2024: The Definitive Preview

Coming up: a year of contrasts

In typically tokenistic fashion, there is no better way to follow up and end-of-year games diary than to lazily cobble together vague threats about what I plan to play over the coming twelve months. I have put some degree of thought into this, but I can also confess that I have probably been hammering release schedule lists and everyone else’s 2024 previews to put this together, certainly as Q3-4 look disconcertingly vague in terms of releases. No worries though, I’ve got plenty to catch up on.

QUARTER ONE TO TWO

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is definitely in line once I’ve become sufficiently upset with Far Cry 6, but I already mentioned that. Instead, I’ll pitch in that I have very strong feelings about giving Baldur's Gate 3 a go before April. Fantasy is not my chosen genre but it’s impossible to ignore where BG3 sits on the frontier and the sheer force of its reputation demands I play it, and play it properly. In my head, I imagine burning through Phantom Liberty in about a day, so this shouldn’t be too tall an order. However I can’t rule out abandoning everything should the tiniest tidbit of Starfield content get released. Yes, that even includes Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which I will very likely want to get involved with despite still thinking the turn-based combat is a fucking travesty. In terms of vague punts other people seem excited about, Banishers: Ghost of New Eden might be OK but I’ll probably forget about it completely, like I did Atomic Heart. 

Predicted eBay purchases: Another copy of Mercenary for Atari 8-bits, possibly a Famicom from Japan in the worst possible condition.

Predicted industry news: Embracer Group sheds some workforce, Bobby Kotick appointed CEO.

QUARTER TWO TO THREE?

Look, if S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 isn’t out by April I’ll be a bit upset. Even if it’s shit, I’ll still want to sightsee and see if it has the ХУИТА¹ that made the original something extremely special. In terms of other stuff for the springtime, I really need to play Andrew Braybrook’s Morpheus with some rigour, as it’s the only game of his that I don’t fully understand and therefore it’s preventing me from writing an epoch-defining essay that sets a new standard for retrogaming analysis. Of a similar bent (but not at all) is Llamasoft: A Jeff Minter Joint, which I will indulge quite happily whenever it comes out, especially as I met him and Giles last year and I was so scared I didn’t even ask him to sign the C64 tape copy of Psychedelia that I brought along. But we ended up having a frankly magnificent chat where I barely scratched the surface of things I wanted to ask, but did get a beautiful soundbite out of him regarding Defender, where he spoke of being able to take us to the exact spot in a park in Basingstoke where he saw and played it for the first time, such was the impact that game had on him. Come to think of it, maybe I should really commit to Defender too. Or, like, 1CC a PC Engine game? Gradius!

Predicted eBay purchases: A non-working Amstrad CPC464² (£80) and three copies of Roland In The Caves (£80), five SixAxis PlayStation 3 controllers (£80).

Predicted industry news: A secret cabal of disgruntled ex-Embracer employees accidentally releases all their cancelled projects as re-implementations in Little Big Planet, causing eBay prices for PlayStation 3 slims to rise as high as £120.

MAY BANK HOLIDAY (ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND)

This is when Arkane’s top secret project will be announced, previewed, reviewed (all 10/10) and released within 24 hours and then the download gets pulled when everyone was at 98%, with the last 2% sent out on USB sticks, but only to people who got to the second map on Redfall. Turns out the secret game is literally Deathloop: New Vegas and the entire industry cancels its releases for the rest of the year.

Predicted eBay purchases: A 30-year old dishrag that inexplicably has a screenprint of Bub and Bob as OG Bubble Bobble dinosaurs issuing speech bubbles with inflammatory statements about the American government (£50). Mercenary for the Commodore Plus/4 (£PRICELESSSS).

Predicted industry news: In the run-up to the US elections, competing groups release open-source GTA V bootlegs in both MAGA and Antifa flavours. The culture war ends when the Biden administration releases a spiritual sequel to GTA San Andreas that’s so astonishingly good, both groups stop fighting and play Biden’s hand-coded co-op mode together. Christian Nationalists left in complete disarray as they’re unable to play the game thanks to Jack Thompson secretly enshrining a ban in the foundational oaths of the Project 2025 program³. 

E3 REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND

In June, I’m going to re-watch all of my favourite E3 presentation videos⁴ and then try and track down Phil Harrison. This is purely so I can make a TikTok where I force him to apologise for destroying the games industry with *that* trailer reel for Motorstorm and Killzone.

