Hogwarts Legacy
Release date: February 10
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows
Developers: Avalanche Studios
Harry Potter is one of the most successful media series of the current millennium. Books and movies based on it magically brought huge sums to the creators. However, video games remain a niche where the series never reached its potential. Hogwarts Legacy, on the other hand, is the first big-budget project in the Harry Potter universe, and it looks like it will close that gap.
The actions of the Hogwarts Legacy will unfold long before the events in the books and movies, so Harry himself and his friends will not appear in the game. However, the game will still have a large number of fan services (attributes of a fictional world familiar to fans of books and movies – socialbites.ca), which can be seen even from trailers.
The main setting will be Hogwarts Castle, with which viewers and readers are familiar. Also, Hogwarts Legacy events will affect the Forbidden Forest, Gringotts Bank and Hogsmeade village. The player will take on the role of a novice magician, who must choose one of four faculties and master the skills of magic and potions. The enemies in the game will be dark wizards, goblins and poor academic performance.
atomic heart
Release date: February 21, 2023
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows
Developers: blackfish
The first Russian project with a premium production Atomic Heart made of sweat, blood and pixels is finally close to launch. Atomic Heart is a shooter set in an alternate universe. In it, the USSR did not collapse, and Soviet scientists learned to make not only tanks and railways, but also robots.
According to the game, unlike agricultural machinery, robots could not be conquered in the ideal USSR – at one point they rebelled against the Soviet people. Playing the role of KGB agent Sergei Nechaev, the player must travel to a secret laboratory where the robots have strayed from the party’s course for the first time and find the reasons for the machines’ stubbornness.
In general, Atomic Heart is an explosive mix of nostalgia for the USSR, science fiction and bits of Alla Pugacheva. It is doubly interesting that Atomic Heart is made in Russia, where real gaming blockbusters have never been created before.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Release date: 26 May 2023
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Windows
Developers: Rocksteady Studios
Suicide Squad, the 2016 movie about supervillains in the service of good, was mediocre to say the least. It did, however, do something important – boost the popularity of antiheroes in popular culture, which continues to be exploited by both filmmakers and game developers today. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will be the next phase in which the scum will revive the salvation of the world.
The player will lead a team of dogged villains on behalf of the madness queen, Harley Quinn, who are forced to serve faith and truth under the threat of death. In addition to Quinn, the killer included Deadshot, teleporting alcoholic Captain Boomerang, and talking fish King Shark. According to the plot, they will all have to deal with the Justice League, who has been hypnotized by a space villain.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is being developed by Rocksteady, best known for the Batman: Arkham series considered by many to be the best game adaptation of the comics.
Diablo IV
Release date: June 6, 2023
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows
Developers: Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo remains the only game franchise launched by Blizzard’s growing gold roster. Unlike StarCraft and WarCraft, this series has managed to go beyond the third part.
Diablo is the progenitor of the action-RPG genre (a genre whose main qualities are plot, gaining experience to kill enemies, as well as using various armor and weapons – strengthening the character using socialbites.ca). With the release of Diablo in 1996, RPG games ceased to be a stuffy graphic obsession for the damned and turned into brutal action games that anyone could understand, with bloody battles with swords and clubs.
In the third chapter, Diablo moved away from the gothic gloom of the original and moved towards the entourage of oriental fairy tales. Many fans of the series perceived such changes with hostility. It looks like these bayonets reached out to Blizzard developers and pierced them painfully because with the release of the fourth episode, the series will return to its roots. Diablo IV will bring back dark dungeons with decaliters of blood, hideous monsters and a lump in the throat.
star field
Release date: first half of 2023
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Windows
Developers: Bethesda Game Studios
Bethesda is known for being able to play its games almost non-stop, even without online modes, and still discover something new. The greatest RPG of all time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is particularly brilliant in this role. The game is over 10 years old and players still continue to find previously undiscovered content and inspire new memes. This is despite the fact that at least 30 million people all over the world manage to play it.
Starfield is a game of the same genre and from the same developers, but in a sci-fi setting rather than medieval fantasy. In it, the player will take on the role of a space explorer traveling from planet to planet, discovering new worlds and clearing them of enemies, if any. Along the way, you’ll have to go through tons of weapons and armor, get to know hundreds of characters, and learn dozens of skills.
Starfield is Skyrim in outer space, and even the developers themselves talk openly about it. The game will likely sell for decades – such is the magic of Bethesda games.
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Release date: first half of 2023
Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Developers: Team Cherry
Indie games, i.e. projects created and released without the financial and marketing support of publishers, are good because they are worked on by enthusiasts who are always maximally motivated by creative ideas, without producers and investors dictating what needs to be done on them. It turns out that what needs to be done to make games in the first place is sold out, no good.
One such project in 2017 was Hollow Knight, a 2D platform game from the development duo behind Team Cherry. Like most other artists, William Pellen and Ari Gibson are “crazy” guys in a good way. Together they made a game in the genre of complex metroidvania (a genre with the emphasis on the gradual exploration of the game world, in which access to some areas is limited by the plot – “socialbites.ca”). Hollow Knight is so flawless that many people think it’s better than Metroid, the Nintendo game that gave its name to the entire genre.
Silksong is the sequel to Hollow Knight. In it, the player will once again have to save the insect kingdom of Hollownest from an ancient evil. True, this time you will have to lead not the nameless knight from the first episode, but his fighting girlfriend, the Hornet, who is weaker, but can be noticeably faster and smarter.
Judging by the trailers, it will turn out that Silksong is no worse than the original Hollow Knight, which means Silksong has already claimed the title of best indie game of 2023.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
Release date: December 2023
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Windows
Developers: GSC Game World
STALKER 2 is the continuation of the original STALKER trilogy. In principle, the presentation of the game can end here – so everyone knows the phrases “go your way, follower” and “I caught olives”, as well as Strelok, Sidorovich.
To describe the game in more detail, STALKER is one of the main adventure games of the 21st century, where you can feel like a pioneer speaking one-on-one against the perverse radiation of nature like nowhere else. In it, there is an open world to work with abandoned scientific and industrial facilities of the USSR, as well as nomadic mutants, anarchists and adventurers like the main character.
Few criminal details are known about STALKER 2. But this is hardly a pity, because if the game gives at least half the impressions that the original STALKER continued to give, it would already be a victory. And there is hope for this, because the same Ukrainian studio GSC Game World is developing the sequel.