this Access Pass.
– PC (Epic): If you pre-purchase or purchase HITMAN 3 on EGS within the first 10 days of launch, you will be granted the HITMAN 1 GOTY Access Pass for no additional charge. In addition, if you own or redeemed a free copy of HITMAN – The Complete First Season on EGS when it was available for free, you will be able to download this Access Pass at any time after purchasing HITMAN 3.
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HITMAN 2 Standard Access Pass Includes: Locations and missions currently available in the HITMAN 2 Standard Edition: Hawke’s Bay, Miami, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai, Whittleton Creek, Isle of Sgail, plus 1x Sniper Assassin map: Himmelstein
How to get it – Consoles: If you own a digital copy of HITMAN 2 Standard Edition or HITMAN 2 SilveGold, you will be able to download this Access Pass for no additional cost. The price for this Access Pass will be listed as ‘free’ when you look for it in the store.
– Disc: [See below]
– PC (Epic): As HITMAN 2 is not available on EGS, we have set up an 80% discount for this Access Pass for the first 14 days after HITMAN 3’s launch.
HITMAN 2 Standard Access Pass [DISC] Includes: Locations and missions currently available in the HITMAN 2 Standard Edition: Hawke’s Bay, Miami, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai, Whittleton Creek, Isle of Sgail, plus 1x Sniper Assassin map: Himmelstein
How to get it – Consoles: If you own a physical disc copy of HITMAN 2 Standard Edition, you will be able to download this Access Pass for no additional cost through the HITMAN 2 in-game store. (You will see the full listing price if you look for the Access Pass in the PS/Xbox store as a disc owner.) On Xbox, you also need to own a digital copy of either HITMAN 3 or the HITMAN 2 Free Starter Pack before navigating to the in-game store.
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HITMAN 2 Gold Access Pass Includes: Locations and missions currently available in the HITMAN 2 Gold Edition: Hawke’s Bay, Miami, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai, Whittleton Creek, Isle of Sgail, New York, Haven Island, plus 3x Sniper Assassin maps: Himmelstein, Hantu Port, Siberia and 4x Special Assignments.
How to get it – Consoles: If you own a digital copy of HITMAN 2 Gold Edition, you will be able to download this Access Pass for no additional cost. The price for this Access Pass will be listed as ‘free’ when you look for it in the store. – Disc: If you bought HITMAN 2 Gold Edition on Disc, it will have included a download code for the HITMAN 2 Expansion Pass; you need to use that to get access to the content from the Gold Edition. See below. – PC (Epic): As HITMAN 2 is not available on EGS, we have set up an 80% discount for this Access Pass for the first 14 days after HITMAN 3’s launch. It will also grant access to the HITMAN 2 Expansion Access Pass.
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HITMAN 2 Expansion Access Pass Includes: Locations and missions currently available in the HITMAN 2 Expansion Pass: New York, Haven Island, plus 3x Sniper Assassin maps: Himmelstein, Hantu Port, Siberia and 4x Special Assignments.
How to get it – Consoles: If you own a digital copy of HITMAN 2 Gold Edition, you will be able to download this Access Pass for no additional cost. The price for the Access Pass will be listed as ‘free’ when you look for it in the store. – Disc: If you own a physical copy of HITMAN 2 Gold Edition, you will be able to download this Access Pass for no additional cost because a download code for the HITMAN 2 Expansion Pass was included in the box. If you have redeemed that code, the price for this Access Pass will be listed as ‘free’ when you look for it in the store.
HITMAN 3 Access Pass on PC We’ve done everything possible to make this process smooth and player-friendly. However, due to various circumstances out of our control, we want to acknowledge that the process is different to our initial plans for PC players. We also want to share some of the initiatives we’ve set-up to make sure that PC players the chance to keep enjoying the benefits of the World of Assassination.

• The HITMAN 1 GOTY Access Pass will be available to claim in the first 10 days after launch for anyone who purchases (or has pre-ordered) any edition of HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store.
• Owners of HITMAN 1 on EGS (including all players who claimed it when it was available for free in August) will get a free upgrade to the HITMAN 1 GOTY Access Pass at any time after purchasing HITMAN 3.
• The HITMAN 2 Standard Access Pass and HITMAN 2 Gold Access Pass will be 80% off for 14 days after the launch of HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store and will continue to be discounted regularly.

Our hope is that these initiatives help to ensure all HITMAN 3 PC players can able to enjoy the new game with full access to HITMAN 1 and their progression carried over as a minimum.
HITMAN 3 Access Pass on Stadia Due to the convenient set-up of HITMAN 1-3 on Stadia, the Access Pass system is not required. Players will continue to have access to the locations they already own through Hitman: World of Assassination, or can purchase the games that they don’t own through the Stadia Store.
HITMAN 3 Access Pass on Switch HITMAN 3 is the first game in the trilogy to be available on Switch. As such, each relevant Access Pass is available for purchase through the HITMAN 3 in-game store.

HITMAN VR

At launch, HITMAN 3 will support PS VR and all locations in the World of Assassination trilogy can be experienced in a new first-person perspective. Yes, that means you can traverse the outside of the tallest building in the (Hitman) world in PS VR! If you own the previous games from the trilogy on PS4, you can also access locations from them within HITMAN 3. That’s more than 20 Hitman locations from the World of Assassination trilogy to enjoy in PS VR.
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You can either play HITMAN 3 in PS VR natively on your PS4 or via backward compatibility on PS5. To make sure all PS VR owners can experience the game in VR, we’re including a free digital copy of the PS4 version of HITMAN 3 with all PS5 copies, whether you choose to buy it via disc or digital.
If you are playing on PS5, your progress between the PS4 (VR) and PS5 (non-VR) versions is shared between the two versions. You’ll be able to play the non-VR version of HITMAN 3 on PS5 with the next-gen improvements that we support (including Dual Sense support!) and then switch to the PS4 version for VR and all of your items and unlocks will be right there waiting for you. You will need to have both versions of the game installed on your PS5 to make that happen.
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Whether you play on PS4 or PS5, a DUALSHOCK®4 wireless controller is required to play HITMAN 3 in VR. Playing HITMAN 3 in VR on PS5 also requires a PlayStation Camera adaptor. For full details on the requirements for playing PS VR on your PS5, including how to order a free PlayStation Camera adaptor, see the official PlayStation PS VR site.

More to come

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We have got our sights firmly set on January 20 and our entire team is doing everything in our power to make the launch of HITMAN 3 as successful as possible. It’s an incredibly exciting time for us to be so close to releasing our next game, as well as deliver the dramatic conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy.
Please keep the conversation going on Twitter, Discord, Reddit and in HitmanForum and be excellent to each other.
The World of Assassination awaits…

Background

If you don't care about all this and want to go straight to the advice you can skip to section 2.
Hi guys, just wanted to share some insight on my road to grinding support to GM and to give some free advice for players wanting to improve. Here's the Proof that I hit GM if anybody was curious.
Just wanted to start by saying that I started off in low gold on my main account back in season 9. I didn't hit Masters until season 16 where I was stuck around the 3.4k-3.6k range until I hit GM on tank in season 23. After that, I wanted to practice support and made a new account so I could start from the ground up and so I wouldn't ruin other people's games because my support was probably not at a high masters/low GM level yet. Overwatch is also the first FPS competitive game I took seriously.
To help supplement my practice I watched coaching VOD reviews of Ana, Zen, and Bap and some unranked to GM VODs of people like ML7 and epicenzo. Then I would write down a couple of things that I needed to work on for each hero. I am by no means an amazing player, but through focused practice and time, I was able to hit GM on support. Hoping this post helps aspiring support players who feel stuck in their rank.
I also chose to not be in team chat for most of games because I really just wanted to focus on my mechanics and decision making without having to listen to other people complain. My experience in ranked is that I don't hear actual useful callouts until mid to high masters, but even at that rank I still didn't join voice. If you're hardcore, "you must be in voice chat, it's a team game!" kind of person then...I'm sorry?

1 - Controls and Settings for Console

If you are a PC player you can skip this section.
Make sure to have all allied health bars on! This will show the HP of teammates at all times and is a very useful piece of information for all support players. It will help dictate healing priorities and who needs healing certain situtations.
I'm sure some of you are curious about the specific console settings I use because it can be confusing. Here is a video explaining the differences between all the settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG1P2RsgBbM
Dual Zone
Horizontal Sens: 70
Vertical sens: 65
Aim Assist Strength: 100
Aim Assist Window Size: 50
Aim Assist Ease In: 70
Aim Smoothing: 98
Aim Ease In: 30
Ana: I had Relative Aim Sensitivity While Zoomed at 60 and Friendly Aim Assist Strength 75. Ultimate was bound to L3 so I wouldn't have to let go of the right stick.
Baptiste: Crouch is bound to L3, which is how Baptiste charges his exo boots. This allowed me to have it charged, while keep my aim with the right stick.
Lucio: Jump is on L2 and secondary fire is on L3. Backwards wallriding is enabled
Zenyatta: Reload is bound to L3 and sensitivity of harmony and discord orb on 70.
At the end of the day, work with the sens and controls that work best for you. This is what works for me after hours of experimentation and trial and error and these settings may not necessarily work for you.

2 - Ranked Advice

If you want to go straight into support advice you can skip this section
Need a Tough Mental: From when I first placed in plat on the new account to finally hitting GM, I would receive toxic messaged at every rank. Messages like "you're trash" "garbage healer" or my favorite, "I can't believe you're (insert rank here) you're dogshit." I even had a couple of instances playing Zen where my allied tank was shooting me, bodyblocking me, and overall just being a dick so I couldn't see the team fight. Here's the hard truth. There's not a lot you can do about toxic people. I know that scares a lot of you and I can see why.
I'll tell you a little secret, people are toxic because that's a coping mechanism for them playing poorly so they deflect blame on someone else on the team. Don't let some random person in a video game diminish who you are as a player and as person. You aren't a shitty person so don't let dickheads on the internet try to put you down. Mute. Report. Go next. Prove the haters wrong! You'll most likely never meet them again anyways.
Be Self-Critical and Open to Change: This will be the best advice I can give you that will improve your gameplay in the long-term. On my road to GM, I was constantly reevaluating my mistakes, so I could adjust them for future team fights and games. It's easy to fall into the trap of blaming teammates and attributing losses to them. While that may be the case, there's always something you can do to improve. For me, there are currently two things I am working on that I know I am weak at. Landing reliable sleep darts to defend myself and being more disciplined with my positioning. What are mistakes are you currently trying to work on?
Now, don't be that type of person who is overthinking everything about every little mistake they made. That's a quick way to ruin your mental. On the other hand, don't be the type of person who thinks they are doing everything perfectly. There's a nice balance between being confident and being honest about your mistakes. If you find yourself unable to mentally remember your mistakes, write down those mistakes with solutions, then actively apply them in game. Ask for a friend or outside help to give you another perspective if you're having a hard time self-analyzing.
Teammates are Going to do Dumbshit: ...and that's okay. I get it. As a support you get front row seats to the circus of ranked. From Reinhardts pinning into spawn, teammates wasting ultimates, Genji's spamming I need healing halfway across the map, I get it. There's a prayer that goes, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." If that doesn't explain how I feel about ranked I don't know what does.
You cannot force your teammates to make the right play 100% of the time no matter how loud you scream into your mic, you cannot control all of their actions, and so the best thing you can is to control your own actions. If you are consistently the best player in your lobby you will eventually climb. You don't have to be a god gamer but just slightly better than the players in the lobby. Stick to the fundamentals and abuse the mistakes on the enemy, because trust me, they make a lot of mistakes.
Adjusting to the Speed of Play at Different SR: Once I got into the 3.8K range I would be thrown into varying SR lobbies. One game I will be in a 3.4K lobby with plats and the next I would be thrown into an almost full GM lobby. In lower ranked lobbies I could get away with weird flanks and poor positioning, which would not be punished as much. Then once I got into GM lobbies, those bad habits and poor positioning I built would be punished. You don't realize how bad your positioning is until you are being consistently smacked by an enemy Widow, Tracer, McCree, or Doomfist. I had to be disciplined with my positioning, even at the lower ranked games so that when the GM game came I would already be in that mindset. The fundamentals of the game don't change, but the time window to kill someone does. Play for the rank you want to be, not the rank you are in.
Short Warm-up Routine: It's good to have a short 5-10 minute warm up routine before you start getting into a ranked session. For me, I use some workshop codes that are shown down below in the Outside Resources section and some deathmatch. This is a great way so that you're not throwing the first few games by missing easy shots. Even after the initial warm-up, it still takes a couple of games for your brain to warm-up to the decision making in game. It wasn't uncommon for me to lose the first few matches even after a good warm-up. Don't let a couple of losses discourage you from continuing your ranked session.
Would also like to add that you shouldn't be spending hours on aim trainers and warming up. Aim is great, and is an important skill of Overwatch, but it isn't the only skill. Positioning, movement, cool down management, decision making, awareness, etc are all important aspects that aim trainers won't tech you. This is why a lot of advice for new players is to, "play more" because they just need to experience the complexities of the game. Don't be afraid to make mistakes in ranked as those are good learning opportunities for the next game.

