Games I'm looking forward to in 2017.

By Sam Coles:

Video games are off to a good start in 2017 with Yakuza 0 already firmly placed in one of my favourite games of the year, but I want to go other some of the games I’m looking forward to in the coming months.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

The Ghost Recon series has been in hiatus for a while as the last game we got Future Soldier came out in 2012 with mix opinions from fans; I personally liked it with the four player campaign when you play it on the hardest difficulty. Ghost Recon Wildlands takes the tactical shooter and throws it into an open world setting where you can either play it alone with A.I squad mates or team up with 3 other players and use communication to takedown your targets. The game looks very interesting with its South American setting where you’re trying to takedown a drug cartel it’s a fresh setting from all the generic military shooters.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Guerrilla Games last game was the 4^th game in the Killzone series Killzone Shadow Fall and you could tell that they were struggling to progress the series, not to say that Shadow Fall was bad but there is only so much you can do with a first person shooter. Horizon Zero Dawn stems away from their shooter routes and is an interesting open world where you play in a post-apocalyptic world with robot dinosaurs. Yes I wish I could make that up it looks like if you took Far Cry Primal and made it a good open world game without any of the tedious gathering missions.

For Honor

Ubisoft seem to be releasing some interesting games and are breaking the trend of making generic open world games. For Honour is similar to the TV show Deadliest Warrior where you have various warriors from different countries and history fighting each other in a multiplayer environment so you can have Shogun warriors fighting Vikings or English Knights. The combat looks really brutal and satisfying with bone crunching sound design as you drive a sword through your enemy’s ribs. Thankfully the game is not just a multiplayer only game as it has a full singleplayer campaign.

Mass Effect Andromeda

After Mass Effect 3 we were not expecting the space opera to continue on the 8^th generation of consoles as I thought Bioware would focus on a new I.P or Dragon Age which they did with Inquisition. We don’t have too many details about the new Mass Effect as it has been teased for 2-3 years at each E3 showing us basically nothing. It wasn’t until the end of 2016 that we finally got some gameplay at Sony’s PS4 Pro conference which we then got a release date of March. The game looks largely unchanged from Mass Effect 3 but they are bringing back the planet exploration of the first game which looks to be amazing with the power of the new consoles being able to explore the galaxy of Andromeda.

Injustice 2

Neverrealm Studios since the release of the reboot of Mortal Kombat all the way back in 2011 have been the example of how a fighting game should be made for home consoles with a detailed story and content to keep you occupied for months. It was a big surprised in 2013 that they released a fighting game featuring all our favourite DC comic book characters kicking seven shades of grey out of each other. I was super excited that they announced a sequel to franchise for Xbox One and PS4 with shiny new graphics and refined fighting mechanics coupled with new characters from the DC universe both familiar and unfamiliar.

Red Dead Redemption 2

It’s hard to believe that Red Dead Redemption came out all the back in 2010 and it was one of the best games on the Xbox 360 and PS3. After all these years of waiting Rockstar announced Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to the PS4 and Xbox One and trailer showing off the new landscape with current gen graphics looks awe inspiring. We don’t know much at the moment but there is speculation that the game is a prequel and you play as a young John Marston when he was in Dutch’s gang. It’s slated for a fall of 2017 release but knowing Rockstar Games that is not going to happen I expect it will come out spring of 2018.

Halo Wars 2

Halo Wars on the Xbox 360 was a bit of a hidden gem as people didn’t expect an RTS game to work on a console, but to many people it was complete surprise as it was a very good game. Honestly I wasn’t expecting a sequel but at E3 of 2016 they announced the sequel will be developed by none other than Creative Assembly the studio most famous for the Total War series and Alien Isolation so the game is in good hands as they have been making RTS’s for years. The story takes place directly after the first game as you are taking on a Brute general who has no remorse for human life.

Those are the games I’m looking forward to in 2017, what games are you looking forward to? Let me know in the comments or tweet at me @samcoles2, @bristoliangamer or you can tell me on Facebook Bristolian Gamer.