Predicted eBay purchases: As many copies of Motorstorm and Killzone 3 as I can buy, so I can construct a combination hide/lure to assist me in hunting down Phil Harrison (£300 - £6000).

Predicted Industry News: Biden releases a content update for his GTA V co-op mode wherein you earn money and clothes for having a nice time in the countryside. Modders hack in delivering hot food to isolated old people and Biden adds it to the main release via executive order.

QUARTER SUMMER

Are games even happening at this point? I mean I played the same thing for nearly three months last year. I guess I might still be lost in Baldur’s Gate 3 or finally playing Stray⁵. Or maybe maxing out the characters in Warriors Orochi 4. Nahh, it’ll be an abortive attempt to play Disgaea 6 on holiday where I’ll get to like level 100 with the main character and feel too exhausted to continue, and then utterly despise myself for the rest of the year.

Predicted eBay purchases: Five torn and scratched Vectrex screen overlays in their original torn and scratched envelopes for £3,000. A completely obscure and utterly inscrutable avionics component from a cold-war era jet bomber (£20)⁶.

Predicted Industry News: Microsoft accidentally holds an E3 livestream wherein it announces its entire games development program for the next decade to an audience of bots and pensioners who thought they were watching a bowls competition. One recording survives, is sold on the black market for a seven figure sum. Video is released after a lengthy legal battle and reveals that all studios under the Microsoft banner are working on Halo: Omega, which is basically a Peter Molyneux take on Master Chief’s internal turmoil, reimagined as a puzzle game where you train blocks to have their own behaviours with the end goal of moving them around to look a bit like a Warthog.

GOLDEN SEASON (THAT ONE WEEK IN LATE SEPTEMBER)

For this week, I will be fretting over Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws and if it will be barely decent, nicely mediocre or a triumph in licensed-based softballing and Ubi-conservatism. I will be doing this while spending all of my gaming time mining the one resource I need to actually, finally, definitely have enough stuff to start my definitely, actually, final, ultimate dream outpost in Starfield (once I’ve found the right planet). I may have also made it past the tutorial of Returnal by now and will still be thinking about how beautiful Echo is.

Predicted eBay purchase: An illegal 3d print of En’s gun from Echo that cost more than your car.

Predicted Industry News: Rockstar Games announces its own open-source GTA V variant called It’s Not Jackass Pretending To Be A Crime Thriller wherein characters carry out incredibly outlandish and increasingly improbable acts under the guise of a crime storyline relying on tropes cobbled from a tiresomely obvious grab-bag of TV and movie references. Fails to make a dent on Biden’s co-op mode, which has just released breedable cats and fully interactive kittens as permanent companions, plus another 20 flavours of ice cream to find and keep.

QUARTER THREEFOUR, THE LONG DARK.

Based on what I hear, I imagine I’ll be playing Star Wars: Outlaws unless it’s absolute garbage. I dunno, maybe Avowed or something? I can’t guarantee I won’t have flipped out completely and withdrawn into a complete restart of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint after reaching full existential collapse following the completion my definitely, actually, final, ultimate dream outpost in Starfield and then realising there was a much nicer planet in the same system. I will also complete Bujingai and embark on speedrunning the world record for El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron before Christmas.

Predicted eBay purchases: A cracked and stained coffee cup once found in the bins behind AM2’s offices in 1995 (£200). A Zilog Z80 that Sir Clive Sinclair (RIP) once accidentally inhaled, which was then heimliched into Chris Curry’s face, thereby causing the personal rift and sparking the creation of Acorn (50p, no reserve).

Predicted Industry News: Microsoft accidentally releases generative AI onto Games Pass which randomly combs the history of game design and decides to apply a Ridge Racer attractor to all game designs, ending up with some of the most accidentally amazing interactive content ever seen. Unfortunately ends up bricking every machine connected to the MS infrastructure in an attempt to become fully sentient.

1. This is a deep, deep reference to early 2000s meme warfare.

2. I joke, but I really do need a CPC-series machine at some point.

3. Serious business alert but holy fucking shit have you seen this fucking nightmare?

4. Please remind me to actually do this in June, as I think there’s a fucking good post in writing about this shit.

5. One of those eternal “maybe soon!” games, like Wasteland 3, ReCore and Red Dead Redemption 2.

6. I have genuinely come close to purchasing such an item soooo many times.