Top 5 Best Highlights From the Sony TGS 2016 Conference

5. Nioh Getting a Worldwide Release

Koei Tecmo’s General Producer, Kou Shibusawa, made an appearance at Sony’s TGS conference today, and brought great tidings. Shibusawa showed off the company’s lineup of games for the coming months, with the Berserk video game adaptation coyly peeking out at us from the corner. But the biggest news came from the announcement of Nioh’s official release date.

Nioh has had an alpha and a beta demo for the PS4 this year, and Team Ninja has been very active in collecting feedback from players and making necessary adjustments from the data they’ve gathered. Shibusawa talked a little about Team Ninja’s development process and their commitment to the project before finally announcing that the game would be released next February. Not only that, it was also announced that Nioh will be getting a simultaneous worldwide release, so English-speaking fans wouldn’t have to worry about waiting additional days or weeks before they got to play it too.

We didn’t get any new gameplay footage for Nioh, but it was still really cool to receive a firm release date for this highly anticipated action RPG.

4. Hideo Kojima Low-Key Revealing Mads Mikkelsen in Death Stranding

Hideo Kojima also made an appearance at Sony’s conference today to talk about Death Stranding, the PS4-exclusive action game from the newly established Kojima Productions. While all the talk about stranded whales, cetacean stranding, and cords and connections was interesting, Kojima also showed up some chibi drawings of what looked like potential characters from his upcoming title.

The drawing is meant to be a visual representation of how people were all connected to each other by invisible cords and ropes, and it seems that connection (whether physical or spiritual) will be an important theme in the game. The second figure from the left is clearly meant to be a cartoonish version of Norman Reedus, who will be doing the mocap for the game’s protagonist. However, the character on the far right looks an awful lot like Mads Mikkelsen.

There has already been a bit of speculation about Mikkelsen possibly participating in this project, and it’s also a well-known fact that he’s one of Kojima’s favorite actors. Could this be Kojima’s sly and subtle way of announcing the actor’s involvement in the game?

3. Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue’s Hype Trailer

We all can’t wait for Kingdom Hearts III. But before that comes to pass, first we must play Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue to understand the events of the universe before jumping into the latest entry. At Sony’s conference today, we got a brand new trailer for Kingdom Hearts 2.8, and boy, it did not disappoint at all. Dream Drop Distance looked really pretty in all of its HD glory, and not only that, we were also treated to a new remix of Simple and Clean – the iconic theme song that fans of the original Kingdom Hearts game will be familiar with.

The trailer also gave us some new footage of Birth By Sleep: Fragmentary Passage, an entirely new chapter that follows Aqua’s journey in the Realm of Darkness. Sharp eyes will also spot Ventus in the Fragmentary Passage footage, which raises quite a few story questions no one seems to be able to answer just yet. Fragmentary Passage is going to be our first taste of what a Kingdom Hearts game will feel and play like on the new generation of consoles, and it’s extremely exciting to see where the story goes from here.

2. NieR: Automata’s Cryptic Trailer

RPG fans have been looking forward to this one for quite some time, and Yoko Taro did not disappoint us at Sony’s conference. NieR: Automata got a shiny new trailer that made absolutely no sense at all, which, quite honestly, is part of the charm when it comes to video games and stories crafted by Taro. The trailer was extremely weird and cryptic, and it was more than a little difficult to figure out what was going on there. In fact, the trailer was mostly just a lot of screaming and crying, which suggests that Automata is going to take fans on a crazy and emotional ride. If you’ve played the original NiER, make sure to prepare the tissues.

In addition to that, the trailer also revealed the official release date for NieR: Automata. While it hasn’t been confirmed whether the Feb. 23, 2017 release date applies to North America and Europe as well, it’s definitely nice to see that development is coming along well, and that we won’t have too long to wait before we finally get to check out the game ourselves.

1. That Epic Sony Rap

Weirdly enough, the best part of the Sony TGS conference was its opening sizzle reel. Sony had a collaboration with the Japanese music group Tofubeats to write and perform an original song that showed off all the big releases coming to the PS4 and PS Vita in the coming months. Just let that sink in for a moment. The rap song gave every major release a good bit of screen and song time. The highlights included, but are not limited to, Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Nioh, and World of Final Fantasy. Also, there were air horns to make the song just that much more epic.

Without a doubt, this rap song is going to be known as one of the most iconic press conference moments we’ve ever witnessed in video game history. You mark my words.