3 - General Support Advice

Understand Your Role and Healing Priorities: The first step that everyone should do is look at their team comp and figure our what your primary job is. For example, if I'm playing Ana with a Rein, Zarya, Mercy, McCree, & Hanzo, I know that my Mercy will default to supporting the DPS, while I default to supporting the tanks. Of course, when situations arise where I need to help out the DPS or Mercy I will, but I already have an idea of what my priorities are going into a team fight. It's easier to adjust to bad situations when you already have an idea of what your default role is. If I feel that my Mercy is mismanaging her resources mid-game then I can always adjust to landing a couple more shots on my DPS when they need it.
Ask yourself these 3 questions when it comes to understanding your priorities:

1. What is my job in this team comp?
2. What should I use my abilities and ultimate for?
3. Where should I position in terms of this team comp?

Don't overthink this and make it super simple. It can be as simple as I need to keep my frontline alive or peel for my other support. If you have any specific situations about healing priority, comment down below and I would be happy to answer them.
Understand Who on the Enemy Team can Kill You: After 15 seconds into a match you will be able to see the enemy team comp. Get into the habit of checking the scoreboard in between team fights. Take your time to gather all in the information on the enemy. Before doing anything crazy. Most of time, the biggest threats will be the DPS and/or dive tanks. If you're consistently dying to tanks like Rein or Zarya then there is something extremely wrong with your positioning. Adjust you positioning and cool downs accordingly depending on the enemy DPS. I'll get more into depth in Part 2.
Awareness. Awareness. Awareness.: This skill is the foundation of game sense and decision making in game. If you have poor awareness you will find yourself struggling executing the points I will be making throughout this post. These are the things you want to look out for to improve awareness:

1. Where your teammates are positioned: As a support, it's important to get the full view of the battlefield. Constantly remind yourself to be able to see all 5 of your teammates. If you can't see them on your screen then take a second to figure out where they are.
2. Where the enemy team is positioned: This is to reinforce my previous point of figuring out who on the enemy team might kill you. It's important to know where they might come from. Overwatch maps are designed with a middle land, a left lane, and a right lane. Sometimes the lanes have high ground, go through a tunnel, through a building or combination of those things. There can only be so many ways and enemy can approach you. Take the time to see if you can account for all 6 enemies. If one enemy is missing then they are doing something sneaky on a flank or right behind you.
3. Kill feed: I am constantly checking the kill feed almost every second. It's an important tool to check the status of the team fight. If my team loses 1 or 2 players very early on then I know to wait for the regroup if I'm on attack. If I'm on the defending side I know I need to make a big play to offset the player advantage from the enemy team. Then if my team loses 4 or more players then 99% of the time I know it's a lost team fight. Simple. Check the kill feed.
4. Abilities used: Being aware of cool downs helps tremendously. For example, knowing when Zarya uses her bubbles or when Dva's defense matrix is down is a great way to land anti nades as Ana. If you have a hard time visualizing and listening to abilities being used then I suggest watching your own replay code and just listen to the sound queues. You will be shocked on how much you miss.
5. Ultimates: Ult tracking is considered an advanced technique, but is still an important skill to learn. This is especially important for heroes like Zenyatta or Lucio who have ultimates that can mitigate big enemy ult combos. Start by ult tracking one player on the enemy team. Then eventually you'll be able to do 2, then the whole team, then you'll narrow it down to the ultimates that will play the biggest impact in the upcoming team fight. Bonus tip, if a player hasn't used an ultimate in over 2 team fights then they probably have it.

Value Your Life!: Don't make the mistake of following your teammate into the pits of hell. As a support, your team's success is tied to how long you can survive. The longer you survive the more resources your team will have. Don't go into a bad position or run in the open just to heal a person is missing 5 HP in the middle of a team fight. Supports should almost never be dying at the start of team fights. If you are consistently dying first as a support then you are positioning poorly or mismanaging your abilities. Prioritize your life!
Protect Your Fellow Support: Supports. Please. Protect each other! As I mentioned before, the longevity of a support is tied with the success of the team. I know what you're thinking, "if the supports are healing each other then who is healing the frontline?" Let me put it this way, if the enemy team is pumping resources into trying to kill the backline then that means there is less damage going into the rest of your team.
Multitasking: You might need to defend yourself for a few seconds, heal your teammate the next, quick scope a low HP enemy the next, all while rotating into a different position at the same time. As a support, you need to be proficient thinking ahead. This is why understanding your role is important before every match. Multitasking requires a mixture of awareness, good decision making, and mechanics. Without each of those components you will find yourself struggling to do multiple actions.
Team fights are never static, they constantly evolve, which provide different situations for you to answer. So it's important to change priorities when needed. Remember, critical HP signs show when your teammate has half of their HP or less. So Genji who is at critical vs a Winston who is at critical may need to be healed first as they have a higher chance of dying. It's a case by case basis, but you need to be able to read situations before they happen to be able to get better at multitasking.
Be a Threat and Playmaker: Once you've built a strong foundation of dying less, you then need to start becoming a playmaker and damage threat. Supports aren't pushovers and can pack a punch. I mean, Zen can 2 shot headshot and enemy squishy with discord. The reason why this is important is because if you become a threat then the enemy DPS have to respect you. They can't just walk over the backline. If you also become a damage threat then you open up advantages for the rest of your team. For example, as Zen I am putting pressure on the enemy Tracer, which forces her recall. This then allows my Tracer to win the Tracer battle because my Tracer has a distinct advantage. That then leads to an opening kill for the rest of my team to push. Forcing cool downs for free isn't something that will be shown in the stats, but it's an important aspect that will win team fights.
Higher Healing Numbers are Overrated: What's the difference in the amount of healing a Mercy can output in GM vs Gold? Answer, 0. A Mercy will always pump out 55HPS no matter what rank. What makes a good support player is how they prioritize their healing in the right situations combined with how their kit impacts a team fight. Anybody can just dump heals on their friendly Reinhardt and get gold healing. News flash, that doesn't win you games. If a ton of healing leads to wins then you would see Moira in every top 500 lobby.

4 - Thought Process on Support Picks

Ana: Ana is a great versatile support pick as she can fit in a lot of team comps. Her long range healing enables high resource intensive tanks like Rein/Zarya but can also support dive tanks like Winston/Dva. These tanks are are also great nano boost targets under the right circumstances. Ana is decent at healing DPS, although it's not her primary focus. Her nano boost is a great pairing for ultimate combos with DPS like Genji, Pharah, and other high mobility heroes like Tracer and Genji. She is also decent at defending herself (if you're capable) with her sleep dart and biotic grenade.
Pick Ana with tanks that require high resources, in situations where you need to defend yourself, combo nano boost, and to make high impact plays with anti nade. She is weakest in bunker comps as she doesn't have the "spam damage" compared to Zen and Baptiste.
Baptiste: Baptiste is another great versatile support hero as a hybrid between Ana, Zen, and Moira, but with vertical mobility. He absolutely shines in deathball or bunker comps where he can get the most out of his AOE healing. When played in these situations he can build his ultimate after almost every team fight. He can also dish out a ton of damage and can be used to defend himself against flankers or as a 3rd DPS. His biggest weakness is playing in dive as he'll have a hard time healing his teammates. You'll end up using your abilities on yourself, and if you're not getting full advantage of immortality field then may not be worth it to play Baptiste.
Pick Baptiste in static bunker or rush comps. Avoid playing him with dive as there are better options like Zen, Mercy, or Ana.
Lucio: Lucio is a relatively weak pick at the moment as his biggest strengths, speed boost and dueling are outclassed by ranged poke damage. He can be played in really strong boop maps like Lijiang Tower or Ilios but be careful on tunnel visioning on boops. He is still decent at peeling for your fellow support but Brig is the number one option at dealing with flankers. Dueling potential as a 3rd DPS, while getting teammates into position with speed is the only way I have found success with Lucio. He pairs well with heroes like Rein, Reaper, Mei, etc who require to be in close range to be effective.
Lucio is an average pick in the moment as the strength of range damage is more valuable than speed boost. However, he can work with rush comps, but engagement timings have to be decisive. If you end up being a healbot Lucio then consider playing Moira or Baptiste instead as they output more AOE healing than Lucio.
Zenyatta: Zen is a glass cannon, but what he lacks in survivability, he makes up for in a shit ton of damage. I personally try to play Zen as much as possible, but he doesn't work well it tanks who require a lot of resources. If that happens then I would pick Ana, Moira, or Baptiste. If I do find that my tanks are feeding or playing too passively that it doesn't matter how much healing I pump into them then I will switch to Zen. His harmony orb works well with flankers like Genji, Tracer, and Echo who can utilize that 30HPS for being more aggressive.
Zen works great in dive comps and bunker comps. He's still playable against 1 or 2 flankers (if you can land your shots) but if the enemy team is 3+ man diving you and you aren't getting any peel then I would consider switching off.

Summary

If I were to boil everything down to key points to improve on how I was able to climb as support it would be this

1. Know your role and priorities in a team comp.
2. Always think in the back of your head who on the enemy team might kill you.
3. Position yourself with cover and to see the entire picture of a team fight.
4. Don't waste abilities.
5. Finally, don't waste ultimates if a team fight is decisively won or lost.

Follow those 5 steps then apply that to any support hero and you should be able to climb with practice and actively learning. Hope this helps you guys. Remember, it takes time to actually apply knowledge in game. Sometimes you need to take one step back to move two steps forward. A lot of you guys are making constant mistakes so it's important to slow that down, build good habits slowly, so that over time you can make good decisions quickly. Comment down below if you have any specific questions about Overwatch or how I was able to climb and I would be happy to answer them.
Here is the link the Part 2 where I go over specific support heroes.

Outside Resources

Workshop Codes
Practice Range 2.2: AJERA
Healing Trainer for Baptiste and Ana: A9B2N
Aim Trainer 1: KAVE5
Aim Trainer 2: 9SM5N
Flanker Duel Practice: MXCB3
Genji Sleep Dart Practice: ZKMC1
Doomfist Sleep Dart Practice: 8Z23K
Wrecking Ball Sleep Dart Practice: ASHZS
Ana vs Pharmercy: T7CB6
Ana Nade Tool: EBAXM
Ana
Ana Gamepedia Information
ML7's Ana Guide
ML7's Ana Unranked to GM
KarQ and ML7's 1 Ana tip vs Every Hero
KarQ's 1 Nade for Every Map
KarQ's Platinum Ana VOD Review
ML7's Platinum Ana VOD Review
ML7's Silver Ana VOD Review
Hayes VOD review of ML7
Baptiste
Baptiste Gamepedia Information
MajorMidget's Baptiste Guide
ML7's Baptiste Unranked to GM
KarQ and ML7's 1 Baptiste Tip vs Every Hero
Fran's Baptiste Tips & Tricks
Lunar's Baptiste Tips & Tricks
ML7's Platinum Baptiste VOD Review
Gunther's Baptiste VOD review via PECO Overwatch Coaching
Lucio
Lucio Gamepedia Information
KarQ and FunnyAstro Lucio Guide
KarQ and Rammy's 1 Lucio Tip vs Every Hero
Eskay's Lucio Rollout For Every Map
KarQ and Eskay's 1 Lucio Rollout for Every Map
SVB's Diamond Lucio VOD review
FunnyAstro Lucio VOD Review
Zenyatta
Zenyatta Gamepedia Information
MajorMidget's Zenyatta Guide
Epicenzo's Zenyatta Unranked to GM
KarQ's 1 Zenyatta Tip vs Every Hero
Epicenzo's Zenyatta Primary and Secondary Fire Guide
Jayne's Zenyatta Platinum VOD Review
Hayes Zenyatta VOD Review of Kaan
Jake's Zenyatta VOD Review of HTP
Edit: so I accidentally deleted a lot of the post when I tried editing something. This is the restored version and a little different from the original post I made. I tried to make it as close as possible, but if anyone who read the original post found something I missed please let me know.

After posting this in PS5, some people suggested that I should post it here too. So here it is.
Arrowhead Game Studios (Magicka, Gauntlet, Helldivers)

Testament
In 2016, Arrowhead started to work on their first ever AAA game - a project that would require not only the attention of the entire team, but also to grow the studio way beyond the 35 employees that worked on Arrowhead around that time. That's why in 2017 they moved into a bigger office where they could accommodate all of their staff - both old and new.
Then in 2018, Arrowhead's co-founder stated in an interview that they were making a third-person game this time around and, due to the change in perspective, moving the focus from local co-op to making it purely online co-op. Friendly fire is confirmed to be making a return.
In early 2019, some Arrowhead developers were spotted at GDC wearing jackets with a "Testament Dev Team" written in the back. While recapping 2019, it was stated on the Arrowhead website that they had made a "butt-ton of progress" on the game and that by the end of the year the studio had already grown to roughly 60 people.

