5 Games You Shouldn’t Expect in 2017

Final Fantasy VII Remake

After the decade it’s taken for Final Fantasy XV to finally finish being developed and released on consoles last year, it should come as no surprise that the remake of FF VII is highly unlikely to make an appearance in 2017. Having first been revealed at the PlayStation E3 conference back in 2015, fans lost their mind over the remake of one of the most cherished titles in PlayStation’s history. Unfortunately, the game appeared to have a few problems behind the scenes, with Remake’s director, Tetsuya Nomura, completely unaware that he was in charge of the project until he saw his name in a presentation during the early stages of the project’s inception. Fans were then even more concerned regarding the game’s production when it was revealed that Remake would be split into multiple full-sized games. Something that puzzled many fans in how that would work and still retain the defining traits of the original.

On top of that, in an interview with Famitsu this year, Nomura stated that Remake is still quite a ways off. While he apologized for the delay, he also said “I will make a game that will meet your expectations.” That’s completely fine by us, Tetsuya.

Spider-Man

As much as it pains us to say it, in the year that Spider-Man: Homecoming will hit cinemas, it seems highly unlikely that Insomniac’s Spider-Man game will be released this year. Having only been shown in its 90-second E3 trailer at last year’s show, Insomniac has been pretty quiet on the title and what it’s all about. What we do know, however, is that fans will be swinging around as a more experienced Peter Parker to any of those we’ve seen in the comics or cinematic universe. As such, Insomniac’s Spider-Man will have a bunch of new abilities and moves that’ll make navigating the skyscrapers of the Big Apple, as well as tackling its criminal underbelly a heck of a lot of fun.

While Insomniac didn’t mention a release date when the game was first revealed, they did tell a fan on Twitter back in July last year not to expect one anytime soon. While it’s definitely difficult to quantify how long ‘anytime soon’ exactly is, Insomniac clarified a little further down the thread of tweets saying they’d “rather give a release date when we’re confident in it, versus telling you one we aren’t sure about yet.” With Sony already set to release a bunch of high-profile exclusives in 2017, Spider-Man could find himself swinging into 2018 to kickstart a new year on PS4.

Kingdom Hearts III

The Kingdom Hearts games are the lovechild of Square Enix and Disney, and are beloved by many players around the world. Fans have been eagerly anticipating the next installment in the series ever since it was revealed at Sony’s E3 conference back in 2013. Despite the game having been in development for quite some time now, Tetsuya Nomura warns that the team still needs time to ensure the game lives up to fans’ expectations.

Not only does Nomura ask players to be patient for Kingdom Hearts III in the same interview we previously discussed regarding Final Fantasy VII Remake, it’s also important to note that this is a cherished series. Much like FF VII Remake, a ton of people care about how this game turns out, and as such, Square Enix will be in no rush to send it out anytime this year. Final Fantasy XV proved that Nomura won’t let a game go out until the team is 100% happy with it, even changing a release date they had an entire event just to announce. It may not be the news that Kingdom Hearts fans want to hear, but hopefully, the wait will be worth it whenever it does finally release.

Detroit: Become Human

Back in 2012, Quantic Dream showed off Kara, a weird and wonderful tech demo that illustrated just how realistic faces could look. However, Kara took off way more than Quantic Dream had originally intended, and so it was revealed that she’d be returning in Detroit: Become Human. Revealed at Paris Games Week in 2015, the game takes players to the future where androids are beginning to question humanity. Just as David Cage’s previous two games, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit will focus on your abilities to interact with the environment and deduce clues, converse with other characters, and ultimately, focus on the decisions that you make.

The game certainly looks like it’s shaping up to be a very special game in its E3 trailer from last year, but unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting it in 2017. After Sony uploaded a video to the official PlayStation YouTube channels a few weeks back, originally titled “Coming to PlayStation in 2017,” which included Detroit: Become Human, a fan reached out to Sony President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida. Tweeting at Yoshida, a fan noted that Detroit: Become Human, as well as Media Molecule’s Dreams, didn’t have release dates but were included in the video. Yoshida confirmed that this had been a mistake, and since, the video’s title has changed to “Coming to PlayStation in 2017 & Beyond.” It’s certainly disappointing knowing that we’ll likely have to wait at least another year to find out what happened to Kara once she left the lab, but hopefully we’ll see more of it this year.

The Last of Us Part 2

The Last of Us was one of the PS3’s biggest and best games in its life-cycle. Joel and Ellie were fully-realized characters, exploring and interacting with a beautiful world slowly being reclaimed by nature. Danger lurked around every corner, and our duo had to make do with whatever they could find and craft in order to survive. It was a gripping story of love, loss, and a flicker of hope in a hopeless world. Therefore, you can imagine the reception that The Last of Us Part 2’s reveal trailer got at last year’s PlayStation Experience conference.

While we’re pretty much completely in the dark with regards to what story Part 2 will tell us, we do know that the game is isn’t coming anytime soon. In a blog post over on the Naughty Dog website, Neil Druckmann confirmed that the game still has a while to go before it comes to PS4 owners, with the project still in its early days. Considering Naughty Dog’s high standards, you can bet your bottom dollar that The Last of Us Part 2 won’t be rushed out to make a 2017 release. The game will be ready when it’s ready, and that’s definitely looking like it’ll be way after the end of this year.