Hello everyone, hope you all had a great New Years, and welcome to my 8 Most Anticipated Games Of 2018 List! Last year we had an incredible amount of excellent titles come at us month after month. We saw the launch of Nintendo's new console, The Switch, as well as the Super Nintendo Mini. Then towards the end of the year Microsoft released the most powerful console ever made with the Xbox One X. I don't see any reason why this year will be any less eventful when it comes to the world of gaming. The year is only a couple days in so far and already there's a pretty big list of titles that I'm excited about and probably many more to come. Even though there's not a whole lot of information about most of these, and some still have questionable release dates, I'm including the ones I want the most and hopefully we'll see them out sometime this year. So without further ado, let's get into it!
Shadow Of The Colossus Remake
This game originally came out for the Playstation 2 way back in 2005 and it quickly became a cult classic in the world of gaming. Brought to us by Team Ico, who created not only Shadow of the Colossus, but also Ico and The Last Guardian. I was blown away the first time I played this, and instantly became immersed in the tranquil and beautiful world inhabited by these stone giants. You play as a man who is trying to bring his girl back to life by performing an ancient ritual that requires him to take down all the giants that roam about the land. The simplicity, combined with the uniqueness of the massive enemies, make this a very special game that everyone should try out at some point.
Now there were a few issues with the PS2 version that came out back in the day, not much but enough to turn some people off to the experience. First off the graphics aren't that great, everything looks a little blurry and blocky. And second, the controls are a bit wonky, sometimes trying to climb a ledge, or even controlling the horse ended up being much harder than it should have been. This game is a prime candidate for getting a remake because hopefully these minor issues will be taken care of, and since so many people missed this the first time around maybe now they'll finally give it a try. This has a definite release date of February 6, 2018, so there's at least one game on my list that we wont have to wait very long for.
The Last Of Us 2
Naughty Dog wowed everyone with the original The Last Of Us, and gave people an experience like they've never had before with a videogame. It took you on an emotional journey through a post apocalyptic United States as you followed Joel and Elly on their dangerous adventure. I love the original game and have played through it many times wondering when are we going to get a sequel, how does the story continue? Well finally, after quite a long time, we have a trailer for part 2 and it definitely has the same intense graphic nature as the first game. So far not much is known about the sequel, who the protagonist will be, where will it take place, how much time has passed, or even when will it come out. But even though it's developers have been keeping it a secret, I'm hoping that we will see it launch sometime this year.
God Of War
The God Of War franchise has been around for a long time now and has seen many sequels. I've always been a fan of this fast paced, over the top, brutal hack and slash game that focuses on Greek Mythology. Taking down a hydra on a ship in the middle of a rain storm, or going toe to toe with Zeus himself, this series has had some pretty memorable sequences and does it all with such style and enthusiasm that you can't help but get excited. That being said, the series has kind of been in a rut for the last few years, the games just don't have the same wow factor that they once did.
That's why I'm very happy to see the developers take this in a new direction. It seems like the new God Of War is sort of a reboot for the franchise, somewhat changing up the style and attitude from what we're used to. Kratos is much older now and has a young son who he's teaching how to survive in the wild, and instead of Greek mythology they're going with Norse. From what I've seen so far this is going to be an amazing new addition for fans of the game, and I can't wait to finally get to play it.
Spider Man
Spider Man has always been one of my favorite comic book characters and for whatever reason developers have had a hard time translating that world into a game that's any good. We've had some that have been fun, but lacked the depth and overall quality that we all want to see in a Spider Man game. Now Insomniac is trying their hand at the series and from what they've showed so far it looks very promising. That company has a great track record with some awesome games under their belt, and I have all the confidence in the world that when this new Spider Man game launches it will be everything we've hoped for.
The Spider Man world has some of the best villains, and he has some incredible powers that should make for an excellent game. Plus the whole thing is set in the sprawling city of New York so there should be plenty to see and do for the web slinger. We've seen it done before with the Batman Arkham series and those are probably the best comic book games ever made, so let's hope Insomniac can do the same thing here. Still no release date as of yet, but they've been showing this off for awhile now so I'm betting we will get it sometime this year.
