Summer 2023 is looking great for games: Weekly Roundup
Let’s flashback to this time last year. Forspoken was a week away, Mario Strikers: Battle League was quickly approaching, and Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course was rounding out the beginning of July. And…that’s about it. The summer was full of fantastic announcements for 2023, and not much else. Sure, there was a smattering of indies delivered under the radar (as there always are), but besides that not many blockbuster, AAA games released between May and September. It was a disappointing time, especially after the back-to-back successes of Q1.
In February alone, we had Sifu, Horizon: Forbidden West, and Elden Ring - a GOTY winner - within 3 weeks of each other. March brought us a new Kirby game, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and Tokyo: Ghostwire. Less smash hits, but still heavy hitters in the gaming world. Things started to slow down in April, and by May we were square in a gaming drought. Luckily, the video game gods have smiled upon us once again, with the numerous COVID delays, crunch crises, and long-awaited masterpieces finally coming to fruition this summer.
Let’s start with the obvious. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has opened May with a bang, already proving Nintendo’s ability to keep reinventing the wheel (at a flashy new $70 price tag). It sits at a 96 on Metacritic, with a equally laudable 8.7 user score. And that’s not all we got, with Darkest Dungeon 2 at a respectable 81 and quiet praise. It flew under the radar a bit after Tears of the Kingdom came out to pomp and circumstance, but a solid slew of games nonetheless.
Then we hit June and all hell breaks loose. Street Fighter VI, a doubtless hallmark in fighting game history, drops the 2nd of June, with Diablo IV just four days later on the 6th. And two weeks later, Final Fantasy XVI rounds out the month. Three major gaming franchises, three long-awaited sequels, all within three weeks of each other. It’s going to be absolutely bananas. And that’s just two months!
July gifts us Pikmin 4, a surprise announcement from Nintendo’s last Direct. August doesn’t have a lot on the calendar, but with Summer Games Fest, that could all change. And September opens with Starfield, the latest endeavor from Bethesda to make the Xbox Series X worth buying.
All that to be said, this summer is shaping up to be the biggest summer in gaming history (or at least since COVID wiped our collective memories). Major franchises are reborn, new IPs are introduced, and crazy announcements wait to be spilled at Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest 2023. Here’s to hoping that that momentum can carry into the fall and winter (and that all these games are good and not bad. Or delayed. Or delayed, and then bad.)
