PlayStation State of Play and State of Play Japan 9/3/26 Recap and Impressions!
← Back to Home
News•September 3, 2026•15 min read

PlayStation State of Play and State of Play Japan 9/3/26 Recap and Impressions!

A very run of the mill show with nothing too massive, but we still saw some cool games!

PlayStationState of PlayFinal Fantasy VII Revelation

PlayStation had their big September State of Play for the year earlier this morning, and it was, well, a State of Play. There was plenty of cool looking stuff, but nothing I'd consider mindblowing in the over an hour and a half long show.

Yeah, you heard that right. Technically, this was billed as two back to back presentations, but it was packaged together as one. But both halves felt pretty fully filled, leading to a presentation that started at 9AM EST and ended a little before 11AM.

It pretty much ended up being exactly what I expected, a show mainly focused on updates for previously announced titles, with new announcements being few and far between. If you missed it, you really didn't miss too much, but if you did watch it, I feel it was entertaining enough. Though, the lack of big announcements made the long run time feel a bit grating at times.

All that said, I'm gonna list out all the major points from both halves of the broadcast, noting any release date or window attached to them, and providing a link to the trailer if you'd like to learn more. As many of the titles covered are outside my wheelhouse, I don't really have anything to say on most, but there's a couple that I do have thoughts on that I'd like to go into.

With all that said, let's jump into what was shown in the first half of the broadcast: the standard State of Play portion!

This kicked off the show, and I gotta say, it's an interesting way to start a video game showcase. Granted, I feel a little hypocritical saying that considering Nintendo's September Direct from last year led off with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's teaser, but I feel like that's a bit different. That was a movie based on Nintendo's biggest property announced as part of the 40th anniversary celebration, and the teaser was immediately followed up with a directly related game announcement. Here, this was the only Resident Evil thing in the entire showcase, and RE isn't even a PlayStation property, even if it is heavily associated with PS. That's why I find it to be a strange choice for an opener.

That said, the clip certainly didn't look bad and was plenty tense, though I don't really have much if any investment in this movie. I do hope it's good, though!

Well, now I have to rewrite one of Nintendo Direct predictions. I'm a little surprised there isn't a narrower release window here, like Spring 2027 or something. It's just 2027 as of now.

I played a bit of Wilds when it came out and enjoyed it quite a bit. I simply just got pulled away by life and other games and never got back to it. This DLC looks pretty sweet, though. The new area, set in ruins in the sky, gives me heavy Tears of the Kingdom vibes, and looks like a ton of fun to navigate. I don't know if I'll ever go back to Wilds and, by extension, play Ascendance- perhaps when the Switch 2 version comes out I could consider jumping back in- but regardless, I liked what I saw here!

There was a short segment highlighting the upcoming LEGO PlayStation set, which recreates the original PS1 in brick form. As a big fan of these console LEGO sets, I gotta say this one looks darn cool. It features the console itself, plus an original PlayStation controller, no analog sticks and all. The controller even has a cable that can be 'plugged in' to the ports on the front of the brick-built console!

The buttons on the console itself are pressable, with the power button activating a light, and the open button opening the lid. However, there doesn't seem to actually be any disc tray inside, and unlike other LEGO consoles like the NES and Game Boy which featured buildable cartridges, there aren't any buildable discs you can insert into the system. Though, I suppose that's appropriate given recent developments.

Ahem.

The coolest part, though, are the mini dioramas stored inside the system representing a pair of classic PS1 games: Gran Turismo and Ape Escape. This is probably the most attention PlayStation has given Ape Escape in some time, and will give going forwards, which is kinda sad but at least it's something!

Regardless, this is a pretty dang cool set that should be a fun build for PlayStation fans when it comes out next month.

First announced in the June Nintendo Direct, it was nice to see Final Fantasy Resonance again, and it looks like it's shaping up to be a great time for fans of classic Final Fantasy!

We already knew that iconic characters from the series, such as Cloud, could be summoned to assist in battle, but this trailer reveals that you'll apparently be able to fight iconic villains as well, showcasing a boss fight against the One-Winged Angel himself. It's pretty amusing to see the non-HD-2D cutscenes mixed in with the HD-2D gameplay, but I'd say it works well enough for what they're going for, even though they did create an awesome new boss sprite for Sephiroth that they could've used for those attack animations.

Additionally, a demo for the game is now available to play on all platforms, including Switch and Switch 2! I don't think I'll be playing it, as I don't intend to pick this one up, but I must say it's looking great. The HD-2D games hardly ever miss, so this should be another good one.

I love how the HD-2D style allows Square to pump out a bunch of these high-quality RPGs at a much faster rate than the big AAA stuff, and the style just looks great. Now that Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy have gotten the HD-2D treatment, and The Adventures of Elliot has proven that an Action RPG can work in HD-2D, I can only hope that Kingdom Hearts is next... Union X remake, perhaps? (Please Square I need it)

Is it safe to say that Konami has been cooking lately? After years of silence following the bitter departure of Hideo Kojima, Konami has surged back onto the scene, reviving many of their major franchises. It kinda reminds me of the resurgence that Capcom experienced post-Resident Evil 7. And they announced a new game today that really caught my eye.

Rhapsody in Scarlet is an action game set in 1920s New York City, with a heavy backing of jazz music, and combat centered around magic and commanding fantastical beasts. It's got a great sense of style and awesomely over the top action, elements which really appeal to me. Not sure if this is a game I'd actually end up playing, especially with no Switch 2 version currently confirmed, but it's definitely one I'll keep an eye on, as it looks incredibly promising!

