After months of anticipation, rumors and delays, Sony is finally having an official games reveal event for the hotly anticipated PS5 on June 11. Dubbed “The Future of Gaming,” the Thursday afternoon event will focus on the titles you’ll be playing on Sony’s next-gen console once it arrives at the end of this year.
Sony has yet to dish out too many specifics when it comes to what it’ll focus on for the PS5’s major June 11 coming out party, but reading between the lines of the company’s official announcement reveals some pretty solid hints. Here’s what you should expect from the PS5 June event — and what you shouldn’t.
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PS5 third-party and indie games (likely)
This one sounds obvious, but expect lots and lots of game reveals at Sony’s June event. The showcase will run for over an hour, and will “represent the best in the industry from innovative studios that span the globe,” according to Sony’s announcement post. Sony also called out that both “larger and smaller” studios have been busy making PS5 games, so we’d expect a range of AAA and indie titles. This could be a mix of already announced games such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Madden NFL 21, as well as some surprise third-party blockbusters and smaller indie experiences.
Actual live PS5 gameplay (likely)
If you were let down by the small amount of actual gameplay during the Xbox Series X May 7 event, Sony may have an antidote for you. According to VentureBeat, the company is aware of the poor reception to Microsoft’s first Series X gameplay showcase, and wants to focus on “PS5 games that are actually running on real hardware.”
Hopefully that means some truly meaty gameplay clips that show how things like SSD loading and ray tracing will benefit the next generation of games. We already got a good look at the PS5 in action during Epic's impressive Unreal Engine 5 tech demo; now it's time to see all that power put to use in a final game.
PS5 exclusives (somewhat likely)
Sony didn’t specifically promise any PS5 exclusives at its PS5 June event, though VentureBeat reports that first-party titles will likely be in the mix. We’re just about due for info on sequels to Horizon: Zero Dawn, Spider-Man and God of War, but it’s possible that Sony wants to space these announcements out rather than reveal them all at the same event. And given those Bloodborne PS5 rumors floating around, perhaps this event will be Sony's chance to reveal a sequel or enhanced port of FromSoftware's beloved action-RPG.
PS5 design (not likely)
Sony’s blog post made it very clear that its June 11 showcase will be a games-focused event, and didn’t suggest that any hardware will be revealed at the show. While it’s a bit odd that we still haven’t seen the console that Sony plans to launch in a few months, the company may be saving the design for a future showcase.
Sony has already revealed the PS5’s innovative DualSense controller, which sports a two-tone black-and-white design and features advanced haptic feedback as well as adaptive triggers that can closely mimic the feel of shooting a bow-and-arrow or driving along a road. We expect the final PS5 console to have a similar design language to the DualSense, as several PS5 concepts have imagined.
PS5 price and release date (not likely)
See above. Sony seems focused solely on game reveals for its June event, and previous reports have suggested that both Sony and Microsoft are playing a waiting game before deciding on a final price. The PS5 is rumored to cost in the ballpark of $500, and some experts predict that the Xbox Series X may undercut the console by as much as $100 to better compete with Sony. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan stated that the PS5 won’t necessarily have the ‘lowest price,’ but that it will offer gamers a ‘good value’ overall.
And while the PS5 is still on track for a holiday 2020 launch, we don’t expect to hear an official release date just yet at this event. Ryan wrote that the June event is “part of our series of PS5 updates,” in his blog post, so expect future showcases from now until the end of the year that will gradually deliver more info on Sony’s console. That’s quite similar to Microsoft’s Xbox 20/20 strategy, which will provide new info via a monthly series of Xbox Series X livestreams.
