Sony’s latest State of Play: Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy XVI, new PC ports

On Thursday, Sony's latest game-filled "State of Play" presentation included fantastic news for PC gamers: Its critically acclaimed Marvel's Spider-Man is coming to Windows PCs on August 12. The news arrived shortly after a leak suggesting that Returnal and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are not only coming to PC this year as well but will include toggles to make them look and perform better than they do in the PlayStation 5 versions. The event was jam-packed with impressive-looking new games, though most of them have 2023 release dates (and everything shown on the upcoming PlayStation VR2 platform is thus far undated, as the new peripheral doesn't have a release date). As PC gaming enthusiasts, however, we want to start with the PC-specific news.

Why Sony’s PC bullishness makes us believe today’s leak

Marvel's Spider-Man launched on PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro in September 2018 and landed near the top of our favorite games of that year. Its port, which we are surprised to see given its success at selling PlayStations, will arrive on PC courtesy of Nixxes, a development studio known for some of the best console-to-PC ports of the past decade. Sony acquired Nixxes in early 2021, but up until today, that acquisition hadn't yet borne fruit, as Sony's other recent Windows game releases didn't credit Nixxes in any way. Though the State of Play presentation didn't mention it, Sony has since confirmed on PlayStation Blog that 2020's Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales will also launch on PC by the end of 2022. For the most part, that's unsurprising, since that semi-sequel shares the same engine and other technical elements—though that's certainly a quicker transition from console to PC than the original game's four-year stretch. Today's news includes confirmation that the ray-traced reflections added to both games' PS5 versions will appear on PC. Shortly before the YouTube presentation went live, a leaker published supposed menu images from two other PlayStation games' PC versions. The games in question, Returnal and Sackboy, have already been loudly rumored to launch shortly on Windows PCs. While there's a chance the leak's images have been faked, the images pertaining to Sackboy have been vetted by at least one well-regarded Reddit community's moderators. The legitimacy of these leaked images would not be surprising, given Sony's recent track record on solid PC ports and its statements last week about PC game sales revenue. The company projected a 375 percent jump in PC game sales year over year between FY 2021 and FY 2022—and it's going to need no fewer than five new PC game launches, each selling gangbusters, to reach that target. (I'm estimating more Sony PC game launches over the next year than that, including games that debut on PC, based on my calculations.) As of press time, Sony representatives had not answered Ars Technica's questions about the leak's legitimacy.

Why today’s leaked PC ports will look better than on PS5

Thursday's images included toggles for "ray tracing," which neither game includes on their original PlayStation 5 versions. Returnal's PC menus point to "ray-traced reflections," which, if other games are any indication, will allow specific surfaces in the game to reflect light more naturally, as opposed to leaning on classic tricks like Screen Space Reflections (SSR). Both games on PC will support ray-traced shadows, which is also less computationally expensive and accounts for more light-bounce data before drawing shadows (as opposed to simpler shading and ambient occlusion methods). In great news, both games will support arbitrary frame rate maximums, allowing players to exceed the 60 fps maximum for each on PS5. Returnal's PC port also includes automatic resolution scaling as an option for moments when the frame rate might dip. We do not have confirmation whether either port will support Nvidia's popular image reconstruction technique dubbed Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Anyone who wants to toggle ray-tracing effects on Nvidia GPUs would appreciate the latter. They'll likely need help to sustain performative frame rates with expensive effects turned on. DLSS also generally does a good job rendering fewer pixels while getting pixel density and anti-aliasing up to a handsome level. Each game also includes several sliders for adjusting effects' detail and intensity, resembling the menus seen in other Unreal Engine 4 games on PC—which is unsurprising, given that both games' PS5 versions were made in Unreal Engine 4, as well. That's great news for high-end systems and anyone who dreams of scaling these games on low-end machines like the portable Steam Deck. As a personal aside, I highly recommend both games. Sackboy has proven to be a lasting option as one of the best co-op platforming games of the past five years, and I regret not getting it into that year's "best games of 2020" feature. Returnal has only gotten better since its initial PS5 launch, thanks to much-needed bug fixes and fantastic new features.