Bend Studio (Siphon Filter, Days Gone)

Days Gone
Days Gone ends on a cliffhanger, but so did The Order 1886 and, well, we all know how that ended up - so let's delve a bit deeper into why Days Gone 2 will be a thing.
In 2019, a couple of weeks before the game's launch, a Sony PR guy said that Days Gone was seen as a "franchise" in Sony's eyes, stating that "the goal is always to make a game that people love and want more of". One month later, the game came out and delivered some surprisingly solid numbers not only at launch but also throughout the year, thanks to the good word-of-mouth it had amongst the community.
According to snort_cannon, the success of the game came as a surprise even to Sony, who was expecting Days Gone to be the disappointment and Death Stranding being the one doing crazy numbers.
Later that year, Bend Studio managing director Chris Reese kind of teased that a sequel was in the works when asked about it during an interview: "This is a world that we want to keep breathing more life into, and explore many, many different avenues. So who knows, we'll see!"

Bluepoint Games (Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, Demon's Souls)

Bloodborne Remastered
In May 2020, NeoGAF user Celine.D.Sykes - who previously discussed this project in February 2019 on the ResetEra forums - talked about the Bloodborne remaster in greater detail: "During my time on ResetEra, I only knew that From Software wanted Bloodborne to release on PC. Unfortunately, a PC port would need a lot of work […] and reworking Bloodborne's engine would take a great amount of work. The game logic is tied to framerate, among many other baffling decisions. The last time From Software tried to change the inner logic of an engine; it resulted in the infamous PC port of the first Dark Souls."
"Making a long story short, Sony said they were interested in a potential Bloodborne remaster for PS5, with a lot more work done, like some QoL added and some cut-content being introduced. Both From Software and Sony agreed to not just up the resolution and the framerate, but to make something great. FromSoftware has been authorized to release the game on PC, but only some months after the remaster hits PS5."
"Last time I heard about it, Bloodborne remaster would be part of PS5 line-up, but I don't quite believe it since I think the spotlight will be stolen by another similar title [Demon's Souls] that should be announced in June. I think they might save the Bloodborne remaster for some months after PS5 release, but I could be wrong about that particular point."
According to another report by a different source, the game is being developed by both QLOC - the studio behind 2018's Dark Souls: Remastered - and Bluepoint Games. Now that Demon's Souls is out and considering how far along Bloodborne Remastered has been reported to be, I wouldn't be surprised if it is currently planned to be revealed at The Game Awards.
Unannounced
On November 20th 2020, in response to a user who claimed that the rumored Bluepoint acquisition by Sony would be very boring as far as hype goes, KatharsisT said: "If you knew what Bluepoint is on at the moment, you wouldn't say that (Yeah, it's a hype post [and] you'll have to wait to know what it is)". Shortly after that, a mod stepped in to say that "KatharsisT has shown sufficient evidence to support this claim."
A couple of posts later, MarsipanRumpan - the guy behind the Bluepoint acquisition rumor - also backed the statements made by KatharsisT "I’m totally on your side. Talked with my source, I think we have the same info regarding their next remake. People who aren’t hyped for Bluepoint don’t know what their next project is as you said. Because that shit is [mindblowing]."
Regarding the rumors of a Metal Gear Solid remake, all I'm gonna say is: don't listen to what Moore's Law is Dead and other youtubers are saying, it is all bullshit; but at the same time don't lose faith, as chances of Bluepoint's next remake being MGS are high, considering how it seems they're working on a bigger and more prestigious title than Demon's Souls and also the good relationship Sony currently has with Konami.

From Software (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Deráciné)

Unannounced
A couple of weeks ago, MarsipanRumpan - the guy who recently reported about Bluepoint's acquisition on ResetEra - said that he has heard that Sony is in talks with From Software regarding the making of a new PS5 exclusive directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. This would be the third game From has currently in their pipeline, with Elden Ring and a new Armored Core being the other two.
MarsipanRumpan also clarified that it will be a while before we see this new game in motion anyway.

Guerrilla Games (Killzone, Horizon)

Unannounced
In February 2018, Simon Larouche - former multiplayer designer on Killzone 2, R6 Patriots and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, as well as game director on R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as game director, starting to work on an unannounced project completely unrelated to the Horizon sequel (now known as Forbidden West), which was also in development at the time. Then in July, Hermen Hulst announced plans for Guerrilla to move into a new, bigger office where they could expand their staff count from 250 to 400 people, allowing them to make games faster and release a new title every two to three years.
In October 2018, Chris Lee - former multiplayer designer on several SOCOM titles at Slant Six Games and on Ubisoft's R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as principal game designer on Larouche's project. Apart from the fact that Lee's hiring makes it pretty clear that Guerrilla's second team is working on a shooter game of some sorts, it's worth pointing out that Lee lists "cooperative and competitive multiplayer, open world systemic gameplay and online social experiences" as his current interests on his LinkedIn profile - with the open world bit being especially interesting as it was also mentioned in certain job listings for the project in 2019.
In August 2020, Guerrilla finally moved to their new office, which means the studio is now ready to begin large-scale recruiting on its second project once they see it fit - although I don't expect to hear about this project until after the release of Forbidden West in the second half of 2021.

Insomniac Games (Resistance, Ratchet & Clank, Marvel's Spider-Man)

Marvel's Spider-Man 2
The recently released Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales entered development in May 2018 under the direction of Brian Horton, while Bryan Intihar was finishing up his work on the original Marvel's Spider-Man, which came out in September of that year. So right after wrapping up the first game and with Miles Morales in the hands of a separate team, Intihar started preparing the next main entry in the series as teased in January 2019 when he posted on Twitter "Few things are more nerve-wracking than sharing your first story draft to others."

Japan Studio (Gravity Rush, The Last Guardian, Astro)

RaySpace
Sometime in spring 2014, a couple of weeks before E3, Reddit user Ruin4r leaked a number of titles in development exclusively for PS4, including a new God of War, The Last Guardian, a The Last Of Us sequel, Dead Don't Ride (later confirmed to be Days Gone's codename) and an "unnamed space game" - which by the way wasn't Santa Monica Studio's cancelled new IP for PS4, as that project was axed earlier that year.
A year later, Shuhei Yoshida stated in an interview at E3 2015 that "Japan Studio is now producing a really great project that I'm really excited about" - which also wasn't Gravity Rush 2, as that title was referenced as a different project later in the interview.
In April 2016, Ruin4r said that all the games previously teased by him were still in development and clarified that many of them - God of War, TLOU2, Days Gone and the "unnamed space game" - were in early stages when he first talked about them.
Then on June 6th 2016, during a livestream in celebration of Famitsu's 30th Anniversary, SIE's Yasuhiro Kitao teased a a new title to Famitsu's editor-in-chief Katsuhio Hayashi by letting him read some text from his tablet, as Kitao didn't have any images to show. Hayashi was blown away by whatever thing he read and stated that "this will definitely be worth waiting for."
In December 2017, SIE trademarked "RaySpace" in Canada - which most probably was the final title for the "unnamed space game" mentioned by Ruin4r. That same month, Japan Studio's award-winning creative director Tsutomu Kouno stated in an interview "I have not been able to announce a new title in a long time, but in 2018, I would like to announce what I am preparing". Japan Studio producer Teruyuki Toriyama - who has been teasing this project since 2015, describing it in multiple occasions as an "ambitious title" - also promised an announcement in 2018.
Sometime in 2018, an interview to a Japan Studio employee was posted on the SIE website; in it there was an image that contained shots of two upcoming games in the background: the Demon's Souls remake (top right corner) and some sort of sci-fi first-person game.
But 2018 went by without any sort of reveal regarding this project and in December, Toriyama once again teased an announcement for the coming year "In 2019, we are preparing for the debut of unannounced title(s) currently in production". It is worth noting that Japan Studio didn't reveal any new games in 2019.
I doubt that RaySpace was cancelled, as you don't pull the plug on a project that has been in the works for four or five years and was so close to being revealed. So what I believe is that they decided to move it to PlayStation 5 - just like they did with other projects such as Sackboy: A Big Adventure or Horizon: Forbidden West - and maybe even bring it back to the drawing table a little - which would explain why we haven't seen it this year during the PS5 reveal events.
Silent Hill
In 2018, Konami reached out to various developers to pitch ideas for two Silent Hill games: one a soft-reboot of the franchise; the other an episodic Telltale/Until Dawn-style game to go alongside the reboot. In fact, one of the studios contacted by Konami was Supermassive Games, creators of Until Dawn, although they ultimately didn't get the job.
Japan Studio's creative director Keiichiro Toyama, who had been wanting to work on a new horror game for quite some time, was developing a new entry in the Siren franchise at the time. Sony, who weren't fully keen on the idea of investing on a niche series such as Siren, decided to pull the plug on the project as they started negotiating a deal with Konami for getting Japan Studio to work on the Silent Hill soft-reboot - a prestige project for the PS5 lineup based on a globally renowned IP, something that would allow Toyama to have a bigger budget and more resources at his disposal.
Eventually the deal would get finalized, putting Sony Interactive Entertainment in charge of developing, funding and publishing the title in exchange for keeping the exclusive and most of the revenue, with Konami being indirectly involved by outsourcing the IP against an 8% of the revenue. And that way, the game entered development in early 2019, salvaging as much from the technological work done for the Siren game as possible.
At some point in 2019, an interview to a Japan Studio employee posted on the SIE website showed a developer working on a handgun model - something that, if we consider the other projects Japan Studio has in the pipeline, would only align with Silent Hill.
On January 21st 2020, Rely on Horror reported that they've heard from a source of their own that a new Silent Hill game was in development. A day later, movie industry insider Emre Kaya posted on Twitter that he has learned that Sony is working on a new horror game for PS5.
On March 12th 2020, Rely on Horror stated that Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and creature designer Masahiro Ito are returning alongside the series creator Keiichiro Toyama to helm a soft-reboot of the franchise developed by Japan Studio, just called Silent Hill. Both of their sources mentioned Sony as the driving force behind bringing the series back. That same day, Emre Kaya said on Twitter that this was the Sony horror game that he talked about back in January.
In April 2020, ResetEra user KatharsisT backed Rely on Horror's information regarding the Silent Hill soft-reboot and confirmed a third-person perspective and that the game was playable already. She also said that it is planned to be announced before PS5's launch, with a release in spring 2021 - although these reveal and release windows were from before COVID started to fuck up their schedule. Shortly after, a mod stepped into the discussion to state that they've verified her information on the subject.
In May 2020, Reddit user snort_cannon, who had already discussed the game months ago, said that "the game was planned on being shown off this summer. Unless something bad happens, it should happen. The plan at first was just to do a CG trailer to announce that the game exists, but I personally think at this point [they] might delay the reveal and add some gameplay footage as well". When asked about his sources, he answered "Same source that told me about the Sony deal, albeit last update came in early February and COVID didn’t rampage as hard as it’s going now."
On August 3rd 2020, ResetEra user Navtra, who leaked a list of games that went on to be present on both PS5 events days in advance to June's The Future of Gaming, commented on the Silent Hill rumors "I can only confirm one thing: it was never on the table for June's event. FFXVI and Marvel's Avengers Spider-Man character announcement were among other things that were supposed to be there and were moved last minute. Silent Hill never was". If we look at both KatharsisT and snort_cannon's comments in regards to the reveal window for the game after having learned this, it becomes clear that the reveal was initially planned for the second PS5 event, that being September's PS5 Showcase - an event that the game missed because of delays in production related to the COVID pandemic.
On October 31st 2020, KatharsisT stated that something had just made her expect a reveal at The Game Awards. A couple of days later, Rely on Horror reported that recent rumors of a Silent Hill announcement at The Game Awards line up with some information they received a while back but choose not to report on.
On November 21st 2020, KatharsisT once again teased a Silent Hill reveal at The Game Awards "You'll celebrate it before the end of the year if everything goes as planned" while also stating that she thinks the game is still planned for 2021.

London Studio (The Getaway, PlayStation VR Worlds, Blood & Truth)

Horizon VR
On October 2019, VR consultant Callum Hurley posted on Twitter that he had learned about an "exciting new PlayStation VR game coming out of London Studio" through someone who had just playtested the title. He also vaguely implied it was a Horizon VR game and, when news outlets started to report on his tweets, he apologized to the development team as he didn't expect such coverage.
Same as the unannounced VR titles from Supermassive Games, I do expect this Horizon VR game to be a cross-gen release sometime next year.

