If you thought 2016 was a great year for gaming – and it was, truly – just wait ’til you see what 2017 has in store.
We’ve already had some brilliant releases, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn, and there’s plenty more ahead. Switch owners are surely looking for the next batch of releases, and we’ll see Microsoft’s Project Scorpio later this year, but PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC players have lots on the horizon too.
Wonder what all the fuss is about? Have a look below: we’ve collected the some highlights of games that we’re most excited about for the rest of 2017.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
BioWare’s latest sci-fi epic is leaving the Milky Way and heading to the Andromeda galaxy, which will bring with it news ships, new alien species, and vast new planets to explore. There’ll be a few familiar faces of course, and the same blend of roleplaying and third-person shooter combat, but there’s plenty that’s new. The first looks at gameplay suggest a greater focus on planetary exploration, with open worlds and an emphasis on crafting and discovery.
Dawn of War lll
The new Dawn of War III trailer has got a lot of hearts racing through its quite remarkably epic cinematic. Set to arrive in 2017, DoW 3 is expected to incorporate both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer aspect, presenting both online and offline challenges for players
Prey
Considering the original Prey announcement was made five years ago, fans of the series have been waiting a while. However, this is not the Prey that was announced all those years ago. Instead, it has been reimagined by an entirely new studio and will now offer a near-future cci-fi FPS.
We don’t have long to wait now though, because the game’s recently been confirmed for a 5 May release
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot is getting a remaster and we cannot wait. Announced at E3 2016 during Sony’s press conference, Activision is re-launching Crash Bandicoot, Crash 2 and Warped in HD for PS4 as the N.Sane Trilogy and we now know its release date closer than expected. The development team are branding this a ‘remaster plus’ because of how substantially they’ve had to revamp the code for PS4.
Project Cars ll
The follow-up to 2015’s surprise racing game hit, Project Cars 2 promised much of the same, except bigger, faster, and shinier. The announcement promised 170+ cars and 60+ tracks, including some newly scanned from real-world courses. Other new features include dynamic weather and online competitive leagues, but the real draw is the new support of both VR and 12K output – though good luck building a PC beefy enough to output 4K to three monitors at once.
Super Mario Odyssey
Nintendo has announced that it is bringing a new Super Mario game to its new Switch console later this year. It’s set to be a massive 3D platformer in the vein of Super Mario 64 and ventures into new territory for Mario games: a realistic(ish) take on New York City.
Star Citizen
Star Citizen managed to raise almost $100m from Kickstarter and through other crowdfunding means, which just goes to show how highly anticipated it is. It brings together solo, cooperative, FPS, third-person, open-world gameplay, space exploration and hand-to-hand combat into one shiny package that we can’t wait to open.
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