What’re you buyin’ (yet again)?

On to the rest of today's State of Play reveals.

A brief sizzle reel confirmed one of Capcom's worst-kept secrets: a Resident Evil 4 remake, simply titled Resident Evil 4, is launching on March 4, 2023. Its reveal appeared to consist entirely of in-game content. It included impressive ray-tracing effects like reflections and light bounces—thus making the most of its current-gen exclusivity on both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, along with Windows PCs. The trailer concluded with news that the game would also include "PlayStation VR2 content" instead of functioning entirely in VR. Capcom followed this up with information that Resident Evil Village will get a top-to-bottom PSVR port, and other publishers offered similar teases of PSVR2 ports of The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners 2 and No Man's Sky.

Sony then delivered a fuller "real gameplay" look at Horizon: Call of the Mountain VR, which has now been confirmed as a PSVR2 exclusive. This VR spinoff will put players in control of a Horizon character named Reyes, who is tasked with climbing the game's mountains while engaging in first-person bow-and-arrow combat against robo-dinosaurs. But so far, these ports don't have release dates. While the Walking Dead trailer ended with a mention of "2022," we're unsure whether that's an indication of a PSVR2 hardware launch window (which still doesn't have a date) or if that is merely the game's launch window on other existing VR platforms like SteamVR.

Oh yeah, that makes sense

Street Fighter 6 received its first official release window of "2023" on PS5 and PS4. The news came within a lengthy gameplay reveal that included classic characters Ryu and Chun-Li alongside new characters Luke and Jamie. The trailer leaned on dramatic camera angles for the sake of flashiness instead of breaking down the mechanical differences we should expect compared to Street Fighter V. However, the trailer includes both interesting aerial counterattacks and Street Fighter IV-style interrupts, each marked by spraypaint-like blasts of color. In a press release, Capcom clarified that the game would include new elements like fully voiced narrators during fights and an optional "modern" control scheme that simplifies special commands' button requirements. SF6's "Drive System" will let players spend special meters on one of five perks: Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Overdrive Art, Drive Rush, and Drive Reversal. We imagine those are the names for the flashy moments shown in the trailer. The trailer also teases a substantial "overworld" element for the game's single-player campaign, including RPG-like running around towns to talk to NPCs, perhaps to assuage longtime fans who frowned upon SF5's lack of a single-player campaign during its launch. A similar-looking hub will connect online players in matchmaking lobbies. We've yet to hear about cross-platform online play, but Capcom confirmed that SF6 would launch on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC. (Not Xbox One, though.)

PUBG Corporation's ambitious Dead Space-like horror game, The Callisto Protocol, now has a release date of December 2, 2022, on current- and past-gen consoles. It's unclear how its detailed, gore- and amputation-filled combat against monstrous foes will scale between old and new consoles. Still, if today's reveal consisted of current-gen console gameplay, we're stoked about how well it evokes the singular terror that made Dead Space a fan favorite.

The event concluded with a bombastic trailer for Final Fantasy XVI, which now has a launch window of "summer 2023," and the footage goes in a much different direction than we've previously seen. Square Enix previously showcased the game's cast of human characters in tightly zoomed, Game of Thrones-like conversations. But this week's reveal cranks up the adrenaline by showcasing a ton of massive "summon" creatures, apparently conjured and controlled by different heroes and antagonists in the game's story. While some battles resemble the "action-RPG" stylings of Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII Remake, the massive showdowns between beasts land somewhere between Street Fighter and classic kaiju films. These battles position the camera in a "2.5-D" perspective, complete with "HP" bars and names at the top of the screen as if these were ripped from a competitive fighting game. The game currently appears to be a PlayStation 5 exclusive. For more on other games shown off during the trailer, including the "stealth-kitty" adventure of Stray and the cel-shaded roller-derby combat of Rollerdrome, click below for the entire State of Play presentation.

This article has been updated to correct an error about Spider-man: Miles Morales' availability on PC.