MediaVision (Wild Arms, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Valkyria Chronicles 4)
Wild Arms

In July 2018, we've learned thanks to a job listing that MediaVision was working on a new PlayStation 4 RPG. It is worth noting that a year earlier Sony stated that, even though their investments have been mainly focused on titles aimed to a global audience do to the soaring in development costs, the success of recent titles such as Persona 5 or Nier Automata amongst overseas audiences has made them consider a return to first-party JRPG development.
Then in June 2019, DasVergeben posted on Reddit "Something I have heard for a while now is that a new Wild Arms game is in development but it has been over a year long journey getting that verified. I still struggle to get definite enough confirmation but I think it might have been because I heard about it too early". In a separate post, Vergeben added "I don't know much other than that it apparently is in development by Media Vision for PS4. I haven't been told anything specific yet at least. I do wonder if Sony might try and shift over to push it as a PS5 launch game or something if they don't reveal it this year [...] but that's simply speculation on my behalf."
At this point I expect the game to be a cross-gen release, as it wouldn't make sense to leave the PS4 users behind with a title that surely won't be a technological showcase unlike native PS5 games such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last Of Us)

The Last Of Us: Factions
On September 26th 2019, Naughty Dog posted a statement on Twitter in which they basically announced that the multiplayer mode they had planned for The Last Of Us: Part II had grown beyond an additional mode that could be included alongside the game's enormous singleplayer campaign, so they decided to turn it into a standalone game in order to not compromise on the ambitions of the studio's multiplayer team.
Then in April 2020, a short gameplay clip from a March 2018 build of the multiplayer leaked online as part of a bigger leak that revealed tons of story spoilers and cutscenes from The Last Of Us: Part II. Assuming that this TLOU multiplayer game is planned for a release on both PS4 and PS5 sometime next year, we would be in front of a title with over four years of overall dev time - meaning that the project might be greater in scope than what most of us are expecting it to be.
Unannounced
On October 10th 2018, movie industry insider Daniel Ritchman reported that Naughty Dog was in the process of casting an actor to play the lead role on an upcoming game. According to the casting description, the studio was looking for a "Black/African American male, 40s to 60s, short to medium length hair, with a body type similar to those in the images below, strong but not chiseled". But since this doesn't tell us much about the game, apart from hinting at it being a new IP, let's go a little back in time in search of more potential details.
During the The Last Of Us: Part II panel at PSX 2017, Neil Druckmann stated that Naughty Dog will "forever continue to make singleplayer, linear, narrative-based games". He also mentioned during an interview from February 2018 that the studio was totally open to make a first-person game in the future - and, since they seem to be making a new IP, this new project might be the perfect time for them to try a different camera angle in their games.

New San Diego Studio
Unannounced

In April 2018, David Hall - former Double Helix/Amazon Game Studios - joins an unnamed SIE studio in San Diego as game director on an unannounced title. Since then, rumors about a new Sony first-party studio have been circulating due to a job listing - also from April - in which it was stated that "PlayStation is building a new game development team in partnership with the Visual Arts Service Group" to work on a "high visibility project" described as a third-person action/adventure game "developed in collaboration with a major Sony studio."
A month later, Quentin Cobb - former singleplayemultiplayer designer at Naughty Dog on the Uncharted series and The Last Of Us - also joins this new studio in San Diego and in December a new job listing mentions that the team was looking for a lead character artist to work on "the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In January 2019, James Martinchek - former cutscene/gameplay animator on The Last Of Us, Uncharted 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 - joins the studio as a lead gameplay animator. Also in January, Cobb was asked on Twitter why he couldn't even reveal what studio he was working for, to what he replied that "it is difficult to explain why" - further reinforcing the theory that Sony has assembled a secret studio in the San Diego area.
Then in November 2019, Sony announced their plans to set up a support studio in Malaysia and, just a couple of weeks ago, a job listing from SIE Malaysia unveils that they're currently working on "one of PlayStation's [most] well-known and well-loved franchises" for which they are looking for "talented, highly-motivated and creative animators to breathe life into the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In November 2020, both Quentin Cobb and John Bautista left the studio and the internet started to speculate that Sony had shut down the studio and cancelled the project, something that Bautista denied by stating that "the studio is still there and the project is still ongoing."

Santa Monica Studio (God of War)

Unannounced
On April 12th 2018, Cory Barlog spoke during an interview about his desire to work on a new IP "I really would love to create something of my own next. Something that really, really is truly 100% coming from my original vision. That would be awesome, but we have to see if I can convince Sony on that one". Over half a year later, in November, film director Duncan Jones - who had just met with Cory looking for his opinion regarding a certain script - said on Twitter that "If you think that God of War is [Cory’s] magnum opus, just you wait!"
Since then, little we've learned about the development of this project, other than the recent news that Alanah Pearce has joined Santa Monica Studio as a junior writer on, apparently, Cory's game. And I say that mainly because, while members of the team behind the next God of War were able to publicly announce their involvement in the making of said title on social media, Alanah is not allowed to reveal what she is working on over at SMS - that being due to the fact that, unlike the upcoming GOW game, Cory Barlog's new project hasn't been revealed yet.

Sucker Punch Productions (inFAMOUS, Ghost of Tsushima)

¿Ghost 2?
Look, I haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet, so I don't know how it ends or if it sets up a sequel or not - but a few weeks ago a job listing from Sucker Punch mentioned that the studio "is looking for a narrative writer for our upcoming projects" and that the ideal candidate would "have previous success as a game writer, outstanding dialogue skills and an excellent understanding of how to tell impactful, character-driven stories within a AAA open-world game" and also "knowledge of feudal Japanese history". That last bit kind of screams some sort of GOT sequel to me.

Supermassive Games (Until Dawn, Hidden Agenda, The Inpatient)

Unannounced Titles
In November 2018, Supermassive Games managing director Pete Samuels confirmed that the studio was "working on several unannounced PlayStation exclusives" and stated that their relationship with Sony "is still excellent", even though they choose another publisher for The Dark Pictures Anthology as they wanted to reach the widest possible audience.
What that might mean is that they wanna go the multiplatform route with their biggest titles - that being The Dark Pictures Anthology, their response to the requests of an Until Dawn sequel - while keeping the most experimental and smaller stuff exclusive to Google or Sony - meaning that these unannounced titles would probably be cross-gen PSVR games, as Jim Ryan stated that they will not be releasing VR titles exclusively for PS5 until the new headset comes out in a couple of years.

Wild Sheep Studio

WiLD
During Sony's GamesCom conference in 2014, Michel Ancel took the stage to introduce WiLD, a new PS4 exclusive developed by his recently formed indie studio. It was described as a title with an open-world "potentially as big as Europe", day and night cycles, dynamic weather and seasons, as well as a seamless online system, in which you could play not only as a human but also as any living creature. Ancel also stated that for the past year, the studio had been working very hard on the proprietary technology and tools they would be using in order to create this very specific type of game that was WiLD.
A year later, this time at Sony's Paris Games Week conference, Ancel showed a super early gameplay demo of WiLD. This was the last time we saw WiLD in action, as the information drops regarding this title started to slow down over the years - with most updates consisting of Sony denying cancellation rumors, trademark renewals or off-screen pictures of the game posted on Michel Ancel's Instagram.
The most notable piece of news from this period however, was an interview with WiLD producer Mitsuo Hirakawa from November 2017. During said interview, he stated "We are not going to rush [Michel Ancel] to make something that he doesn't want to compromise on." and then he followed "Even experienced developers make mistakes. We have to make mistakes to find the right choices for the design of the game and we want to provide [Wild Sheep Studio] with all the support necessary, so that's why things sometimes do take a lot longer than we expect but we feel that WiLD deserves the extra time and quality before it comes to public."
A creative that doesn't want to compromise on his vision? Mistakes that lead into things taking longer than expected? Call me crazy, but I think those statements are pointing directly to some heavy project mismanagement on Ancel's part, as we've seen reports of similar things happening during the development of Beyond: Good & Evil 2.
According to snort_cannon "[BG&E2] has been a mess behind the scenes for a pretty long time. To give you a rough idea of how bad it's going, the game was supposedly gonna come out next year [in 2021], but it's not even 50% done. I wouldn't be shocked, if we get an investigation article on its development troubles, soon". Which did in fact happened, as, a couple of months ago, national newspaper Libération published an article on BG&E2's troubled development "Ganesha City, which [he] asked us to do with a completely stupid level of detail, we only just finished it three years later, and we've had to redo it four or five times. Knowing that we have to do several planets, you can imagine the absurdity of this kind of reasoning." "When [Ancel] was spoking to the press, we were taking notes because [...] it could concern points on which we would have been stuck on for months, waiting for directions."
Moving onto something else, in July 2018, both Michel Ancel and Wild Sheep's CEO and art director Celine Tellier visited Guerrilla Games. This is interesting, because considering that WiLD went through some serious development hell difficulties, it is not farfetched to think that one of the solutions proposed by Sony to one of the several the problems the game was facing at the time was to drop the in-house engine that Wild Sheep was using up to that point and move the game over to DECIMA - the Guerrilla Games engine that has powered PS4 titles such as Killzone: Shadow Fall and Horizon: Zero Dawn but also Until Dawn and Death Stranding. Such a change could come in handy, especially when we take into account that, just like Horizon and Death Stranding, WiLD is an open-world title that takes place in natural environments.
On September 18th 2020, Michel Ancel announced his departure from the games industry and regarding Beyond: Good & Evil 2 and WiLD he stated that "since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon". Hopefully we get to see something next year.

PATCHED AS OF DECEMBER 22nd, 2020.
Yes, this glitch is back and it pretty much works the exact same way as it did before. I did this on PS4.
Video Guide.

Requirements:

• Arena Workshop
  
• Benny’s Mechanic for Arena Workshop
  
• RC Bandito
  
• Free Elegy stored inside the Arena Workshop
  
• Someone playing in a different targeting mode
  
• Make sure your Spawn Location is NOT “Arena Workshop” or “Last Location”
  

Steps:

1. Start inside your Arena Workshop and walk over to your RC Bandito
   
2. Press Right Dpad to modify, wait about 3 seconds, then disconnect your console from the Internet (or open Spotify / YouTube)
   
3. Reconnect to the Internet then load into an invite only session.
   
4. Go back to your Arena Workshop but don’t use a personal vehicle. You can use SecuroServ, Pegasus, a civilian vehicle - just avoid using a personal one.
   
5. Enter your Elegy and press Right Dpad to modify.
   

You should have the customization options but it shouldn’t bring your vehicle into the mod shop. You should still be in the parking spot.

1. Change anything on the vehicle (doesn’t matter what) then sell the vehicle.

You should be stuck on a black screen.

1. Join someone who’s playing in a different targeting mode. Accept the first message. Decline the second message.
   
2. Exit the elegy and then get right back in. Press Right Dpad to modify, this time it should actually bring you into the modshop.
   
3. Press the option that says “Upgrade: Benny’s Original Motorworks” but DO NOT actually upgrade the car.
   
4. Hover over the option that says “Elegy Retro Custom $904,000” but again, DON’T BUY IT. Wait for about 5 seconds and then go back two times.
   
5. Select the option that says “Exit the Workshop”
   

Your free Elegy should have sold for $904,000.
As always, the selling Guidelines:

• No more than 2 vehicles within a 2-hr time period
• No more than 7 vehicles within a 30-hr time period

————————-
EDIT

Having trouble ?

TIPS: - Try spawning at your CEO office and then taking a Pegasus vehicle from the front desk (that’s what I did) - Try setting your spawn location to “Random” and then Job Teleporting to the Arena Workshop - I know I said not but try “last location” too. Some people said it worked for them but this literally doesn’t work for me. - Make sure you don’t have an active personal vehicle when you start this. If you do then return it to storage and equip an outfit to make the game save. - You might be disconnecting too fast, wait about 3 seconds after pressing Right Dpad
PATCHED AS OF DECEMBER 22nd, 2020.

