Just when fans were beginning to lose faith – or at least get extremely sick of hearing people trot out the same tired memes during every Geoff Keighley game showcase – Hollow Knight: Silksong returned. Set to release in just a couple short weeks, it’s a real video game with levels and characters and everything. That in mind, we’re left with a question: Which half-imaginary whisper of a game will take its place? On the latest Aftermath Hours, we hazard a few guesses.
This time around, we discuss Silksong, which looks like… more Hollow Knight. Cool! Also, the developers have said they will not be sending out pre-release review code, citing concern that it would be “unfair” to Kickstarter backers and regular players. But perhaps that approach is better for interesting writing about the game – and games in general – in the long run?
Then we talk about other cool games that received a Gamescom spotlight: Ninja Gaiden 4, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, Resident Evil Requiem, and of course, Denshattack, which looks way better than all those other games. Lastly, we discuss the impact of Trump’s tariffs on video games – for the first time in maybe ever, console prices are going up toward the end of a generation, not down – and how they represent a stealth tax on GTA VI (which will probably be very expensive in its own right). Oh, and Chris decides to just make his own PlayStation 5, until he realizes that it’d probably land him in jail.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can spend half a decade quietly crafting a masterpiece video game (first we will have to learn how to make games, so it will take even longer than Silksong).
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Nathan: Given that Silksong is real and about to come out, what other super long-awaited games are left? What is the next Silksong, essentially? Now, the obvious answer is GTA VI, but that’s coming out next year; it’s in that sort-of-already-real space.
Chris: That’s real.
Riley: Half-Life 3.
Nathan: If Half-Life 3 even exists in any capacity.
Chris: Is Pragmata coming out finally?
Nathan: Yeah, I played it at Summer Game Fest! It’s a Lost Planet-ass mid-2000s video game. It’s awesome. I really enjoyed the demo.
Chris: That’s all I need. We’ve gotta get code for that.
Whatever the guy who made Shadow Of The Colossus’ next game is. That’s already cued up [to be a game people will have to wait forever to play].
Nathan: Some people in chat are saying Metroid Prime 4, but I think that’s in the same space as Grand Theft Auto VI where we’ve seen some of it. We don’t have an exact date yet, but it is real. Bloodborne 2? We don’t know if we’ll ever get that. Wolf Among Us 2 is a good one.
Chris: Parameters are, it actually has to have been announced in some capacity.
Nathan: The big one, in my mind, is Elder Scrolls VI. All we’ve seen is a logo, and it has been six years – seven years now! – since we saw that logo. And that’s it. Starfield came out and was kind of a dud, and now we’re just waiting.
Chris: There’s a Nintendo Switch RPG that’s, like, a cop RPG, and it’s from a Japanese developer. It’s been in development hell for a minute. What was it? Decapolice. That one’s mine. It was supposed to come out three years ago, I want to say.
Nathan: The sequel to Octopath Traveler: Decapolice.
I wrote down some others: Skate 4 kind of already exists, so that doesn’t count. Ark 2 does, though. They’ve been working on that forever. We got that weird trailer with Vin Diesel 8,000 years ago, and its release date remains TBD.
Riley: People in chat are mentioning The Last Night. The guy making it wound up being a Gamergater and then kinda disappeared?
Chris: Which one?
Nathan: Oh! The Last Night! That pixel art sidescroll-y noir thing. We first saw that in… what? 2018? 2017? I think that game just disappeared into the ether. I don’t know if we’ll ever see that again.
Another one: Fable. The one game that Microsoft hasn’t canceled yet. Because I was gonna say, there’s a whole raft of Microsoft games, but then a bunch of them got canceled earlier this year. It’s like, well, so much for that.
Actually, a lot of games that would have been on this list just got canceled. You also have the Black Panther game and the Wonder Woman game, for example – these things that seemed potentially interesting and then got smothered in the cradle.
And then finally, my sort of joke answer to this question that I do think counts as a valid answer: the Prince of Persia remake. You would think it wouldn’t be that difficult to get across the finish line, but it keeps getting delayed and pushed back, and we still haven’t really seen anything substantial of it. But at the same time, I can’t imagine people in Geoff Keighley chats being like “Prince of Persia remake when??? Show us the Prince of Persia remake!”
Riley: It’s not really something to rally around.
Nathan: Yeah, I think it’s Elder Scrolls. That’ll be the one people talk about any time there’s a hint of something fantastical or akin to The Elder Scrolls’ vibe in a Geoff Keighley showcase. “Oh, it’s Elder Scrolls! Elder Scrolls!” Then when it’s not, they’ll be like “Noooo, I don’t care anymore! This looks like trash!”