Am I the only one who thought Revelation already had a release date set in April? I could've sworn that was confirmed at Summer Game Fest when the game was first revealed.

Well, regardless, we know when it's coming out now: April 8th, 2027! What's neat about this date is that it's two days off the 7th anniversary of the first of the Remake trilogy, April 10th, 2020, which is very apt considering this is, well, Final Fantasy 7.

Ahem.

So, it was announced alongside the State of Play that the first half would be ending with an extended look at the highly anticipated conclusion to the FFVII Remake Trilogy (which, by the way, we'll have gotten all three games of in between the releases of Kingdom Hearts III and IV, which is kind of nuts). And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.

We first got a trailer that revealed the April 8th release date, before we were thrown into an ~10 minute extended look at gameplay. And my word this game looks crazy impressive.

I've only ever played the fairly linear FFVII Remake, both on PS4 at its original launch, and more recently on Switch 2, where I currently have a playthrough in the sewers after Wall Market that hasn't been touched since late February-early March. I do really gotta get back to it, as it's an awesome game that I was really enjoying, and the longer I wait, the harder it'll be to pick the combat system back up.

That said, with how linear Remake is overall, and that being my only current experience with the trilogy, I was pretty blown away by the sheer scope and scale of Revelation's open world, no less by the sheer amount of freedom you have to explore it. I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be to be able to dive to any point on the map from the Highwind. Being so used to the linearity of Remake made seeing the same gameplay in an impressively realized open world feel strange, but very cool at the same time.

It looks like a super fun game, and seeing so much of it is motivating me to get back to Remake so I can eventually finish it and move on to experiencing the trilogy's later chapters. I highly doubt I'll be ready by the time it releases, though, as from my understanding, Rebirth is an incredibly dense game in and of itself.

I often times look back to the days when news on Remake was scarce, and how I would often joke that Final Fantasy VII Remake was never coming out. Now, to be so close to the trilogy's conclusion, feels surreal. In just a few months, what could be argued as Square's modern magnum opus will be complete. And when you look at everything contained within all three games and put it all together, it makes for potentially one of the biggest, most ambitious packages in all of gaming.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it all ends! Y'know, after I finish Remake and play through Rebirth, that is.

--------------

That covers the first half of the show, but there was still a whole other presentation to go. I don't have nearly as much to say about what was shown in the State of Play Japan, as a lot of the show was closer looks at stuff shown in the first half of the broadcast. There were a couple things that did jump out at me, though!

Here's a roundup of what was shown in the Japan half of today's State of Play broadcast:

This was another surprise standout for me. It's the first game from a new CyGames subsidiary called CyGamesEdge, focused on compact, quicker to develop experiences to contrast the long-lasting development cycles of the bigger games these days. And this was a strong debut if you ask me.

Where the Seeds Fall is a game about making a precarious descent down a world tree where humanity has taken refuge to the planet's surface, and you do so by very carefully maneuvering down small platforms and ledges, with the risk of a fatal plunge hanging over you the whole time. It's designed to evoke fear with every move and instill the player with stress as they carefully calculate each move and try to avoid falling to their doom. There are various mechanics that will help you along your way, such as "Flower Dive", where you throw a bud below you to create a flower that will negate a fatal fall if you land on it, but the core concept of carefully descending a long distance with very little margin for error immediately grabbed my attention.

And, in line with the aim of CyGamesEdge, it's a very compact experience that can be finished in only about three hours, while containing some bonus content to test your skills. I may just have to give this one a go should it come over to Switch 2.

I just want to mention how much I love the sheer absurdity of this one. It's giving No More Heroes vibes in terms of its over the top ridiculousness.

--------------

All in all, this was a very standard State of Play. There was nothing mindblowing, but there was enough stuff here to chew on that I can't in good faith call it a 'bad' presentation. Just a bit boring at times more than anything else.

Again, the whole broadcast was over an hour and a half long, and while there was definitely some cool stuff, it was sorely lacking in any kind of 'big' reveals to keep the excitement up.

Despite being probably the longest State of Play to date with both halves of the broadcast combined, there just wasn't any one moment in the show that stood out. In my opinion, this show just didn't have any stand out moments that people are gonna remember this State of Play in particular for. It really just kinda felt like a presentation that came and went.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, not every showcase needs to bring the house down with massive announcements. What gets me is the lack of any major announcements in a nearly two hour long show at a time where Sony could really use a win, what with all the disc drama going around.

All of that is a really longwinded way of saying that today's State of Play double feature just felt like it was missing something, that one announcement that really would've left an impact. We didn't get that. We did get to see a bunch of really cool and promising looking games, but if you came into this with even somewhat high expectations, I'd imagine you came away a bit disappointed.

That's just me, though, I don't speak for everyone. Everyone has different tastes, and mine just weren't catered to this time, and that's okay! I'm sure there are folks out there that loved the show, and I'm happy for them! Me personally, I just didn't see much in here that excited me. It felt like a very textbook 'video game presentation'.

And no, I promise this isn't my Nintendo bias speaking. There are plenty of past State of Plays that I came away from very impressed. This one just didn't do it for me. It's as simple as that.

That wraps up my thoughts on today's State of Play double feature! While it wasn't the most mindblowing presentation ever, there was still plenty worth getting excited for. I for one am very curious to see more of Rhapsody in Scarlet, and I'm sure FFVII Revelation is going to be fantastic!

Sources

Related Posts

The Next PS State of Play Has Been Confirmed for This Thursday, Featuring an Extended Look at FFVII Revelation
News

The Next PS State of Play Has Been Confirmed for This Thursday, Featuring an Extended Look at FFVII Revelation

Read More →