All good things must come to an end and how they end will either be with a whimper or a bang. In Arkham Knights case it kind of ends with both and I did not think that could be. To me for every good thing I liked about Arkham Knight there was something I disliked that prevented it from becoming my personal favorite Arkham game. Let me start off with the pros: First these graphics are incredible and still hold up five years later. Which is even more impressive considering this was still in the early years of the PS4/XBOX ONE generation. Gotham City feels like it was taken straight from the comics and aesthetic wise its a weird, but cool combination of old and new. One section of the city is filled with classic architecture while another looks like it was plucked straight out of Time Square with its neon build boards and lighting. But that doesn’t mean there is time for leisure because with the city evacuated all that is left are thugs and the militia run by the new villain called Arkham Knight.
I praise how easy it is to access side missions, just a spin of the wheel and you can select who to bring to justice next. You will have to reach a certain percentage of the story as a requirement and that was the right call. It allows you to take a break from the heavy story moments and believe me this is a heavy story. Every Arkham game IMO outdoes itself narrative wise. Last warning, spoilers incoming because there is no way to talk about this game without talking about it. It turns out Batman along with four other civilians have been infected with Jokers blood, it turns out it messes with a persons psyche and will eventually become the Joker without a cure. Add a dose of fear gas in Batman’s system and now he is hallucinating the Joker, voiced again by Mark Hamill. Some have noticed that Bruce never addresses or talks to Joker and that is because Joker’s dialogue is Bruce’s inner doubts and insecurities. Seriously go on YouTube and really listen to what he is saying you’ll notice it too. Sometimes he will just flat out say Bruce’s methods are just wrong. When you arrest Chief Underhill Joker explains how he will become another criminal. When you (finally) lock up the Riddler he says my favorite line: “Beat him up, lock him up. That’s the best medicine” be honest you know he’s right. There is also Barbra’s “suicide” which had me in shock and then there’s the mystery of who the Arkham Knight is, and it is pretty obvious. Kind of disappointing really. Wouldn’t it have been cooler if we never find out who the Knight is? Alfred tries so hard to uncover his identity only to end up short and not knowing is something Bruce can’t handle. As a long time reader as Batman comics trust me when I say that “not knowing” is one of the many things that he hates.
When you need a break from the story there are side missions to seek out like stopping Two-Face from robbing the banks, stopping Hush from bankrupting Wayne Enterprises, liberate Gotham from Militia forces and several DLC missions that wrap up some loose ends with Ra’s Al Ghul and Mr. Freeze.
My personal favorites were chasing Firefly and Man-Bat. Man-Bat came out of left field and while he doesn’t have a real boss fight, the thrill is in the chase. Firefly also doesn’t have a boss fight, you just have to keep up with him which does make sense. If I was facing Batman and had a jetpack I too would get the hell out of there. And since there is no avoiding it lets talk about the bosses. It’s pretty clear Origins had the best bosses in the franchises as in Arkham Knight they are underwhelming. I mean c’mon you don’t even fight Deathstroke hand to hand! Could you imagine the possibilities if Rocksteady went all out on a Deathstroke vs Batman rematch. I did enjoy Killer Croc because you’re teaming up with Nightwing and Scott Porter nails the charismatic/over confidant personality of Dick Grayson.
Crispin Freeman is back as Lynns and he is an absolute delight. I don’t know what direction he was given, but I’m assuming he was told to chew up as much of the scenery as possible. I cannot share the same praise for some of the new casting choices. John Noble and Johnathan Banks are a fine Scarecrow and Jim Gordon respectively, but aren’t very memorable. Curiously Kimberly Brooks was replaced as Oracle. A tad disappointing because she would have nailed the material. And for my last complaint is Troy Baker as Arkham Knight/Red Hood. Normally I would be so down for it, but Troy was already Joker, Two-Face, and Robin. Did he really need to be a fourth character? In fact Robin is in the game and is voiced by Matthew Mercer? Why didn’t Troy repriseTim? Mercer would have made an excellent Red Hood.
Anyway back to the positives: Combat has peaked with the inclusion of environmental takedowns, team takedowns, and multi fear takedowns. At this point you do feel just as overpowered as the Batman himself. The skins are great and are easier to access compared to Arkham City (still didn’t get that Red Sun skin though). We have even more playable characters than ever and all of them have their own skins… except for Batgirl who was done dirty. I mean no classic suit? Not even the Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown costumes. Everyone also has their style and at least one or two different gadgets. Except for Batgirl who does play pretty similar to Batman, but makes up for it with her ability to hack into certain hazards to provide stealth takedowns. And let me just say playing as Red Hood is essentially playing another game as one of his stealth takedowns is a neck snap and he straight up murders henchmen with his pistols… it’s a change of pace for sure.
Each of the DLC characters have their own side story (excluding Azrael which is weird because it seems like they were setting him up for one) and Batgirls is easily the best as it has a more fleshed out campaign, collectibles to destroy, and a respectable map size. Everyone else’s is very disappointing as they are are about 15 minutes. Even faster if you are a season veteran of these games. To add in some extra difficulty you can’t upgrade any armor (and let me tell you these kids are made out of paper without it). At least you can still play them in the combat challenges.
Ok I’ve avoided the elephant in the room for long enough. Let’s talk about the Batmobile. I know a lot of people have opinions on it and mine are rather mixed. The combat is simple and that’s ok, you aim for the drones weapons and press X to dodge. Remember this is the first time the Batmobile can be operated so combat was never going to be as polished so I had no problem with how simplified it is. The driving controls can be over sensitive at first, in my experience one slight movement of the joystick will send me into a U-Turn, but you will get use to steering and the boost functions. What I have a problem with are the stealth segments. Imagine you have the ultimate tank ready to tear down any foes that stand in your way head on. What if instead of doing that you have to slowly move around the map, sneak up behind another drone, wait till you have a lock on, then fire. These segments stops the pacing of the game dead on its tracks and you will wish that they will just end. Don’t even get me started on that fucking excavator boss fight. Is the Batmobile really as bad as the internet says it is? No I don’t think so, it’s fun in the beginning, it doesn’t feel like a drag until the third act of the game and it makes you forget about the fun you were having. The developers had good ideas on paper, but playing them out they weren’t fun, like I said this is the first time the Batmobile has been featured so prominently, maybe if there was another Arkham game we would have seen some improvements.
Well there is only one thing to talk about and that’s the ending. Personally I liked how it ended, but what I don’t like are the requirements, well more like one specific requirement. You see in order to initiate the Knightfall protocol you have to complete every side mission and lock up every single criminal. Shut down Penguins gun smuggling operations? Got it. Rescue all of the Firefighters? Done and done. Takedown all of the watchtowers/drones/bombs deployed by the militia? Someone has to do it. What I hate is that in order to arrest Riddler you will have to solve every riddle and collect every trophy. It is even more tedious considering the fact that you had to pass nine trials to free Catwoman. Shouldn’t have that been enough to unlock the boss fight? If it had ended after said trials that would have been fine, but getting every trophy and riddle and disarming the bombs? What if you had to that for Arkham Asylum and Arkham City? Or even Origins? Would you have enjoyed them as much?
So in the end was Arkham Knight my favorite game in the franchise? No, City will always be my personal favorite. Is it a bad game like the internet says it is. I certainly don’t think so. It’s a solid 8 out of 10, there are just a few problems I had that prevented it from being a 9 to me personally. Its story, combat, and playable characters makes it worth playing.
It is a bittersweet feeling marathoning all of these games. I miss them. Their stories, the easter eggs, the gameplay, everything. Rocksteady crafted not just one, but three love letters to Batman and his mythos. These weren’t just developers, they were fans just like us. Whatever the future holds with Suicide Squad I know Rocksteady will deliver a memorable experience.
Side note: I loved Arkham Origins when I played back when I was 15 and I would have reviewed it if it had a remastered.

CTRL+F to search for stuff or, if you're on a phone, just be sad and scroll.

--Official Release/Preload Times--

From CDPR: https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1334548241459933188
Pretty much what we knew on PC due to the GoG counter, but sadly seems console players have local midnight release. There you go!

--Is the game DRM Free? (ON PC, obviously)--

Yes. CDPR is vehemently against DRM, and the DRM-free nature of Cyberpunk has been confirmed by journalists. Whether it's Steam, GoG, or Epic Game Store, you will be able to run the game without any of them open, and YES, you can technically just copy and paste the game onto 20 computers if you wanted. That's just what DRM-free means, but PLEASE support the developers.
Again, this obviously doesn't include stuff like consoles or Stadia which are inherently locked by nature.

--Difference between Steam and GoG?--

Ultimately, no differences. Both are DRM free, both have achievements, both will update at the same time. CDPR, the makers of Cyberpunk 2077, own GOG, so if you buy it from there the devs get 100% of your money. Every platform will get its own comic and on Steam you get an exclusive short story; they'll all probably be all over the internet in 5 seconds though, if you really care.

--PC Performance or "Can I run it?"--

Here are the official hardware requirements, but I'll tell you now that no one really knows how it'll actually run in reality because they've given us no information about FPS targets on PC (we can probably safely assume 60, as that is the standard on PC).
Anyway, here is the RTX ray tracing gameplay trailer for the 30xx unicorns.
AMD and thus next-gen console raytracing will come eventually, but right now it's limited to Nvidia GPUs.

--Will there be official modding support?--

CDPR has been inconsistent with official support for their games. Their official word for Cyberpunk 2077 specifically is "not at the moment" because they want to focus on the core game, which I guess isn't a no. Witcher 2 actually had RedKit for official modding support, and Cyberpunk 2077 uses an upgraded version of the same engine, so it's possible a new RedKit will be released someday.
However, even without modding support at the start, Witcher 3 still had a ton of modding. Most notably, the infamous nudity mods that gave gamers the world over the joy of seeing Geralt's buttery buttocks all the time instead of just in a few scenes, because no one cared about anyone else's buttocks, obviously.
With the popularity of the game, though, CDPR would be bonkers to not officially add modding support, and honestly, the modding community probably won't care even if they don't.
So that's kind of where we're at: A solid WE SHALL SEE.

--Next-gen Patch? How does it run on consoles?--

Note that CDPR hasn't said a single thing about FPS/resolution targets on any of the consoles either, sorry. IMO this is really something they should revealed already, but meh.
Next-gen patch is planned for next year; CDPR has not given a date. The game runs a bit better on next-gen consoles, but will not have any next-gen features or graphical enhancements until this patch.
Here is the official X Box One X and Series X gameplay.
Here is the official PS5 and PS4 Pro gameplay.
Note that outside of these videos, all gameplay has been on high end PCs, so please don't let your expectations get out of hand due to the trailers. No gameplay has been shown on the base models. CDPR says it runs fine, but, again, I'd seriously taper my expectations.
Cyberpunk 2077 will offer a fee next-gen copy of the game for those who buy an old-gen version, so you don't have to buy the game twice. The game also features cross-saves between consoles of the same brand, detailed here for Sony and here for Microsoft.

--GoG Account Link Freebies?--

CDPR hasn't actually spoken about this, but they have mentioned there will be shirts and swords and other goodies if you own their prior games, and that it doesn't matter where you own them. Expect information this week, likely.

--Multiplayer--

This will be free for anyone who already owns the base game (so half the world, I guess). There's no release date, but it was expected in 2022 and may now release in 2023 instead. We don't have many details other than it's being headed by some MMO veterans and is a separate AAA project according to CDPR.
For people asking, it's actually old news that it'll be free (sorry couldn't find the original interview), but I guess they could change their minds over the next 2 years, and the way they worded it makes it sound like you will also be able to buy it as a standalone, but we don't know for sure. Plenty of journalists have confirmed this. (random example).

--Reviews?--

Still no info. Many places expected to get review copies still haven't gotten them, including those that got to sample the preview (like ACG), however it's assumed the major places like IGN and Gamespot do have keys. No word on when, but probably next week.

--Rapidfire Answers for the Questions You Keep Asking--

• Download size is ~70 gigs
• There will be a day 1 patch; details unknown, but stop freaking expecting another 70gigs in total file size, yeesh. The final, patched game probably won't go above 80 gigs total at launch.
• PS5 confirming preload on the 8th, the rest very likely to follow.
• Level cap has been most consistently described as being 50, but nothing has been officially confirmed. We surprisingly don't know much about attribute/perk gains.
• The game is almost entirely in first person, with third person only available in a very few cutscenes and while driving. This was done to be more immersive; the focus of the game is storytelling, not action.
• Ciri is not in the game; devs has said it a billion times and one of the leads is very against it, so if she is, they're lying lilies.
• This is supposed to be a dark game. You can turn off nudity, most explicit sexually suggestive stuff, and copyrighted music, but the game has earned its rating for a reason, so the toggles aren't going to lesson the excessive sexual and violence-based themes weaved deep into the narrative. These toggles are mostly intended for streamers and their fickle masters Twitch and YouTube.
• There are multiple endings; it is not known if you can get them all using one playthrough as a base (Like Deus Ex's hilariously infuriating "pick an ending" buttons).
• The 3 Lifepaths all ultimately meet at the same narrative point: V becomes a novice mercenary with nothing to their name and Johnny Silverhand eventually in their heads, though Lifepaths will continue to serve as a "history" that influences your character. They WILL NOT create 3 distinct play-throughs on their own outside of the prologue, but CDPR has said some quests and quest variations/options will be locked to a particular lifepath.
• There are 4 (might have changed) difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard. The old, brief PS4 leaked footage shows Story, Easy, Normal, Hard now and so do some previews, though a dev has mentioned very hard before. There's supposed to be a hardcore mode but CDPR hasn't talked about it recently.
• CDPR will talk about the season passe and DLC after launch.
• This game IS NOT like GTA, however the COMPARISON IS WORTHWHILE as they DO share many similarities on the surface. Beyond that, however, Cyberpunk 2077 is a complete RPG closer to Fallout than GTA. You have stats to manage, weapons have damage values, your health is measured in numbers and so is all the damage you deal, enemies have levels and zones have levels ranges too. So unlike a shooter, where all combat is often based on skill, this is more like a typical RPG, where a much higher level enemy will almost always destroy you unless you're cheesing.
• The map is filled with tons to do; too much at once, some previewers felt. Both bigger, sprawling mini-story chains and small quick one-off stuff, and some side quests were described as being just as good as main quests.
• CDPR hasn't given a time for completion, but one of their QA guys was at ~150 hours on a nomad run, highest difficulty, and said he wasn't close to completing it, but remember QA guys play differently than most people.
• You can't join factions, gangs, or corporations; only fight against them or work with them.
• Every lifepath is deeply tied to the city and has roleplay options for any kind of character. Yes, even nomads. The nomad clans are one of the most powerful factions in Night City and have tons of people in the city, so they're not really outsiders. They also have stuff like an entire clan of netrunners, so yes you can safely play anything on any lifepath "correctly" according to lore.
• Nonlethal gameplay is confirmed. You can mod weapons to be nonlethal and spare bosses, as shown in the trailer while fighting Sasquatch. There's also a variety of damage types and bleeding/poison, possibly EMP-style afflictions too.
• The trunk of your car is linked to your apartment storage, so rejoice all you junk rats. Info came from one of the randamo tweets they do sometimes.
• Barbers haven't been confirmed in the game yet, but I honestly don't see why they won't be present when even Witcher 3 had them
• Police will react to you going on a rampage "realistically" using a notoriety system that's a bit more extensive and not quite as sharply dramatic as GTA's star system, but that should still give you a good idea of what to expect. Eventually, you'll be declared a cyberpsycho and Max-Tac, a legendary pseudo riot squad made up of borderline cyberpsychos, will hunt you down.
• Most NPCs are killable (and I guess sparable by extension); children can't be harmed and seemingly despawn when you're in a car. This is unfortunate.
• CDPR has said that nearly every component of the HUD can be toggled on and off individually, like the damage numbers above people's heads when you hit them. It's unknown if we can customize things further (like have different eye-optics that change HUD color).
• CDPR wants to include a New Game Plus, but haven't talked much about it other than saying they want to do it but don't know how. They've been saying the same thing since 2018, honestly. It might not make it in for release and be later free DLC.

