Game Bites: Summer Game Fest 2021 Roundup

Hello all you lovely Nerd Caliber fans. We have the first of the very special E3 snippets of news for you today. While E3 doesn’t technically start until Saturday, we did have a major presentation today with the Summer Game Fest hosted by Geoff Keighley. On the live stream they announced some big name titles for systems of all kinds. There were over 25 different games shown, as well as some musical performances and even some movie news during the show. 

The show started off strong with Gearbox confirming a long rumored Borderlands side story wonderfully dubbed Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. This game is slated to come in early 2022 and while it is declared to not be a spin off, we do have some recurring characters from the beloved franchise. The new game is a shooter but with a more fantasy world feel than the usual science fiction setting.

Metal Slug fans can rejoice with Metal Slug Tactics coming to Steam. It is going to be a strategic take on the long running franchise. 

Hideo Kojima made an appearance to talk about the work he has been doing on a new title that he doesn’t wish to give away just yet. He did bring us a look at Death Stranding Director’s cut which is coming to the PS5 and had a very clever Metal Gear reference in the teaser. 

Right after Hideo Kojima’s appearance, Jeff Goldblum announced Jurassic World Evolution 2 that will be coming to PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and Xbox One. We can expect this game later this year. 

The already released game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War announced Season 4 of gameplay that will arrive on June 17. They are bringing back the beloved hijacked mode where you fight on a yacht, a collateral mode that can be 6v6 or 12v12 and new zombies uncaged mode. 

We had some other announcements like Lost Ark, the Korean top-down MMO finally coming to the west this Fall, courtesy of Amazon Game Studios. We also had indie game Sable give us a release date of Sept. 23. More information for Sable will be at the Tribeca Game Festival on June 11. 

Among Us snuck into the presentation with a bunch of updates for the wildly beloved game. Developer Innersloth is bringing in a new mode called hide and seek, new roles to play as, new colors, a new map, new visor items and more. 

A sequel to Salt and Sanctuary was announced for 2022, called Salt and Sacrifice, which will be coming exclusively to the PS4 and PS5. It will feature co-op play for those with a player 2. 

We had a ton of updates as well. Escape from Tarkov showed new gameplay in a new area showing war torn streets and buildings. The studio that brought us Two Point Hospital is bringing a new game in 2022 called Two Point Campus. Long running Moba Smite is having a collaboration with Strangers Things starting July 13th where you can play new characters like Eleven and others as well as having an Upside Down Arena map.

Indie studio Stray Bombay announced a new four-person co-op shooter called The Anacrusis. Described as in the style of Left 4 Dead, so far this looks like it will only be on Xbox series X, Xbox One and Steam.

Koch Media announced a new publishing label called Prime Matter and then revealed 12 games that will now be published under it including Payday 3, a new Gungrave title, and a new Painkiller title. 

With Fast and Furious 9 being announced, Rocket League is going to have a Fast and Furious collab on June 17th.

Sharkmob announced that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is going to be a battle royale-style game in 2021.

Supermassive Games, makers of Until Dawn, announced a new horror-themed shooter game called House of Ashes. This is going to be the third game in the Dark Pictures Anthologies series and will arrive on Oct. 22.

Bandai Namco showed off a trailer for the new Tales games, called Tales of Arise. In the trailer we got to see some of the game’s characters, some special abilities and much more. Tales of Arise will be coming on Sept. 10. 

Coming to the Switch we had Sky: Children of the Light from Thatgamecompany scheduled for release on June 29. 

A new and beautiful game that was announced by indie dev Wishfully was Planet of Lana, which will be coming in 2022 to Xbox and Steam. It featured a hand painted art style look in a side-scroller based on an Earth-like alien planet. 

Overwatch 2 made an appearance at the show but it didn’t have any gameplay to show us. We did get a high def look at Baptiste and Sombra’s redesign. 

For those excited for Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, we got another trailer today. The Capcom game releases on July 9 and we’ve seen many game trailers by now. 

There was a surprise collaboration between Fall Guys and Square Enix that will bring a new costume to the game. On June 18 players will be able to dress their Fall Guy up as 2B from NieR Automata. 

Tunic, the Zelda-like game where you play as an adventurous fox, has a demo coming soon. We also had a new game called Endless Dungeon announced from Amplitude.

Sony announced a partnership with a new studio called Deviation Games. Deviation Games was formed by Jason Blundell, the creator of Call of Duty: Zombies and Treyarch veteran Dave Anthony and the team will be working on a new IP exclusive to PlayStation. Another PlayStation title was announced from Gearbox called Tribes Of Midgard which will be released on July 27.

Bruce Campbell made an appearance to announce Evil Dead: The Game and narrated the gameplay itself. In the game from Saber Interactive you can play as the righteous Ash and friends or as the chaotic evil Ash.  

Back 4 Blood showed up with a new trailer and gameplay. We also got a first look at a new and horrifying enemy. The Turtle Rock Studios game will hit shelves on Oct. 8.

The big announcement that was held until the end of the show was a first trailer from the long awaited Elden Ring. The mythical world of Elden Ring is a combination of Bandai Namco and From Software with story by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the mastermind behind Demon Souls and Dark Souls, with George R.R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. We got a first-hand look at some of the terrifying bosses, the open world and a peek into the story via narration from a mysterious new character. Elden Ring will be released on Jan. 21, 2022 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. 

That was all the amazing news from the Summer Game Fest on June 10, and you can look forward to more news in the upcoming days. Let us know which game you are most excited about.