Top 5 Highlights from PC Gaming Show 2020

The PC Gaming Show found itself in a strange spot this year. While it’s usually seen as a decidedly minor show compared to the major E3 conferences every year, the absence of E3 left video game fans everywhere hungry for a show that would fulfill their wildest gaming dreams. The PC Gaming Show didn’t do that for most, but there were still quite a few enticing announcements and reveals worth paying attention to. If you didn’t manage to catch it live or didn’t have two hours to spare, here are our top 5 highlights from this year’s show!

5. New Blood Interactive Publisher Showcase

If Devolver proved anything during the last decade, it’s that establishing a great rapport with your audience pays off. New Blood Interactive’s showcase was reminiscent of Devolver not just because it had a cheeky tone, but also because they had the announcements to back it up. They announced meaningful updates like mod support, ray tracing, and new content for their older games while also promoting interesting new titles like Unfortunate Spacemen and the whiplash-inducing Ultrakill. And New Blood’s CEO did it all while maintaining a delightfully tongue-in-cheek tone and directing people to genuinely funny website URLs for more information. If more publishers used this strategy events everywhere would be better for it.

4. New Mafia Remake Trailer & Interview

When rumors of a revamped Mafia trilogy started circulating a few months ago, there was one title out of the three that seemed to generate the most buzz: a remake of the original 2002 Mafia. Fast-forward to today and it turns out that the original game is the only one getting the full remake treatment. Regardless, this hasn’t made the march towards the August 28th release date any less exciting, and the new story trailer and reassuring interview with Hanger 13 president Hayden Blackman have only stoked that fire.

He confirmed that all in-game assets have been rebuilt from the ground-up, and it shows; the new trailer looks on par with the best of the current generation. He also confirmed a fully realized world (with wider roads and more people walking the streets) and redone driving mechanics to bring everything up to snuff for modern audiences. Most exciting of all? All cinematics have been re-written and fully motion captured to deliver as high quality an experience as possible. Suffice to say, August can’t come soon enough.

3. Godfall PC Overview

Godfall has gotten a bit of a bad rap since its initial reveal during The Game Awards at the end of 2019. It was the first next-gen title shown off for the PS5, but it looked undeniably generic and overly flashy. This lackluster image wasn’t helped much by its tone deaf appearance at the PlayStation 5 reveal event, either. For the PC gameplay reveal, however, Counterplay Games opted for a more measured and methodical presentation, and it paid off in spades.

For the first time we learned more about the world of Godfall, who the main character is, their motivation, and the structure of the game itself. The game director actually explained how loot would play a vital role in progression instead of just throwing out the term “looter-slasher.” It was even confirmed that the game runs on on Unreal Engine 5. For one of the first next-gen games releasing this year, this was a great step in the right direction.

2. Indie Reveals Galore

With all the digital events happening over the last week, it’s hard to imagine that there were still any hard-hitting announcements to be had. While the PC Gaming Show didn’t have a ton of major reveals, the indies showed up in full force to pick up the slack. Previously announced games like Evil Genius 2, Potionomics and Rogue Lords all had fantastic gameplay debuts, while long-anticipated indies like Cris Tales finally got a release date, next-gen console confirmation and an updated demo.

Of course, nothing beats full-on game reveals. Of particular interest were Humble Bundle’s Carto (a heartfelt adventure game with a clever map folding mechanic), Epic’s Airborne Kingdom (a city management game about growing your clan while soaring around the world), and Red Sails (a game where you sail across the desert on a boat in search of stranded people).

1. Persona 4 Golden PC Shadow Drop

This could’ve been one of the most shocking reveals in modern gaming history if it hadn’t leaked a week prior. Though Persona 5 catapulted the series into the mainstream, Persona 4 Golden has long been hailed as the best entry in the series–and the only one tied to the decidedly dead PlayStation Vita. Without even a port to PlayStation 4, the thirst from new Persona 5 fans and old franchise fans alike had been at a boiling point for years. Thus, it was only natural that the internet exploded when the leak got out (and that it the game subsequently shot to the top of the Steam charts following today’s shadow drop).

And yet, despite Golden being something of a known quantity, its release is still far and away the most significant announcement of the show for so many people. It means that Atlus, a company who many suspected had signed an exclusivity agreement with Sony, might actually start making other Persona titles multiplatform. It means people who couldn’t or didn’t want to buy a Vita for one game finally get to experience one of the best JRPGs of all time. And it means there’s a possibility that Persona 6 might launch on something other than the PS5. Regardless of what happens down the line, this was truly a dream announcement.