Not sure if I forgot anything but feel free to ask and I'm sure me or someone else will answer, and I'll add it if it's worthwhile.
Hopefully this will cut down a bit on repeat questions as we ramp up toward release and more and more newer folk join us.

Hi all! I was going through some things from my ex boyfriend and I had a date book compiled, and thought I'd share some of the ideas here before I toss the book out.
Bob Ross Follow Along: Bob Ross has his own Youtube channel that you can go to. Scroll through the video selection and choose a painting that looks appealing to you. Buy canvases and paint and a bottle of wine and have a fun night in following along with Bob.
Murder Mystery Dinner: This would be fun for an at home double date. I found a cheap kit at Tj Maxx but you could also probably find ideas online or a cheap kit online. My kit had invitations that were to be mailed out to guests inviting them to the dinner (could use fb invite), pamphlets with the characters background for the guests to study, dinner ideas (could be as simple as spag and meatballs) and a storyline to follow to solve a murder.
Make Tipsy Bartender Drinks: If you like drinking you could have a fun night in by going to Tipsy Bartenders Youtube and see if there are any drinks you have the supplies to make laying around. He has drinks of varying budgets so if you need something simple and cheap hes got you.
Board Game Night: If you have some board games enjoy a night in playing them. If you don't there is a website called Board Game Online that I find quite fun that you could burn some time on. There is also Drunk Pirate for an online drinking game.
Science Experiments: After a quick trip to the grocery store for some supplies you can enjoy a night in doing various different science experiments such as making a rainbow jar, aqua sand, slime, and whatever other fun experiments you can find online.
Make Clay Sculptures: You can buy a packet of clay at Walmart and mold some figures with it. Let it harden overnight and enjoy date night #2 by painting them.
Fantasy Box: Fantasy Box is a really cool company that creates boxes for different sexual desires. They have costume boxes with fantasies like playboy bunny, school girl, as well as bondage boxes, playful boxes, etc. The boxes are already pretty cheap compared to buying the items individually but you can also find referral codes online for an additional $20 off.
Break a World Record: Look online at Guinness World Record and see if there are any records that you and your S/O can break.
Time Capsule: Buy a lunch box and find various items around the house that are memories that signify your relationship. This could be photos, receipts, trinkets. Put them in the box and open in 1 year with a bottle of wine.
Make each other t-shirts: Buy plain white t-shirts, fabric pens, different craft supplies and decorate t-shirts for each other.
Decorate kitchen supplies: Buy ceramic markers and mugs/plates/shot glasses/etc and decorate some kitchen supplies.
Answer Questions: There are various websites online that have long lists of silly/serious/romantic questions to ask your s/o. Sit down with some mixed drinks and go through the lists with each other.
Puzzles: Find a puzzle that you both like and get to completing. Once done buy some mod podge to seal the puzzle and use it later to decorate your living space!
Draw/Paint Each Other: Depending on your budget this could be as simple as paper and pencil or canvas and paint or both. You can choose to paint each other live while looking at each other (might be harder) or print photos of each other to paint.
$10 Dollar Tree Challenge: Go to Dollar Tree with each of you only allowed a budget of $10 = 10 items. Buy the randomest stuff that might make the other person laugh. My boyfriend and I found minion night lights, anal wart cream, douches, etc.
Youtube Challenges: Do various popular Youtube challenges. Boyfriend Does My Makeup, Chapstick Challenge, Tincan Challenge, Chubby Bunny Challenge, etc.
Buy Books For Each Other: Go to a library and find a book for the other person without telling them what it is. Get home and curl up with each other and read the books.
Taste Test Chocolate & Wine/Cheese & Wine: Buy chocolate and wine and taste test different chocolates with the wine. Could do the same but with cheese and wine instead.
Date Box: Datebox creates a fun, unique date night, and sends you everything needed to enjoy it with your special someone. Each month you get something new and exciting. They have an online only version for a cheaper price or a box you'll receive in the mail. There are referral codes online you can find to make that first box cheaper.
Hunt a Killer Subscription Box: This is an interactive box that takes place over a 6 month period. You will get a new box each month that gives you clues to solve the murder mystery. There are various different themed boxes.
Massages: Buy some massage oil and set the mood by setting up a room by laying a sheet down on the couch/bed, placing a pillow, and playing some peaceful music.
Newly Wed Game: Typically this would require a group of 4 and you can definitely double date and play that way. However, you can also just play with your s/o by printing out the questions, answering them separately then comparing together. Loser could take shots or take a sip of their drink.
Personality Test: You can take a free version of the Myers Briggs personality test and see how your personalities mesh with each other.
Instant Chemistry Compatibility Test: Take a dna test with your s/o by sending in your saliva and see how compatible you really are. These tests are on sale for Valentines day.
Tie Dye: Buy white t-shirts and a tie dye kit. I found one at Walmart that included the ties, bottles and dye. Use a giant plastic tub or your bathtub to make the shirts to save a mess.
Fondue: There are various different fondue recipes online whether it be chocolate or cheese related. Find a recipe and recreate it at home.
At Home Photo Shoot: Use your phone camera, a cheap throwaway polaroid or buy a fujifilm. Set up a room with a backdrop and do photo shoots with each other. You could make it silly by picking out each others outfits for the photos.
Paint Each Others Body: Buy edible paint if you're into that to lick it off each other. Or buy non toxic paint and paint actual art creations on each others backs.
Bubble Bath: Set up a nice warm bath with bubbles, a bath bomb, dim the lights, and play some ambient music.
Paint Snow with Food Coloring: Buy some bottles of food coloring and after it snows go outside and decorate the snow.
Make Maple Candy with Snow. After a fresh snow take some of the snow inside with a tub and take 100% maple syrup and drizzle it along the snow. It will harden into maple candy.
Make blessing bags for homeless: Make a trip to the Dollar Tree. Buy bags, gloves, snacks, hygeine products, etc. Go home, stuff the bags. Then put the bags in the back of your car and whenever you see homeless you can give them a bag.
Travel to new country via Internet: Open up your laptop and choose a country. Travel to that country via the internet. Open it up on Google Maps. Look at local images, learn some words in that language, watch videos.
Karaoke: Open up Youtube and find different Karaoke compilations that have duets.
Dance Lessons: Youtube has various step by step dance videos. Find one that you both like, clear out the living room, and get practicing.
Build a Snowman: After a sticky snow, gather some supplies around the house and go build a snowman outside.
Scratch Tickets: Go to the gas station and buy $10-20 in scratch tickets. Spend some time in celebrating or contemplating how much money you just lost.
Half Hand Video Games: If your s/o and you have a ps4/xbox/nintendo etc you can play this. Each of you get half of the controller and you have to work together to finish the game. This can be fun for games like Spyro, COD and Mario Kart.
Cook-Off: Choose a meal that you both have to prepare such as strawberry short cake or apple fritters. Each choose a different recipe and make your own style. When you're done post on social media and see what your friends and family think on who did best.
Strip PokeStrip Trivia: Get a deck of cards or find some trivia questions online. Loser removes a piece of clothing each time they lose.
Glowstick Party: Go to the dollar tree and buy a BUNCH of glow in the dark sticks. Decorate the room, turn off the lights, play some music, have some drinks, and PARTY.
Walmart/Car Bingo: Make bingo cards for every time you go to Walmart or go on a road trip. The Walmart bingo could be like the people of Walmart. Everytime you see someone without a shirt mark here. The road trip could be signs that you see or things like cows or planes.
Green Eggs and Ham: Want some nostalgia? Remember Dr. Seuss? Prepare green eggs and ham and watch one of the Dr. Seuss movies.
Cartoon Night: Get in your pjs, get some of your childhood favorite cereals and sit down in front of the tv like its Sunday morning and watch some old childhood cartoons.
Meditate: Set up some space in your living room, lay down a blanket, and pull up Youtube videos that will play calm music and instruct you when to breathe in and out.
Yoga: Set up some space in your living room, lay down a blanket, and pull up Youtube videos that will have an instructor telling you what positions you need to do and how long to hold them.
Make a relationship montage video: Depending how long you've been together you probably have a lot of photos and videos. Get sappy and pull up Imovie or Windows Movie Maker and compile all these memories together in a video that you can later watch together.
Themed Country Date Night: Pick a country. For this example I'll use Italy. Make an Italian dinner like pasta or pizza. Dessert could be Italian ice. Play Italian music while you eat. Watch movies based out of Italy.
Learn Your Love Language: There are five ways people receive and process love. Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service. Take the quiz with your s/o and see which one they are and incorporate it in your relationship.
Airsoft Gun Fight: You can buy a really fancy one or get really cheap ones at the dollar tree. Set up the room for battle, load your guns and get shooting!
Goodwill Trip: Go to Goodwill and go seperate ways and pick out outfits for each other. The crazier the better. Than go somewhere in public wearing them.
One Actor Movie Binge: Choose your favorite actoactress and make a list of movies they're in. Spend a night binging those movies.
DIY Escape Room: There are various DIY tutorials for this online with different themes. Essentially set up the room with different mysteries for your S/O and have them solve how to escape the room with you.
Rainbow Dinner: Prepare a rainbow dinner for your S/O. Ideas could be a colorful pizza, acai bowl with fruits, peanut noodles, etc. There are various recipes online.
Name That Treat: Have your S/O go in the kitchen without you and grab 5 different items. You follow them and grab 5 as well. Feed each other these items and see if they're able to name them. You could also go to the grocery store if you want to make it gross and pick up stuff you don't think they'd guess.
Iron Chef: Prepare a meal where one ingredient is incorporated in everything. For example chocolate. So chocolate needs to be in the app,entree, dessert and drink.
Hawaiian Vacation in your living room: Lay down a tan sheet to look like sand. Lay down another small blanket or towel above it. Set up a mini picnic with foods that are Hawaiian themed. Make a trip to the Dollar Tree and go to their luau party section and buy cups and different decorations to fit the theme. Make a mixed drink like pina colada. Play tropical music.

