Yeah, it’s Keighley o’clock again. I won’t do the whole spiel about Geoff Keighley or the games presentations associated with him - they’re vapid, bloated productions run by gaming PR’s favourite host, but you know that already (OR you know that now). Other folks have better, more entertaining material poking fun at the whole farce of the thing, whereas my aim is simply to find the potential gems amid the middling fare. This year’s Summer Game Fest was definitely among the more underwhelming and anemic in my experience, but I still managed to find some noteworthy titles, my reactions to which I have presented below. Have a look and see if anything strikes your fancy. Star Wars: Zero Company Developed by Bit Company and Respawn Entertainment Published by Electronic Arts Releasing August 27, 2026 for Windows PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The initial reveal for this game gave a strong impression that the central idea for this game was “What if XCOM, but with Star Wars stuff?” What they sh...
Even without knowing the term "isekai", you have probably at some point encountered a story or piece of media that follows its basic framework. A Japanese term meaning "another world", isekai stories deal with the notion of being adrift in a setting quite unlike one's own; they follow protagonists who are ripped away from a world much like ours and dropped into an unfamiliar place or time. Be it Edgar Rice Burroughs's depiction of Mars as a futuristic kingdom in the Barsoom books or the fantastical realm of Oz, the specifics matter less than the intent - to challenge the protagonist's preconceived notions and lead them to personal growth in the face of unexpected conflict. I lay all of this out for you because I think the intent with Heir to the Queen, a small-scale adventure game, was to hit the basic points of the isekai journey under the constraints of a threadbare budget and no larger media presence. That's speculation on my part, though, sinc...