We kicked off 2022 revealing the design of the PlayStation VR2, complete with its sleek headset and innovative PS VR2 Sense controllers. Following that, we shared more details on the user experience of PS VR2, like the illuminating see-through view and the customizable play area. 

A stylish design and new features are excellent, but playing is believing when it comes to VR, and our team at PlayStation was pumped to have the opportunity to go hands on with upcoming PS VR2 titles. Read on to discover our experiences playing games from Guerrilla, Capcom, Skydance Interactive, and ILMxLab.

Horizon Call of the Mountain

There’s a feeling of awe I remember having in my first playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn when Aloy first looks out atop a roaming Tallneck to reveal both a new portion of the map and a majestic, ever-reaching view. That sense of scale takes on a whole new meaning the first time I craned my neck up to watch a Tallneck tower and stomp through my path in Horizon Call of the Mountain. From the moment I slipped on the PlayStation VR2 headset and set off into lands that felt so familiar, I realized I had never really experienced the vast beauty and mounting dangers of Horizon’s environments quite like this. 

My hands-on demo brought me into the first person perspective of Ryas, a captive and disgraced Shadow Carja soldier that soon gets thrust into the wilds to fend for himself. Encountering machines in full realistic scale through his eyes was a constant thrill. You simply don’t realize how big a Snapmaw really is until one is chomping away at your canoe! Haptic feedback in the PS VR2 Sense controllers made the weight of each moving machine feel so real, and had me gasping when a herd of Grazers moved past me. 

Things really fell into place once I started scrambling up cliff sides and got my hands on a bow and arrow. Drawing my bow and letting arrows fly in combat with a Watcher made me feel the power I’ve come to love from the Horizon series. Hand motions and aim feel so accurate and real to life with the PS VR2 Sense controllers, from the precision placement of my hands scaling an encampment tower to the tension in my bow when I let an arrow loose. The world never feels interrupted, with my health bar appearing as decorative scales on my right hand glove rather than taking up space in a HUD. Horizon Call of the Mountain transported me in a way that made my heart race, and has me aching to hop back in.

– Kristen Zitani

Resident Evil Village

Capcom invited me back to Castle Dimitrescu for an even more immersive survival horror experience with a bespoke PlayStation VR2 hands-on demo. The g

Today’s State of Play opened with a storm-lashed first reveal of Tekken 8 and concluded with an epic God of War Ragnarök trailer. Between, we had updates from our amazing Japanese partners as well as new game announcements for PS VR2.

If you missed (or want to rewatch) the show, you can find it below:

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You can get additional insight from the creators behind the games featured in today’s State of Play in the below PS.Blog posts.

State of Play: All Announcements

• The God of War Ragnarök Story Trailer is now live
• Embark on a brand new dystopian futuristic adventure in Synduality
• Revealing Rise of the Ronin, a new action-RPG from Team Ninja
• New story trailer revealed for Stellar Blade, formerly known as Project Eve
• First look: Digital collectibles coming to PlayStation Stars
• A dark secret awaits in Hogwarts Legacy’s Haunted Hogsmeade PlayStation exclusive quest
• Pacific Drive welcomes you to the Olympic Exclusion Zone
• Revealing Like a Dragon: Ishin, out February 2023
• Read more

As the All-Father moves his pieces to the board, Kratos and Atreus must decide if they will be bound by fate or look beyond what is written and make their own destinies.  

Check out the God of War Ragnarök Story Trailer below.

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We’re also excited today to reveal the limited edition God of War Ragnarök DualSense wireless controller. Its two-tone, cool blue on icy white design was inspired by the Norse world of Midgard, further embellished with bear and wolf insignia – representing Kratos and Atreus.

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The limited edition DualSense wireless controller will be available November 9, with pre-orders starting September 27. 

Hello! My name is Yosuke Futami, the producer of Synduality. On behalf of the team, we are excited to finally reveal our brand-new sci-fi third person shooter game from Bandai Namco Entertainment.

It all started a couple of years back when our team grouped together and passionately discuss how can we break ourselves into—or even break the whole barrier, of the sci-fi genre. With the emergence of technology these days, and how artificial intelligence slowly becoming more prominent in our daily lives, we were particularly interested in how humans and AI would interact with each other in the future. Will they coexist? Do they have the same belief on feelings, or sense of emotion? Can they intertwine? Those were the questions that eventually became an exodus of this project, and hopefully you would join us to figure out together the adventures that lies ahead of them.

Synduality is set in a dystopian future where poisonous rain and deformed creatures wreak havoc on the world, where you and you AI partner must find a way to work together and reclaim lost ground for humanity. Adding to the excitement, we have partnered with prominent designers Neco (for character design) and Gyobu (for mech design) to bring their unique sci-fi style to the game. Please check out the reveal trailer below for a first look at the game.