Roughly a year ago, I jumped on the end of a bandwagon of posting up what I played throughout the previous year (that being 2019). That list was a whopping 33 games long, for which my excuse was some personal issues that gave me an unusual amount of free time. Now, roughly a year later, there has been a global issue that has given me an unusual amount of free time!
This year's list has around 40 games on it, which seems like more than I played last year, but I also played a further 16 VR games in 2019 that I had posted about elsewhere. Still, my total hours played is probably greater because I got really in to some of these at the lowest points of 2020.
This is a very long post, with a paragraph or two for each game. For those who prize brevity (or are browsing on mobile, I guess), I apologize. I've provided a short list of games I found to be stand-out in one way or the other immediately below this; then I have a few lists of games categorizing them by whether or not I recommend them and my perception of their popularity. Then there's ~25,000 characters of my expanded thoughts on the various titles. I recommend ctrl+f if you want to know my thoughts on a given game.
A BRIEF TL;DR OF MADE UP AWARDS:
Game of My Year: Disco Elysium
(runner up: CrossCode)
Most Time, Best Spent: No Man's Sky
Hiddenest Gem, I Think: Super Daryl Deluxe
Oldest Game I Played For the First Time: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Best VR Game: The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Biggest Disappointment: Indivisible
Commonly Recommended and/or Popular Games I Also Recommend: Disco Elysium, The Outer Wilds, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Detroit: Become Human, Rimworld, Cave Story+, Deus Ex (2001), Superhot, Death Stranding, Sonic Mania, Among Us, Return of the Obra Dinn, Mirror's Edge, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous
Highly Recommended, More Obscure Titles: Cursed Castilla, The Messenger, Cosmic Star Heroine, CrossCode, Super Daryl Deluxe, Overgrowth, 100% Orange Juice, Barony, Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest
Popular-ish Games I'm Ambivalent About: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Pokemon Shield, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Subnautica, Indivisible
More Obscure Games That are OK, I Guess: Graveyard Keeper, The Final Station, Chantelise, Out There: Omega Edition, The Invisible Hours, Dual Universe
Games I Actively Disliked: Fantasy Blacksmith, This is the Police
VR Exlusive Games (all more or less recommended): Sairento VR, Espire 1: VR Operative, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
Without further ado, here's my List of Games I Played, Mostly in 2020, in a Very Particular Order that Only Makes Sense to Me
A Few Mild-to-Moderately Obscure Titles I Highly Recommend
Cursed Castilla (Maldita Castilla EX) (PC) - This is basically inspired by Ghosts and Goblins. It has a fun aesthetic and 'story' based around Spanish knights(?) crusading against demons. Its gameplay is a bit more forgiving than Ghosts and Goblins, but is still excellently done side-scrolling platforming in an SNES style. I highly recommend it for folks looking for a retro throwback.
The Messenger (PC) - This is to Ninja Gaiden as Cursed Castilla is to Ghosts and Goblins. It is much easier than its legendary forebear, but it's a fun retro romp through a ninja-themed tongue-in-cheek world. Gameplay is smooth with lots of movement options and fun boss fights.
Cosmic Star Heroine (PC) - Another SNES-esque game, this time harking more to Chrono Trigger and other RPGs. I had this on my list for a long time, and upon picking it up I was shocked that it looks like exactly the sort of game I would have made had I ever seriously gotten into it beyond dicking around in RPG Maker. There's a huge cast of characters, each with unique skills that all chain off each other and need to be managed through intricate cooldowns, all with a system that steadily increases damage over the course of combat to ensure nothing goes on too long.
Unfortunately, this was all so complicated for me to keep up with I bounced after the first couple of chapters. It's still an excellent experience, but you do need to either be in the right headspace or absolutely adore this sort of game and/or systems.
CrossCode (Gamepass on PC) - This is another 2D game with gorgeous pixel art that wouldn't look too out of place on the SNES. This time it's an action RPG with a sort of hokey 'you're playing an MMO' story ala Sword Art Online. The narrative actually goes to interesting places, though, but I won't spoil it. The gameplay is a top-down brawler sort, with a lot of choices between throwing energy balls, beating on things with your melee attack, and casting various elemental spells. There are also a handful of dungeons with progressively more interesting puzzle gimmicks, though it mostly involves variations on block pushing and ball bouncing. I do see this game mentioned sometimes, but not as much as it deserves, IMO. The only downside is the itemization and equipment takes a little too much inspiration from MMOs, but it doesn't really hold the action part of the game back much.
Super Daryl Deluxe (PC) - This is an absoutely criminally underrated game which I had mistakenly thought was more popular because several folks in my friend group had played it. This is a Metroidvania-esque title that plays more like a side-scrolling brawler, with a wide variety of skills to choose from and upgrade as you gain collectibles. The core brawler gameplay is just a real treat on its own. The game's narrative is a very surreal high-school themed experience, with the strangely silent protagonist running increasingly bizarre errands through bizarre worlds themed after typical school courses, like Science, History, and Music/Art. The aesthetic is a pleasant sort of squash-and-stretch cartoony thing. Despite a kind of mediocre payoff plotwise, I still enjoyed my time with both the gameplay and the narrative just because of that 'what's going to happen next?' factor. I highly recommend anyone with a remote interest in it to give this game a shot while it's still on sale on Steam.
Some of My Favorites That are Also Popular and/or Contentious
Disco Elysium (PC) - I cannot praise this game highly enough. It's a roleplaying game in the truest sense of the word. There is no combat, but the skills you choose and develop have so much impact on how you progress through the story it's kind of nuts. Every little bit of detail in the world is interwoven with others and while the core mystery of the game is a little simplistic, all of the sidequests and tertiary stuff impact each other and it is in general fascinating. The writing is excellent and the feeling of pulling at strings until you figure out what's going on is something I've never seen matched by another game of this type. I don't want to say anymore as I'll inevitably enter spoiler territory, but if this type of game is up your alley at all, I recommend picking this up.
The Outer Wilds (PC) - I played this immediately after Disco Elysium, and despite being two very different games, they excel in the same place: everything is so masterfully interconnected. The central mystery of The Outer Wilds is about what the heck is going on in your solar system, not a murder mystery, but nonetheless everything you see has some impact on something. It's absolutely fascinating piecing it altogether. Unfortunately, the core gameplay is a bit looser - some of the physical puzzles are tedious or obtuse, and the spaceflight in this game is difficult to control. You will pitch yourself into the sun more than once, usually on accident. I can't give it quite the same glowing recommendation as Disco Elysium because while you can blunder through and enjoy that game, it's entirely possible to be stymied entirely by The Outer Wilds.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC) - This is such a strange piece of history. The game looks like it belongs in 2004 right until you meet one of the central characters from the act one plot, whose model wouldn't look terribly out of place in an indie game today. Honestly the whole game is like this given its apparently troubled development history, with some aspects shining bright and others just being awful. The writing is absolutely great from start to finish; the gameplay dips and dives from point to point, especially the oft-dreaded sewer levels which kept seeming not quite that bad except that they just kept on going. Some setpieces are well-realized dungeon romps, and sometimes you're beating off zombies in a crackhouse for way too long. Overall, it's just good enough that I'd recommend it as an invesment of your time if you can forgive a few gameplay sins in the name of good writing and a solid plot.
Detroit: Become Human (PS4) - This one had been on my list for quite a while. It's essentially a modern adventure game in the vein of TellTale, and while I'm not sure I'd say it entirely succeeds at the idea of making choice meaningful, the ridiculous number of branches in the story is absolutely unreal. The game even maps out all these branches for you after completing a chapter, often leading to a 'what the heck could have gone differently there?' sort of thing. This is my first David Cage game, so I don't have a history with his style. I found the plot to be merely so-so, and of the three playable protagonists, two are a little too simplistic and tropey for my tastes. However the writing and dialogue in Connor's segments is second to none, and I would love an entire buddy cop game in this style. Overall, I'd recommend it for what it is - a hamhanded morality tale with crazy production values.
Stuff You've Likely Seen Before
Rimworld (PC) (replay/new content) - Rimworld is a top-down colony building game where your colonists crash-land on a lowtech Rimworld at the edge of human space. You build a shelter and work towards either constructing you own spaceship or building up enough supplies to hike to one you're told the location of. It's got a solid gameplay loop in this vein, and I played it this year because of the Royalty expansion pack, which introduced a new faction and end-game goal - impress the feudal leader of a fleet over the Rimworld to take you to the stars. Overall, I highly recommend Rimworld to fans of the genre, and the Royalty expansion is also worth it as it spices up combat with psychic 'spells' and whatnot.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) - While this game does wear its Batman: Arkham Games inspiraton on its sleeve, it's a little more than that. Combat is more central than in the Batman games, and it's just a lot of fun skewering orcs and taking down Sauron's armies using the vaunted 'Nemesis' system. Shadow of Mordor - the first one, since I know it's easy to mix them up - is a nice, brisk game that has a reasonably quick core plot and doesn't overstay its welcome. In fact, I was left wanting more, so...
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (PC) - In a lot of ways, this game is more of the same. It does, however, introduce more itemization; while in Mordor, you simply upgraded your weapons by completing challenges, War requires you to level up and replace weapons as you go. This does create a few more interesting systems with damage types and whatnot, but ultimately I stopped because the new elements just weren't much fun and I didn't need that much more Middle-Earth Batman in my life. The plot also goes from 'Well, it's Tolkienish, I guess' to just being kind of dumb all around.
Cave Story+ (PC) (replay) - It had been a while since I beat Cave Story, so I picked this up and did a full run including the 'true ending' hell run. For those who haven't played it, Cave Story is a charming little side-scrolling shooter with a variety of fun weapons. There's not a lot to say beyond that; it's a short, sweet retro experience I also recommend.
Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (PC) (replay) - I'm referring to the 2001 game, not the Square Enix one from whenever that was. Deus Ex is probably one of the earliest 'with RPG elements' games. At its core it's a first-person shooter set 20 minutes into the future, but your weapon efficacy is determined by skill points you earn by exploring, completing objectives, and interacting with NPCs. The plot has a lot of classic cyberpunk and conspiracy plot beats to it and I highly recommend it even though the core gameplay feels dated in 2020. It is still an absolute masterclass in level design, with so many little hidden secrets, bonuses for exploring, and ways to complete your objectives. I kid you not when I say that after a dozen playthroughs over 20 years, I still find entirely new side areas and routes. There are multiple modernizing mods; I used Deus Ex Revision, available through Steam if you own the base game there.
Pokemon Shield (Switch) - I wasn't patient for this, and in fact probably actually beat it in 2019, but it wasn't a Patient game at the time so it didn't make last years list. That said, it's Pokemon - you almost certainly have your own opinion on it at this point. That said I still felt sort of disappointed even with low expectations going in, as it was basically as brain-dead as other recent entries in the series. It's a shame we're not seeing more out of it given how stupidly huge the franchise is.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - This is a 2020 Pandemic Classic, but I kind of bounced off it despite enjoying previous Animal Crossing games. The only gameplay evolution is to add a weird survival-game element of your tools breaking and admittedly a sort of neat crafting/terrain alteration system, but this was gated behind so much grind I just felt I could get this same experience, only better, elsewhere.
Subnautica (Gamepass on PC) - Subnautica is a survival/exploration game set on an alien world after a crash landing. Basically the entire game is spent in the ocean, hence the name. The game is gorgeous and has some fun encounters, but the core gameplay is a bit of a slog, requiring you to scour the ocean floor for bits to find upgrades and slowly solve how to get your ass off the world. The intent is to force you to build multiple bases, but I short-circuited this by building the Giant Monster Submarine Mobile Base. Following the breadcrumbs of the plot is alright, but then you occasionally just hit a 'go scour the ocean floor for wreckage so you can get the upgrade to go past this arbitrary depth'. I think I dropped the game shortly before its climax because I just couldn't be bothered anymore.
Indivisible (PC) - This is a gorgeously animated game that at first glance, looks like Valkyrie Profile with a Metroidvania-ish overworld. In practice, though, it's very linear and the combat system has little more depth than button mashing. The narrative tries to do some interesting things but ultimately falls flat due to some mixed messages with tones and general pacing issues. The voice-acting talent in this game is top tier, though. Overall, I feel like this is a 'good enough' popcorn filler game that's worth your time, but I also feel like it could have been so much more.
Death Stranding (PS4) - I got a fairly solid deal on a used copy shortly after launch, so I wasn't exactly Patient. Hideo Kojima Pretends He's a Film Guy isn't exactly a gripping narrative, but I actually enjoyed the literal walking simulator gameplay. Other players affect your experience indirectly, sort of like the Dark Souls message system. But rather than crude jokes about awesome chests or but holes, they leave material goods. By this I mean both useful equipment and literally dropped cargo, and they literally alter the terrain by forming 'desire paths' as more people take the same route. The whole game is fascinating even if a lot of it is just Kojima being weird.
Superhot (PC) - I don't have a lot to say about this other than I played it. It's basically an FPS where you are in constant bullettime, with the world only advancing extremely slowly until you move. It creates a sort of puzzle game as you figure out how best to dispatch foes without getting overwhelmed. I played the VR version on PS4 in 2019, which has no locomotion. I preferred the 'puzzle solving' elements of this version where you actually have full freedom of movement rather than simply leaning in place.
Sonic Mania (PC) - This is a short and sweet love letter to classic Sonic. I only ever got into the blue blur with the Gamecube MegaCollection, so this just seemed like a welcome return to a familiar gameplay style. I don't have much more than a vague thumbs-up recommendation for folks looking for, well, more classic Sonic.
