/v/GAs at the “Summer of Gaming” 2024
Note: Our editorial coverage at events is separate from our awards coverage, which is determined by our voters. I was not provided with any discount or review copies of any titles featured below.
Summer is here, and with it brings another set of summer gaming conferences. With E3 gone but not forgotten, there’s a splintering of showcases and a lot of in-person events in L.A. I had the opportunity to attend three of them over the last weekend (June 8–10), and I thought it’d be worthwhile to share them with you.
This continues a series of events /v/GA staff have been going to on behalf of the show. It was just me for the in-person events this time around, but stick around to the end to see a showcase that really took us home.
Summer Game Fest
Having attended last year’s Summer Game Fest (the first year it was opened to the public), it was once again an earnest all-rounder. A variety of games, both independent and public, that we’re gonna see in the coming months (or at least, soon).
LEGO Horizon Adventures
The collaboration between Guerrilla Games and the LEGO Group has brought us LEGO® Horizon Adventures. Being a LEGO game first and a Sony game second, surely we’ll receive gameplay depth and intricacies that the original Horizon Zero Dawn seemed to forget about.
Quidditch Champions
Quidditch Champions was met with notably withheld applause. Despite the grandeur of bringing this beloved sport to life, the in-theater reaction was subdued under threat of being cancelled. Don’t mistake it for boos, though. It was a polite reaction. Post-reveal, the developers were seen together in the audience, in decidedly good spirits.
Street Fighter 6 — Year 2
Just like in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Terry Bogard from King of Fighters is joining the roster for the Street Fighter 6 Year 2 character pass, along with a bunch of other fighters (one per season). The character pass starts with M. Bison (for Summer 2024), then Terry (Fall), then Mai (Winter), and finally Elena (Spring 2025).
DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO
It was good to see a trailer for DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, which appears to capture the essence of the classic Tenkaichi series.
Blumhouse Games
Blumhouse, known for its horror movies, is stepping into the gaming arena with Blumhouse Games. To be a bit facetious with rumors that Summer Game Fest was charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for airtime, one could say Blumhouse Games got the “group rate” with games like Sleep Awake, Grave Seasons, Fear the Spotlight, and The Simulation.
Innersloth Presents — Outersloth
The developers of Among Us, Innersloth, announced Outersloth as a new publishing house and gaming accelerator.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Warhorse Studios showcased a trailer for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The original, having been the runner up for Best New IP back in the 2018 Vidya Gaem Awards, certainly looks to be a more unflinching depiction of medieval ages (or the bookend era of it).
Cairn
Audrey Leprince took the stage and introduced The Game Bakers’ latest project, Cairn. This game, pitched as a “survival climber”, has you climbing Mount Kami — and a summit that’s never been reached before.
Palworld’s Sakurajima Update
Seeing the Pocketpair developers outside the theater and in the audience, I had a suspicion we’d see an update around the horizon. Sure enough, there was one.
The “Pokemon with Guns” game that took the lunch of monster-tamers everywhere announced the Sakurajima Update, bringing new content to Palworld.
The live reaction was modest, but the dedicated fan base will surely appreciate the fresh additions and new adventures awaiting them.
The Skate Reboot
The skate. cold reveal featuring Tim Robinson didn’t land as expected. The audience’s lackluster response (at least within the theater) might have had to do with remembering what exactly “M-Corp” was. It took a second reveal shortly thereafter to remind people who they were: the big bad of the skate. universe.
Two years ago, they uploaded a trailer that said “[We’re] Still Working On It”. It landed on empathetic ears, and people appreciated the fact a developer under EA could be honest about production difficulties.
However, in the two years since, games like Skater XL and the upcoming Skate Story have been taking hype away from skate. and building their own playerbase. And just like the Tony Hawk franchise post-Project 8, the Skate devs need to realize the competition is coming — and fast. Hopefully, they’ll get everyone back on board.
Playtesting for skate. is scheduled for Fall 2024.
Chicken Ken Jeong
Not a fan.