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The world of Amasia

The year is 2222. It has been years since Tears of the New Moon, a mysterious rain, poured and wiped out almost the entire human race. The poisonous rain gave birth to deformed creatures devouring for humans, and humanity fled from the danger. As means for survival, the humans then build an underground haven; Amasia. In this new built dystopian city, on a pursuit of maintaining their existence, they run into an Artificial Intelligence named Magus. Not knowing how things will work between them, the story of how Humans and AI coinciding and trying to find their truths begin.

Search for scarce resources in your Cradle Coffin

In the world of Synduality, you will take on a role as Drifters—who makes a living by collecting AO Crystals; a rare resource that can only be obtained in dangerous terrestrial environment. You will take on each mission in your Cradle Coffin—an armed vehicle that will get you mobile during the adventure. Players can personalize their Cradle Coffin—not only its appearance, but the weapons equipped as well to make your Cradle Coffin suit your own play style.

Here at Team Ninja, we are incredibly excited to introduce our very latest action RPG game which takes you on an epic and unfettered journey as a Ronin at the dawn of a new era in Japan. It was seven years ago when we first began this project. And since then, the development has progressed slowly and freely, much like the spirit of a Ronin. It is with great pleasure to finally bring this title to light, and we are filled with gratitude on being able to make this announcement with PlayStation who have supported us and this project throughout these many years.

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Rise of the Ronin is a combat focused open-world action RPG that takes place in Japan at a time of great change. It is the very end of a 300-year long Edo Period, commonly known as “Bakumatsu”. Set in the late 19th century, Japan is facing the darkest of times as it struggles with its oppressive rulers and deadly diseases while western influence permeates as civil war continues to rage between the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Anti-Shogunate factions.

Here in this time of mayhem, you embody a Ronin character, a warrior bound to no master and free to make choices of its own. Rise of the Ronin is a new Team Ninja experience that will immerse you in an historically inspired world while bringing together its renowned combat action with Katanas and the likes, with new firearm weaponry that depicts the unique personality of its time period.

We at Koei Tecmo, have had many titles in the past that were based on history. But with Rise of the Ronin, we set out to take the next big step. By harnessing all the skills and knowledge we’ve gained over the years we really wanted to take things to the next level by attempting to thoroughly portray the most critical revolution in the history of Japan including the darkest and ugliest chapters that many will shy away from. This is undoubtedly the most ambitious and challenging project for Team Ninja Studio to date. Yet we will allow our experience in creating samurai and ninja action games to guide us through this journey.

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This is our second encounter since the PlayStation Showcase back in September 2021. I am beyond ecstatic to reveal the official name for our game, previously called Project Eve, and share new trailer unveiling new characters and their roles in this story.

And I present to you the official title that encompasses Eve’s stylish action and her long and winding adventure…

The meaning of Stellar Blade

The title is a combination of “Stellar,” which signifies stars in Latin, and “Blade,” which defines Eve’s existence.

Where the point of that blade will lead you to, that’s entirely up to you. 

Mankind’s last remaining city on Earth, Xion

Eve and her comrades land on the surface to reclaim the extinct Earth and cross paths with a survivor named Adam. Eve is then led by Adam to the last surviving city, Xion, where she meets the elder of the town Orcal and is told many stories. In order to serve her mission to save Earth, Eve develops close relationships with the key members of Xion and contributes to rebuilding the city.

On a mission to save Earth from the NA:tive, Eve is also faced with helping out the citizens of Xion. Whether you will help the survivors or not, depends purely on your decision as the player.

Action-packed battles against fierce bosses

Stellar Blade introduces action combat that require deflecting and evading the NA:tives’ attack at a precise timing that will also connect to combos and unique skills. Throughout the game, you will arm yourself with unique Beta Skills and intense Burst Skills, which I promise will be pleasing to the eye.

Brace yourselves… Bosses’ strengths are on a completely different level compared to the common NA:tives, offering a challenging and strategic combat encounter. 

Hi everyone! As you have just seen on State of Play we’re pleased to share an update on our brand-new loyalty program, PlayStation Stars.

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Today, we provided a first look at the digital collectible rewards that you can earn through PlayStation Stars – which will be free to join. Digital collectibles represent the things that PlayStation fans enjoy, including cherished devices that tap into Sony’s broader heritage in consumer electronics. 

These first look examples include a scene with Punto the gondolier from Ape Escape 2, PlayStation 3, PocketStation, Toro and Kuro celebrating a birthday, Chord Machine, and Polygon Man.

Created just for PlayStation Stars, these digital collectibles can only be earned through our loyalty program. In some instances, collectibles will be provided as a way to commemorate past activities, achievements, or product ownership. They range in rarity, just like the actual products on which they are based or the effort required to earn them.  Once you’ve earned collectibles, you can arrange them in a virtual display case within the PlayStation App and, if you choose, you may display your collectibles case within your PSN profile to friends. There will be different ways to acquire or earn collectibles – the primary way will be through completing campaigns. 

The campaigns in PlayStation Stars will be fun, delightful, and yes, sometimes challenging to complete.  A campaign may be a point-earning or collectible-earning activity.  One of our first campaigns is “Hit Play/1994,” where members who correctly launch games that match song-based clues receive a special collectible. More campaign details to come.