Among Us (PC) - I really appreciate the chance to murder my friends and convince them they didn't. I don't really see the appeal of playing with randos, but if you can get six-to-seven people together on Discord it's a grand old time. Your experience with more may vary.
Return of the Obra-Dinn (PC) - Sleek graphical style, and neat puzzle-esque gameplay. Basically, you're an insurance... person asssessing what happened to the crew of a ship in the Age of Sail (I forget the exact year). You progress through the stylish black-and-white ship using a magical timepiece that lets you see the last moments of the various corpses you find. The goal is to discover what happened to each of the several dozen crew members on board - how they died, whether they somehow got off the ship, and what (or who) killed them. It has some flaws, as a puzzle game, but it's still well worth trying out if this is the sort of thing you're into.
Mirror's Edge (PC) - I made it about three-quarters of the way through this game years ago, but dropped it for... some reason. It's famously a game about free-running, and it's essentially one long puzzle game about how to maneuver around an urban environment by maintaining momentum, jumping, climbing, and swinging. It's serviceable enough in all respects, though I had a rough time figuring out how to proceed in a couple of areas. The aesthetic is slick, and the plot is merely serviceable.
Some More Obscure Stuff
Overgrowth (PC) - This game is slightly hard to describe. Basically, it's a... character action game based around physics, I guess? About an anthropomorphic rabbit who fights other anthropomorphic animals. The plot has a gritty low-fantasy bent to it, but the meat of the game is in doing crazy high-jumps around the environments (including some parkour!) and sneaking around to grab weapons and slaughter your enemies. Both you and your enemies have very low health pools. The physics do feel a bit janky and floaty, but you can still do a lot of crazy cool stuff - like a flying kick that all but guarantees a kill, but if you miss leaves you very open.
100% Orange Juice (PC) - This is basically Honest Mario Party for weebs. It's typically referred to as orenji, i.e. RNG (randomly generated number). You roll a dice to move your ridiculous anime girl around a board, then roll some dice to see what happens, from simple combat to gaining stars to a very small smattering of minigames. Your goal is to go around the board and make it to your home square with a certain number of stars or a certain number of 'wins' from defeating other players or NPC encounters in combat (your choice). If you do this five times before anybody else, you win! It's a charming little game to goof around with friends on, and often very cheap.
Graveyard Keeper (PC) - It's like a grimly humorous version of Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. A literal braying ass delivers corpses to your graveyard, you have to bury them with appropriate headstones and whatnot or, you know, throw them in the river I guess. Overall it's a bit too grindy and repetitive despite having a fair number of gameplay systems (having to kill bats on your way to quarry stone for headstones, etc.) Some folks might enjoy the dark humor more than I did, and the gameplay is roughly in line with something like Stardew Valley, so if you want a twist on that formula, give it a look.
The Final Station (PC) - This is a side-scrolling game in which you operate a train across a country while weird shit happens. Gameplay is split between tending the train, which involves fiddling with the train systems as they go down and tending to passengers by delivering food or medicine. At each station, the gameplay is more of a side-scrolling shooter mode where you methodically fight weird zombie-like creatures while looking for the access code to release your train for the next leg while gathering as many supplies as you can. The narrative is jank and intentionally obtuse, but I dug the moment-to-moment gameplay. Overall it gets an 'eh' from me.
Barony (PC) - I played this with my friends when it had a free weekend on Steam. It's a 3D Roguelike that plays in real time rather than the standard turn-based. You have several base classes that determine starting skills, but over the course of a run you may well develop an entirely different set. It's pretty standard stuff if you're used to Nethack or Dungeon Crawl, but the novelty of having multiplayer was good for a weekend. If my friends weren't such dumb butts I'd probably have played more of it.
Chantelise (PC) - This is one of those mid-2000s Japanese action games that got a Steam port at some point. It's got some janky camera issues and a fairly basic combat system where you swing your sword around and gather gems that allow you to release various elemental attacks depending on what's in your gem queue. The story's your typical anime bullshit with two sisters trying to discover why one of them got cursed to be a fairy. It's a solid romp if you can manage to acclimate to the weird camera and input scheme.
Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest (PC) - I was interested in this because it was by the folks who did The Legend of Grimrock. It's an isometric strategy game with the typical vaguely-X-COM 2012 inspirations. There are some interesting choices to be made in ability and equipment loadouts and I vaguely enjoyed the first several missions, but the story didn't grip me and the combats were a mix of uninteresting slugfests and overly tense 'how do I reach the objective while not dying?' sorts of things, at least as I recall it now. This is on my list of things to go back and give a more proper shot as I wasn't really quite in the headspace for it on my first try.
Out There: Omega Edition (PC) - I believe this is a port of a mobile game that is basically a weird sort of existential space exploration. You move from star to star, trying to keep your supplies topped off, and progress towards your homeworld. There are a few different endings, and in general the writing is OK. It's a fun little space-themed choose your own adventure/resource management sort of rogue-like-ish (I hate that I typed this) game.
I Didn't Like These Very Much
Fantasy Blacksmith (PC) - I installed this thinking it'd be a fun little sim game. While it is kind of neat to run around messing with the tools to go through the full process of heating an ingot, beating it into a blade, and performing minigames to sharpen and do final assembly, there's so damn much waiting involved. To profitably sell a sword, you need to wait until you hear knocks on your door (which may well be in the middle of you doing a time-sensitive step in the process). You have to wait for deliveries. You can mine in your basement, for some reason, but it's so agonizingly slow and, again, if you hear some knocking - you better rush to the door! Overall, this game was a disappointment.
This is the Police - On the surface, I really liked the idea of Duke Nukem voicing a tired old cop, with gameplay revolving around time management as you play admin and dispatch for your various police officers. It also has a great, sleek aesthetic and general presentation. In practice it's a needlessly gritty drama about crime and corruption with very little feedback on how well you're doing at the actual game portion. I intentionally ignored the mafia's attempts to bribe me into ignoring their activity, and my game officially ended when the main character got shot in a driveby at breakfast. The fact that it was preordained that I had to be a dirty cop, combined with the fact that the only warning of this was the same 'The Mafia will remember that.' message with no further escalation or actual warning about it being a gameover condition lead me to drop it there (on top of others saying this isn't the only incident of being in a losing game state without any real forewarning).
And Now for Some VR Games
The Invisible Hours (PS4) (also has a flat-screen mode) - This isn't really a game, as there's literally zero interactivity. All you can do is move the camera around, pause, and rewind. It self describes itself as a sort of play, which is appropriate. You follow the seven or so individuals as they interact and reveal more about their own personal mysteries and the central murder mystery. The plot is a little campy and the drama a bit melo, but overall it's still a neat ride and a novel experience, even if you aren't literally in the middle of it as it unfolds in VR. It's a neat use of a few hours of your time.
Sairento VR (PS4) - For those who don't know, VR is absolutely filthy with wave shooters - simple arenas where enemies come until you have spent enough time murdering them all. Sairento is basically one of these with the twist that throwing your hands in the air causes you to do a sick ninja flip into the air and slows down time while you mow down enemies with whatever silly cyberpunk weapons you have. It's all well and good for some dumb fun, but its central gimmick doesn't really carry it given the price tag. There are other, better shooters and explorations of VR mobility.
Espire 1: VR Operative (PS4) - This piqued my interest due to being a stealth game. The highlight, in my opinion, is your ability to climb almost any wall, which along with some solid, classic Deus Ex level design, leads to a lot of neat options for sneaking around. The campaign is fairly typical both plot-wise and gameplay objective wise, and after a while sneaking around in the rafters just doesn't carry the game anymore. By the end I'd just given up on stealth and was mowing down my enemies, which is also a viable gameplay choice. Overall it was OK, I guess.
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners (PC) - This is the first totally new game I played with my recently acquired HP Reverb G2. This is the first VR game I've played that really seemed to benefit from the previous years of design. Everything just seemed smoother and less janky. The core gameplay is basically scavenging and finding items you're sent for, which is well-suited to VR and the genre. Combat is very satisfying, and I had several tense moments where either there were too many enemies to handle in melee and managing the reloading and gunplay was just frantic enough to feel 'authentic' to a zombie apocalypse. The plot is very modern Walking Dead-ie, which you probably already have an opinion on. In the end I put more hours into the 'Trial' mode, which will being Yet Another Wave Shooter, was actually tense and engaging compared to the many, many previous games with the same formula. I think this has to do with the very satisfying 'pierce the skull' motion and literally grabbing zombies by the head and shoving them back to help manage crowds. All in all, I now consider this a quintessential VR experience alongside Beat Saber.
Unlimited Time Dumps
No Man's Sky (PS4, PC) - Like a non-trivial number of people, I watched the Internet Historian's The Engoodening of No Man's Sky. The game was on sale, it had relatively recently received a VR update for PSVR, and I said screw it and picked it up. This was right around when we were all realizing just how serious the whole pandemic was going to be, and I dumped an ungodly number of hours into the game during March through May. What I appreciated most about NMS - apart from being fairly breathtaking in VR, even in the muddy potato-water of a PS4 Pro's graphical capabilities - is how seamlessly the transition from on-foot to starship gameplay was. Neither is super deep, and the game is mostly about following quests from point-to-point, meandering exploration, or at-best-serviceable basebuilding with some survival elements. But it's all done well enough in the same package that it's entrancing. If you do pick it up, for the first time or to mess around, be sure to check out the crazy folks at the Galactic Hub.
Also yes, I bought NMS on both platforms. I used a program called iVRy to be able to use my PSVR headset on PC, but despite my best efforts I was never able to get anything other than head tracking working. NMS is sort of playable without motion controllers, until you try to build and your hands are behind you so you can't actually place anything. But this setup was fine for...
Elite Dangerous (PC) - There's a YouTuber by the name of Exigeous who says that Elite Dangerous is a pretty alright spaceship game if you play it normally. But if you play it with a VR headset, you are flying a fucking spaceship. I could not agree more. I spent an embarassing number of hours putting this game through its paces from late Spring through the Summer. The game has imeccable sound design, unbelievably good presentation, and a very solid space-dogfight flight model.
Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend almost anything else about the game. Doing almost anything involves either multiple-minute commutes in 'SuperCruise', the only-somewhat-faster-than-light in-system movement mode, or multiple loading-screen warp jumps between stars to get where you want to be. 'Space trucking', or trading, is very janky, as the economic simulation is fairly minimal. Doing anything to the 'background simulation' and affecting the galaxy requires a Herculean effort with a Byzantine system that is less clear than mud. The game probably has the most interesting asteroid mining systems, from relatively simple but pleasant to execute laser mining to cracking the cores with explosives and hoovering up the goodies, but it's still a very simple loop and relies on the aforementioned jank economics. The real strengths are the breathtaking universe (if you can stand jumping and supercruising for hours), and the remarkably complex, modular system for fitting your ships. This is especially true of combat, and with over two dozen ships to choose from there's a wide variety of options from stacking shields and wading into 'melee' with various lasers and kinetic weapons to hull-tanking and railgun sniping.
I'm still very mixed on Elite, but it's basically a must-have VR experience for the atmospheric aesthetics and sound design alone.
Dual Universe (PC) - I'm breaking patient rules here, as this 'released' as a beta in August, but it was in Alpha for a while before that. This is an MMO with influences from EVE, Avorion, and Space Engineers. It intends to be a 'civlization building' game where players run the sandbox. The core gameplay is voxel-based spaceship building, where you can freely design the ship's hull and apply various flight elements to give it capabilities (atmospheric flight, space engines, guns). Production of these elements is done by running Industry machines, and while it's not as complex as something like Satisfactory or Factorio, there is still a fun element of industrial planning (though currently this is a grind-gated gameplay loop).
It calls itself a Beta but feels much more like an Alpha, and frankly NovaQuark is a newbie developer who doesn't seem to have much of a clue. If this game didn't scratch all the right itches for me, I probably wouldn't even mention it; but it's such a fascinating project and is the only true MMO I know with such extensive usage of voxel deformation from everything from ship damage to terrain to mining, with an EVE-like sandbox ethos at least stated.
A Conclusion
If you read all that, I'm so sorry. This yearly roundup means a lot to me as I put my thoughts in order about what I played over the year, and recall some of the more obscure stuff I had forgotten I played. (In particular, I really enjoyed Overgrowth, which I played in July or so, and had totally forgotten Indivisible which I bought at the end of the 2019 Steam Sale, and was a real mixed bag).
I did play a few other games this year, but this list is exclusive to games I at least gave a fair shake of a few hours rather than simply playing for a tiny bit and putting down. My primary methodology was to pull the highlights out of my brain, then check the play history of my consoles (which is fairly inaccurate, probably). My PS4 got a lot of use on one game this year (No Man's Sky), but my Switch sat largely-dormant. PC was my primary platform, where Steam's excellent 'sort by recent activity' function gave me a fairly comprehensive list of what I had played and when.
I think my New Year's Resolution will be to actually post more about games as I play them here on /patientgamers, if only so I can just link to some posts and do a quicker list next year (though hopefully 2021 won't see me with quite so much free time).