Days Gone
Days Gone was unveiled at E3 in 2016 and when I saw this I was instantly excited about it. This is a brand new IP that will supposedly be a PS4 exclusive where you fight against hoards of zombies, or freakers as they refer to them in the trailer. It's an action adventure survival horror game set in a post apocalyptic open world environment. You play as protagonist Deacon St. John who was an outlaw and a bounty hunter before the world went to hell. He prefers to live dangerously and go out on his own using a motorcycle as his form of transportation. You get to use this to traverse the landscape, outrunning zombies, or quickly trying to get to a destination to save a friend in danger.
Having an open world that is full of dangerous zombies where things dynamically happen all around you is interesting enough to get me on board, but the thing that stood out the most about this game is the way they made the zombies behave. They move in massive hoards that come at you like water flowing through an open dam, you can't just shoot them and think you'll be safe, instead you need to use the world to your advantage and funnel them into choke points or trap them somewhere. The possible mechanics that are available are still not yet known, but hopefully when this comes out later in the year we'll get to play an amazing new game.
Vampyr
I have always had a fascination with all things related to halloween, ghosts, graveyards, werewolfs, and definitely vampires. It feels like it's been a long time since we've had a good vampire based game and Vampyr looks like it will fill that void nicely. Made by Dontnod Entertainment, the people that gave us Life Is Strange, this game is sure to be full of difficult choices to make that will effect the overall outcome of what happens. I really enjoy those types of experiences and when you combine a setting like this I'm sure we're looking at a title that wont disappoint.
In Vampyr you play as doctor Jonathon Reid who has taken the Hippocratic Oath, but now has become a vampire and is struggling with his overwhelming urge to feed and kill. It's set in 1918 London during the Spanish Flu pandemic and is set in four semi open world environments that, depending on the choices you make, will either survive the epidemic, or get destroyed and overrun by vampires. Scheduled to release sometime in Q1 of 2018, we shouldn't have to wait very long for this one.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 has been in the works for a very long time now, and even though bits and pieces of information have come out about it, and it's release has been delayed a couple times already, hopefully it will be out soon. Rockstar always makes really good, massive open world games that have some pretty incredible stories to tell, and by the looks of it this will be no different. I'm not even mad that it's been delayed so many times, that just means they're making the best game possible and trying to do everything right.
Even though it's called Red Dead 2, it's actually the third game in the franchise. The last one of these was massively successful and was an amazing title that I wish would get a new gen console release like GTA5 has had, but who knows maybe it still will. Anything cowboy related just peaks my interest for some reason, and when you're talking about a game made by Rockstar that's about cowboys, you just can't go wrong. There's a lot of people patiently waiting for this to finally drop, and I'm hoping it will be sooner than later, we'll see.
Resident Evil 2 Remake
Alright so I know this one has had pretty much no information of any kind released about it so far, but it's definitely the one I'm looking forward to the most, and I'm really hoping it gets released sometime this year. Resident Evil is probably my favorite franchise of all time, and the second game might be the best one, it's hard to choose. When Capcom remade the original way back when for the Gamecube, it seemed logical that the second one was not far behind, especially with how successful it was. Well here we are years and years later and they just finally announced that Resident Evil 2 Remake is coming for sure.
We still haven't seen any screenshots of the game or a trailer of any kind, but with what they did with Resident Evil 7, I'm confident Capcom wont screw this one up too bad, if at all. I would like to see it done exactly the same way the first remake was done with fixed camera angles and the same characters and story, just with beautiful new graphics and maybe some new areas and enemies thrown in to make it feel fresh. Resident Evil 2 hasn't exactly held up that great over the years and it desperately needs this remake to become relevant again. Please Capcom don't let me down here and get this out to the public in 2018, and while you're at it remake number 3 as well.
Thank you everybody for reading my 8 Most Anticipated Games Of 2018 list, I hope you enjoyed it!