It’s been a rather slow year for games this year. Amidst the excitement of GTA V, and of course the new consoles being launched, there hasn’t been a slew of exciting games to play in 2013. This may please people’s wallets, but it’s not been the best for gamers looking for a great new experience.
2014 might well change all that. Next year will see the first real heavyweights on the PS4 and Xbox One, as well as a few good titles for the last generation too. There are plenty of games on the horizon to be excited about.
Here’s a few of the games coming out next year (or possibly the year after) that have been announced, or sufficiently teased, that I’m personally excited about:
Destiny
Bungie’s first game away from the Halo franchise for over ten years is Destiny, an ambitious first person shooter with a heavy emphasis on a persistent online world in which players interact with each other. Think of it as an MMO with a refined version of Halo gameplay. That’s exciting in itself is it not?
It may be one of the games that push the new console’s graphical power to the next level beyond launch titles. From the latest concept art and demo videos of the game, it certainly looks amazing – and we can be certain it will be fun to play as well.
Destiny comes out on the 9th of September next year for the PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 – with a beta/demo in early summer for those looking to see if the game is for them.
Uncharted 4
Uncharted has become Sony’s go-to franchise since Drake’s Fortune showed us how beautiful PS3 games could be in 2007. Its mixture of great gameplay, exploration and a cast of funny, likeable characters is a match made in heaven for an exciting adventure game.
After the success of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, potentially the best PS3 exclusive there ever will be, they are returning to their roots with Nathan Drake’s latest adventure. The reveal was somewhat under the radar, coming along with the PS4’s launch, but the game will be far from it. This is Sony’s main draw to the PS4, and will likely shift many consoles when it releases, presumably next October.
Uncharted 3 received universal praise, but not quite the universal awe of its predecessor. Naughty Dog’s first effort on the PS4 is likely to get both.
Titanfall
The first game from Respawn Entertainment, largely made up of Infinity Ward employees that left during the contractual disputes in the wake of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is an Xbox exclusive that claims it will “reinvent shooters” in a way that Call of Duty 4 did.
Although I’m sceptical that Respawn will once again strike gold and create a magical FPS formula like they did with CoD4, I am interested to see how the studio’s game does in capturing the imagination of the legions of Call of Duty fans that are looking for something fresh.
The multiplayer-based game includes a new addition of mechs in game, which are given to each team similar to vehicles in Battlefield games, and it will be interesting to see how this balances with what will be a modified version of Call of Duty gameplay.
Titanfall launches next March on both the Xbox One and Xbox 360 and will likely be the highlight of the start of the year.
Fallout 4
Although the recent hubbub around the rumoured announcement of Fallout 4 has been proven a hoax, it doesn’t quell fans’ hunger for the latest Fallout game – and it doesn’t change the facts that it IS in development by Bethesda Softworks.
Bethesda hasn’t released a game since 2011’s Skyrim, and although they are working on the Elder Scrolls Online, several employees have been working on “another project” since then. The last Fallout title, New Vegas, was released by Obsidian Entertainment in 2010 – so it is high time for a new Fallout adventure.
With rumoured interest from Bethesda in the city of Boston, it seems that the series will return to New England in the near future. With the power of the new systems at their disposal, the possibilities for the next Fallout are mouth-watering when you consider how atmospheric Fallout 3 was just a year into the last generation’s run.
It may be 2015 before we see the next iteration of the post-apocalyptic 1950s future, but it will be worth it when we do.
New Mass Effect
Unlike with Fallout, Bioware have made no secret about the fact that the next Mass Effect game is in the works. All we know so far is that it will not be called Mass Effect 4, and will not take place subsequent to Commander Shepherd’s epic trilogy. With such a rich universe to explore, both figuratively and literally, the next Mass Effect game is perhaps the next-gen game I’m most excited about.
Mass Effect 3’s ending was perhaps the only low point to mention in the three games released in the series so far. Combat in ME3 was as good as the best around in the 3rd person genre, and the RPG class system was both simple and complex in a way that was easy to the newcomer and deep enough for the avid Mass Effect fan to play with. Once again, the power of the new consoles means that the possibilities for exploration (with the Mako perhaps?) and gameplay are endless.
I’d expect the new Mass Effect game to be announced shortly, with a release date set for next holiday season, and then pushed back to the start of 2015 – judging by the way the last two games’ releases have been handled. This will be the game that will force my hand into the next generation.
New Red Dead
I think it’s fair to say that Red Dead Redemption was perhaps the best game of last generation that wasn’t part of a series as such. Okay, Red Dead Revolver was released in 2004 on the PS2 – but by a different developer and with a completely different style. RDR was an amazing game – with a sense of setting that was unparalleled, gameplay that was both within the boundaries of realism and fun and a story that would put Hollywood scripts to shame.
There have been hints of a new, next-gen Red Dead in the last year or so, including Take Two CEO considering Red Dead a “permanent franchise” and October’s announcement that Rockstar was working on the “next version of a famous IP”. It would certainly be the best-selling Rockstar game of the next-generation until the inevitable launch of another Grand Theft Auto in three or four years’ time.
How a new Red Dead would play out is unclear, with the way the last game ended not leaving a clear route for a sequel – but with the amazing setup of Redemption, but I doubt it will be a trouble for the story department for Rockstar San Diego.
Once again, it may be a 2015 release for the next Red Dead, but the return to the Wild West will be welcomed whenever it comes.
Of course, there are many other games coming out next year worthy of attention: Watch Dogs, infamous: Second Son, The Witcher 3 and even, perhaps, the next Treyarch Call of Duty game – but these six are the games that pique my interest most of all. Next year can’t come soon enough for the gamer in me.