MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Here are the key upcoming events and releases to mark in your calendar for the next six months.
January 2023
Forspoken
Luminous Productions’ first original IP is a fast-paced open world RPG adventure about a young woman called Frey, who is transported from New York City to the fantasy world of Athia and learns that she can use magic spells. It’s fairly rare to see an RPG from any company focus on a mage character as the default these days, and a studio having a go at it is enough to make us curious enough to check this game out when it launches. Well, that and the fact one of the characters is a talking bracelet called Cuff.
https://forspoken.square-enix-games.com
February 2023
PSVR2
The big new hardware launch of 2023 (aside from the latest Spectrum Next, which is hopefully on course for Q3) is Sony’s next gen VR headset, due for release on February 22nd for a shade more than it costs for a PlayStation 5 to power it. Sony sold more than five million PSVR headsets during its lifetime (to the tune of 116m PS4s), a number it no doubt hopes to improve on in the years ahead. With an estimated 15 million Quest 2’s in use, it’s hard to see Sony breaking Meta’s VR dominance, although if it does it could claim to be beating Xbox on two hardware fronts.
March 2023
Women In Games Awards
The month of GDC (20–24th) and the London Games Festival (29th-April 4th) is already looking busy, but before you need to pack any bags we’ll be hosting the ninth annual Women In Games Awards, set to take place on Thursday 2nd March at a venue still to be decided (spoiler alert: it’ll be in London). Nominations are open right now and can be submitted via the website until well into the new year, which means you have no excuse not to put yourselves or your colleagues forward.
https://womeningamesawards.com
April 2023
Star Trek: Resurgence
Set after the events of the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films, but before J.J. Abrams’ time travel, lens flares and fist fights, Star Trek: Resurgence is a modern adventure game from Dramatic Labs that follows the crew of the USS. Resolute as they boldly go where no one has gone before. As the franchise enjoys a bit of a (ahem) resurgence on television thanks to the steady stream of new shows airing on Paramount+, the crew of the USS. MCV/DEVELOP are pleased that the video games have now started to come back as well. After all, it is only logical.
May 2023
MCV/DEVELOP Awards
Normally we wouldn’t announce the MCV/DEVELOP Awards this early on, but with next year being the 25th anniversary of MCV’s first issue, we’ve decided to make the next awards ceremony something of a celebration. We’ll be tweaking the format a little (more details on that another time), but we’re happy to say that a date has been set and the venue booked: Thursday 11th May at 8 Northumberland Ave in London. It’s a slightly smaller venue than we’ve been used to, but one that feels entirely apt for what will be a memorable milestone event for the UK game industry’s oldest trade publication. Then, on the following day, you can wake up and play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Everyone’s a winner!
July 2023
EA Sports FC
As sure as night follows day, for the last twenty-plus years a new FIFA game has followed in the wake of all hype for a new football season. Next year it won’t, or won’t be called FIFA 24 at any rate, since EA decided not to renew its contract with world football’s governing body. Instead we’ll get EA Sports FC, which will hopefully be more – or perhaps less – than FIFA 24 in all but name. EA says it will be revealing more of its plans in the summer. A subscription model has been mooted by some commentators, which might at least mean one season’s Ultimate Team points could be carried over to a next. Whatever EA has in store, it has a real opportunity to change both the game and its reputation for the better.