Monster Hunter Wilds
DID YOU LIKE Monster Hunter NOW? Then check this out — a new Monster Hunter Wilds trailer was shown at SGF too. There will be a new trailer at Gamescom, and there will also be a playable demo there as well. Otherwise, it was a by-the-book trailer of a AAA game.
Phantom Blade Zero: A Dark Surprise
Lastly, the soulslike Phantom Blade Zero (or 0̷) closed out the ceremony. The game looked cool. And my quick Google search led me to its Fandom page which explained it was a “spiritual rebirth of the Rainblood: Town of Death indie game that was released only in China.”
The MIX — Summer 2024
Shifting gears to a more intimate setting was the Media Indie Exchange (MIX): the indie showcase I had an elusive relationship with. With two misses, one of them being last year’s SGF, where the venue owner didn’t have proper electric permits, and the other being PAX West 2023 because I was stuck in Las Vegas (though we covered at least one game featured there in that article), I was grateful I finally get a chance to see this event in person. The Vidya Gaem Awards received a press badge for this event… and it was a great time!
There were tons of games displayed at the MIX and the developers were right there to receive feedback and learn alongside you.
So, without further ado, here were some games that I played.
Fallen Aces
Ahead of its release last Friday, Fallen Aces had one final pre-release showcase at The MIX. It featured “Water Under The Bridge”, the second level from Episode 1. Notably changed from previous demos (such as PAX East’s or the one on Steam) was improved enemy AI and less “billboarding” of the level objects.
Though navigating the underwater portion of the level was difficult to do due to the real-world sunset reflecting against the monitor’s matte display, it was good to see the game well on its way to launch. Having played the game post-launch and given the benefit of retrospect, “Water Under The Bridge” was a good pick as one of the most expansive levels.
The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time
Surely, you’ve played the original.
Allegedly inspired by Final Fantasy VII (but that’s too definitive to say), TRotEotGRPGoAT is meta to its core. You relive the final hour of The End of the Greatest RPG of All Time, the lore and controls of which are retold of you through pieces of the game’s manual, which you earn through traveling through the levels. During the process of playing the game, the game’s HDMI capture card started to glitch. It soon became apparent that was part of the experience, as the game told me so despite the developer’s protestations.
Memory Lost
Memory Lost is an isometric roguelike. You’re a neural network who has to face hordes of enemies which you are able to assimilate once you kill them (and after one of them kills you). If you don’t have enough bodies to shift to — it’s game over.
Volgarr the Viking II
A ten year follow up to the first game, Volgarr the Viking II shines as a tough (but fair) platformer. The developer emphasized that you’re gonna fail a lot of times playing this game, but it’s an incredibly rewarding adventure.
Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch
The follow up to Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl, this combo-based beat-em-up brings a higher-fidelity, hand-drawn rendition of the franchise and with it, a cinematically lower frame rate. Characters from the View Askewniverse are present, and you also see archetypes that are refreshingly timely for the 2020s such as vapid vapers and squeakers who are on their damn phones all the time.
Claws & Chaos
And to close out my first attended MIX — I checked out Claws & Chaos, a cutesy game with deep mechanics. It’s an auto battler where strategic placement of one’s fighters is key. A variety of class types and upgradable fighters makes this a game of trial-and-error, all over within moments.
It’s hard to survive at IGN Live
The following afternoon, I attended IGN Live at Magic Box’s The Reef, and it served as a stark contrast to the atmosphere of The MIX. Whereas the MIX event was organic and fun to be at, IGN’s event was amateurish and disorganized.
I walked in the door at around 2pm and, suffering a bad case of indigestion, immediately had to use the bathroom. With only two men's rooms, and a line that totaled twelve deep (monitored by security) on the second floor, it felt like an incredibly bad start.
After a fifteen-minute wait, some audible grunting in pain and just-in-time knocks on the lone stall door, I was able to wash my hands and focus on something other than my own digestive system.
