Being a gamer looks set to be expensive in 2016 – too many must-have titles are heading our way!
2015 brought us its fair share of quality video games, and over the next twelve months, publishers will unleash a veritable feast of sequels & original titles just waiting to devour your money. Whether you’re a fan of first-person shooters, brawlers, RPGs, or you’re an omnivorous consumer of all genres, your console will have plenty to keep it busy.
Let’s take a look at a selection of the games we can’t wait to play in 2016!
Street Fighter V
More than 20 years since Street Fighter II became a phenomenon across consoles, allowing players to enjoy all the action and excitement of the arcade in their bedrooms, the series is still going strong. The fourth main incarnation sold more than 3 million copies (across the Xbox 360 and PS4) and pulled in positive reviews from consumers & critics alike.
Can the fifth main game match the fourth’s quality, or possibly even exceed it?
The potential is certainly there. Capcom is introducing four new characters, and a total of 16 (including many of the series’ most beloved figures, such as Ryu and Chun-Li), at launch, with more set to be available via updates.
A feature known as the ‘V-Gauge’ has also been added, which builds as the player attacks, triggering special moves unique to every character.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus Ex: Human Revolution set a high bar for its inevitable sequels, and Mankind Divided has a lot to live up to.
Set two years after the previous instalment, Mankind Divided takes place in 2029, in Prague. Hero Adam Jensen returns, and must stop terrorists fighting for the equality of people carrying technological augmentations.
New augmentations are available, allowing Jensen to improve his attributes from one mission to another, and a third-person perspective has been added to the standard first-person view, which comes into play when using the cover system. While we can’t know how good Mankind Divided is until we play it, the details revealed so far definitely have us keen to get our hands on it!
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
The first Mirror’s Edge game was an innovative, exciting first-person platform-adventure, set in a dystopian futuristic city named Glass. Heroine Faith uses her parkour abilities to traverse the gorgeous urban environments, with zip-lines and ledges enhancing her interaction with her surroundings.
While the first game featured traditional levels and somewhat linear design, now players can dive into a free-roaming open world, enjoying more freedom & exploration. Side-missions such as races, time trials, and puzzles are also set to appear, and developers DICE assure us that no loading screens will break the flow of gameplay.
Combat has been given a fresh spin, with guns removed from Faith’s inventory altogether, and melee attacks are available to take down enemies. We can’t wait to go for a run in Glass, and see what DICE bring to the experience!
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Games with Tom Clancy‘s name slapped across their covers typically enjoy successful sales, and if The Division can live up to its huge promise, his latest will surely follow suit.
Set in a crisis-struck New York City, The Division puts players in an open-world environment filled with destructible scenery. When a pandemic hits the country on Black Friday, the US Government collapses, and chaos swiftly follows.
Players take charge of a member of the Strategic Homeland Division (SHD), a team of agents sent in to piece NYC back together again – using any means necessary. Players can take on their mission alone or with co-operation from fellow gamers, and a realistic day-night cycle will affect how enemies behave.
Will this be the start of another Clancy franchise players love, like Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six? With such an appealing concept and stunning graphics, the potential is certainly there!
Quantum Break
Like The Division, Quantum Break is a third-person action game – but this is where the similarity ends.
Quantum Break is based around time travel, and players will be able to use time-manipulation powers to attack enemies. After an experiment in temporal mechanics goes awry, main characters Jack and Paul develop unique abilities: Jack can halt time, and Paul can see the future.
Alongside the playable action, a digital in-game film series has been produced, with various episodes linking together to form an overarching story. These episodes star such well-known actors as Shawn Ashmore and Aiden Gillen, and players will be given a choice at the end of each – the paths they select will affect future events.
Quantum Break looks set to be an innovative, refreshing experience – depending on its success, other games may well incorporate this storytelling mechanic in the future.
No Man’s Sky
Nobody can accuse indie developers Hello Games of lacking ambition. No Man’s Sky is an adventure survival game set for release this year, putting players in a universe of more than 18 quintillion planets, a large number of which feature their own distinctive flora & fauna.
As players explore, they can add data about the planets to The Atlas – a universal database shared by others. Blueprints and materials can also be used to boost characters’ equipment and buy starships, enabling deeper exploration.
Gameplay is presented in a first-person perspective, as players take on the role of an explorer equipped with a spacesuit, jetpack, and a handy multi-tool (used to scan surroundings & mine resources). The universe players take part in is vast, with many different factions operating in space, some of which may be hostile to the player, triggering battles – your actions will affect how others respond to you, so tact will be needed to avoid combat!
No Man’s Sky looks likely to be a unique experience, a must for gamers who want to enjoy an open, free-roaming space-adventure with plenty to see and do!
ReCore
This mysterious little title has a great visual design, featuring sandblown deserts reminiscent of Star Wars and Mad Max, as well as stunning robotic allies & enemies.
Players step into the shoes of one of humanity’s last survivors, a woman exploring her devastated world, with adorably-bizarre mechanical creatures helping her against various enemies.
ReCore has a strong team behind it (Comcept), consisting of Keiji Inafune, a designer from Capcom, as well as Armature Studio, made up of developers boasting experience on Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate & Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Despite the slight information revealed about ReCore, it looks set to be a memorable game – fingers crossed it lives up to its premise!
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
The Uncharted series is hugely popular, and fans have been waiting for the fourth instalment for a while now – the game has been pushed back multiple times, but should finally surface in April.
Uncharted 4 takes place three years after Drake’s Deception, with Nathan now retired, enjoying life with his wife. However, when his presumed-dead brother Sam arrives, in need of help, Nathan sets out on an adventure related to a long-lost pirate colony – and its treasure.
From what we’ve seen already, gameplay looks like more of the same (which is no bad thing!), and the multiplayer mode will feature sidekicks, special abilities (known as Mysticals), as well as grappling hooks to add extra verticality more akin to the Just Cause series.
Fans have already been irritated by the constant delays, but we’re sure they’ll forgive Naughty Dog if the game is everything we all want it to be.
There are plenty more exciting games heading our way in 2016, but we can’t cover them all here – which titles are you looking forward to?