PlayStation Stars will first launch on the PlayStation App and expand to our console platform in the future. We will launch PlayStation Stars in most markets starting later this month with Asia (including Japan), and the Americas and Europe to follow at a later date.

We look forward to welcoming fans to PlayStation Stars.

State of Play: All Announcments

• Tekken 8 breaks into a new generation
• Read more

The past few weeks have been exciting for all of us here at Avalanche Software. We have announced Hogwarts Legacy will launch on February 10, 2023. We officially opened pre-orders and revealed the different editions you can get. And we set the mood with a trailer that shows you a glimpse at just how dark Hogwarts Legacy can get when you explore what lurks in the shadows.

We also attended the Wizarding World’s Back to Hogwarts celebration to announce the much-requested ability to bring your house and wand into the game by linking your Harry Potter Fan Club and Warner Bros. Games accounts, which will also unlock some exclusive fan cosmetics. I’m eager to be seamlessly sorted right into Slytherin in the game without question, along with getting my wand—a 14” pliant beech wood with unicorn hair core, if you were wondering.

Before we get into new announcements, I want to talk a little bit about Sebastian Sallow’s Dark Legacy.

Sebastian Sallow’s Dark Legacy

Sebastian quickly became a beloved character since he was first revealed as a classmate in the Hogwarts Legacy State of Play last March. We’ve been thrilled with the reaction to this charismatic Slytherin. If you’re a fan of Sebastian, you’re not alone. Nearly everyone at Avalanche loves Sebastian, too. Creating the Sebastian Sallow’s Dark Legacy trailer gave us the opportunity to show a darker side of Hogwarts Legacy while giving you another glimpse into Seb’s — as we at the studio have come to call him — story.  

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After we showed Avada Kedavra in March, many of you wondered if the other Unforgiveable Curses would be in the game. This trailer highlights the Cruciatus Curse in an ominous decision that you’ll need to make as a player. Will you be the one to cast Crucio (the Torture Curse) on your friend, or will you have Sebastian cast it on you? What circumstances lead you to this moment? Undertaking Seb’s companion questline will put you in these harrowing situations where no choice is an easy one. 

Moreover, Sebastian’s companion questline, like those of Natsai and Poppy,

With Tokyo Game Show just around the corner, it’s almost time to celebrate the amazing creative contributions of the Japanese game development community. And it’s also a perfect time to kick off another State of Play.

State of Play returns tomorrow, Tuesday, September 13, with a new live broadcast at 3:00pm Pacific Time / 6:00pm Eastern Time / 11:00pm BST. You can watch it live on Twitch and YouTube.

For tomorrow’s show, we’ll have some great updates from our amazing Japanese partners, along with a few other surprises from developers all around the world.  

Expect about ~20 minutes of reveals, new updates and fresh gameplay footage for 10 games coming to PS5, PS4, and PS VR2.

See you tomorrow!

Regarding Co-streaming and Video-On-Demand (VOD)

Please note that this broadcast may include copyrighted content (e.g. licensed music) that PlayStation does not control. We welcome and celebrate our amazing co-streamers and creators, but licensing agreements outside our control could interfere with co-streams or VOD archives of this broadcast. If you’re planning to save this broadcast as a VOD to create recap videos, or to repost clips or segments from the show, we advise omitting any copyrighted music.

Helloooooooo! Something We Made here coming at you with a brand new PS.Blog post! We’re so excited to have Toem on PS5 as part of PlayStation Plus Essential this month and see so many new players experience the game for the first time.

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We wanted to use this opportunity to introduce you to the free content update we’ve been working on for some time that is coming very soon for Toem: a brand new region called Basto!

How do you access the new content you ask? You’ll automatically unlock it once you complete the base game, then all you have to do is visit Nana back home in Homelanda!

So what is Basto? It is Toem’s biggest region yet! Filled with brand new content like treasure hunting, minigames and spooky stories!

We have been hard at work on this one, gathering up ideas that we didn’t have time to finish for the base game as well as new ideas for the region! New quests, NPCs, and Compendium critters to find! All in all, around 1-2h of playtime!

Basto also brings a new camera attachment to the game! 🎈

With this new water popper, you can interact with the world of Toem in a whole new way, splash your way into stamps and new adventures! It’s also kinda funny looking!

We really wanted to add more interactions to the world to make it feel even more alive! The big bushes, the many objects that react to the water popper, the day & night change that changes where you can go, it all works together to give Basto more life.

Launchable Socks & Jamal Green have also whipped up some brand new tracks to the game, 6 of them in total! We couldn’t be happier that they wanted to help us set the atmosphere on Basto with their music!

This update will be a gift to all our players, as thanks for playing. We sincerely hope you enjoy all its changes! We don’t quite know exactly when it will drop, but keep Toem installed on your PS5 and you’ll be reminded when it does.

💖 Hugs and kisses,
💋 Toem Development Team