A dev showcase with no devs
The lack of developers in the showrooms was a massive bummer. Everyone who should’ve been here seemed to have been at Play Days, an invite-only event for influencers and press held by Summer Game Fest.
In fact, on the Saturday I went, I only saw three devs, two of which represented the same studio: ChainStaff. Not knocking the ChainStaff guys at all though, as they took the care to stand behind their product.
The one game I played here was Gori: Cuddly Carnage, which was a great mix of hack-and-slash and parkour. A production assistant working for IGN asked me if this was the game, and an alt-tab to the Windows desktop I was playing on confirmed that it was. I presume the reason they had asked in the first place was that there was no signage atop the stations indicating the games, only scant indications of where generally things are. Not exactly intuitive to find a game by vibes alone.
Why Aren’t You Cheering?
In the stage room, an attendee reported being scolded by one of the production assistants for “not cheering loudly enough”. Now, PAs soliciting applause from audience members is common in the entertainment industry — for seat fillers or compensated attendees. But this wasn’t a compensated attendee, or a seat filler. This was somebody who paid $60 for their ticket.
The antics I had witnessed for myself — cheer for a poster of New World Aeternum— felt cringeworthy and forced. I didn’t stick around for the additional antics IGN was trying to pull to spruce up the manufactured hype. So, I went outside.
No Can(ned) Dew
The lack of water fountains inside The Reef was palpable. The would-be liquid sponsor of the event, MTN Dew, had supplies diminished hours after opening Saturday, and there wasn’t a resupply. Unless you were an invited guest, the best place to find water would have been from the food trucks outside in the parking lot.
Oh — I forgot, did I mention security? Security guards inside, security guards outside. The venue had an oppressive ratio of security guards for the venue that seemed unnecessary, given that an actual theft occurred months ago, when I bought the ticket for IGN Live and was promised several things that didn’t actually exist.
Keeping out a known disruptor like “Bill Clinton Kid” is understandable, but keeping out people who just went outside to get a drink, and monitoring who gets to go to the bathroom to poop, was straight up dystopian.
In comparison to the earlier events, I attended the day before (Summer Game Fest and the MIX), IGN Live emerged as a complete, abject failure. Probably won’t attend again.
Any other expos?
I would be a stinker if I ended it there, on a dour note, without also mentioning the two showcases (Xbox and Ubisoft Forward) on Sunday which was stacked with some decent releases and made the weekend round out to a decent one. I’ll link them down below, as they both had some things worth checking out as well.
Of course, let’s not forget about the indie showcases, either. The Games to Get Excited About Fest crushed it with a thumbnail that harkened back to a golden hour of the wild west internet.
That’s some image, but if we really want to open wide and go deep, there’s another showcase on the other site of the internet — the part we come from, that’s left to explore.
/v/3 — 4chan’s indie games expo
Now that you’ve spent several hours watching back-to-back YouTube videos from a mixture of two massive corporations and an indie one, I thought we should even out with a showcase from our home site.
The /v/3 Expo is an independent games showcase founded in 2020 that both lampoons the showcase grindset of the “big guys” while also highlighting the creative talent of the board. It’s a separate team from the people who make the /v/GAs, but still a great local option for developers to promote their games in an hour-long showcase with original commentary and skits.
Much like the site we share, parts of the presentation can be offensive and jarring to normal people, but it’s also got a few cool games thrown in there too. Here are some that I liked in particular:
Healed to Death
Dirk The Adventurer
Dead Man’s Hand
What’s next?
This is the fourth major event the /v/GAs have covered on Medium. We’ve attended Anime Expo 2023, PAX West 2023, and PAX East 2024, and seen the progress of dozens of developers as they build their games out. It’s been a great ride, and we plan to keep going.
Although we are always going to be an awards show first, our time covering these events has certainly helped to see firsthand a lot of up-and-coming developers in the heat of their passion. Just as importantly, it’s great to see projects finally reach the finish line and release.
Feel free to let us know (through any medium you like) if there are any future events you want us to cover. As always, thanks for taking the time to support our project and read this article, and we’ll see you in the next one.
