The Top 8 Most Anticipated Games We’re Still Waiting On

Welcome all to another edition of The 8 Ball! This week I’m here to talk about some games, specifically ones that still aren’t out. 2024 has actually been pretty amazing so far with three games that have had very long/arduous development cycles released. Those being Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull & Bones and Granblue Fantasy: Relink being released already. I’ll leave it to the comments section to decide which of those three the winner is. With that said, there are still a lot of games that have had announcements and such but still aren’t actually out. So here’s a roll call of some of those games. Also, no Star Citizen or Beyond Good & Evil 2 talk, since those are pipe dreams. Let’s begin:

#8: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2/Hollow Knight: Silksong

I’m putting both these games on here together for two reasons. The first is that they were both actually announced in 2019, which is five years ago. And the second is that, unlike with most of the games on this list, there actually is some firm details on each. Heck, even Hellblade 2 has a release date. Whether or not it hits it is a different matter, but hey, it has one. It would be nice if both games actually manage to come out this year.

#7: State of Decay 3

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Microsoft has a kind of bad track record with announcing a game WAY too early in development and then leaving fans wondering what is going on for the next 5+ years. Case in point, State of Decay 3. Announced in 2020, it at least has some definite trailers out there. What it doesn’t have is a firm release date or window. I have a feeling that this game is likely suffering from feature creep, or someone trying to pivot the game into something it shouldn’t be, hence all the delays that it has underwent.

#6: Metroid Prime 4

At this point, this either has to be the last major release for the Switch 1, or a launch game for the Switch 2, right? Announced in 2017, I still don’t think there has been any actual, concrete video trailers or gameplay for this thing, right? It did suffer through at least one developer change, going from Bandai Namco to Retro Studios, so that ate some time, but that also happened in 2019, which is 5 years old. What is going on with it? It’s not like there isn’t interest in Metroid, the Dread sales numbers should prove this, but this game still isn’t out and is barely even existing at this point.

#5: Splinter Cell

The only company worse than Microsoft with announcing a game and not delivering it is Ubisoft. Not so necessarily with this list but BG&E 2, Wyld (finally cancelled), numerous Assassin’s Creeds in development hell, the Skull & Bones TV show (yeah, that was an announced thing), The Division movie, etc. One of their more well known disasters has been their constant fumbling of a Splinter Cell “thing”. Honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s a new game, a reboot, a remake, or whatever, so “thing” applies. Rumored in 2017, but announced in 2019, Ubisoft said that a new game was being worked on, but later disputed this. Then it was a VR game that got cancelled, now it is, supposedly a remake, being worked on since 2021. It’s all nonsense. Meanwhile, they continue to put Splinter Cell stuff into crap like Elite Squad (now cancelled) and XDefiant (failed cert., still unreleased). How about giving people what they actually want, for once?

#4: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2

It’s a bit hard to pin down when exactly this game was announced but I’m going to go with 2016. Since then it’s gone through two developers, numerous delays, problems with staff and so on. This project almost seems like it is cursed. The IP company, White Wolf, has tried to keep the Vampire name alive with stuff like Swansong, Coteries, and Bloodhunt but it’s all just kind of nonsense. They said this game is going to come out later in 2024, but let’s be real, it’ll be 2025, at the earliest.

#3: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

The only real recent news about this game is from Jeff Grubb saying that EA & Bioware were “hopeful” the game would be out this year. If that’s not a definite statement, I don’t know what is. Why not just hire a Shaman, have him do a dance, and maybe that’ll cause the game to get released? Look, I reasonably feel for the folks at Bioware, if this game and whatever the new Mass Effect game is, bombs, then I’d wager that is it for Bioware and EA will close them down. But by not showing much of this game at all, even with the “hopeful” release date of this year, it just makes me incredibly worried for the project.

#2: Fable

When all you have is CGI trailers, you know the project is in trouble. This, and the last pick on this list, were both rumored/announced in 2018 and since then, almost nothing. Fable at least has had a few CGI trailers, one notably featuring Richard Ayoade, but that’s it. It’s kind of amazing that they were, essentially, able to crank out four Fable games from 2004 to 2014, and yet with this game having been worked on for over 6 years now, they’ve barely shown anything. I guess it helps show why the Xbox is where it is, in the console race.

#1: Perfect Dark

I could almost just write “Perfect Dark, y’all know the score” and hey, you all would know the score. Also announced in 2018, this reboot of Perfect Dark has been stuck in development hell since then. At least with Fable, there is the semblance of a game. Like “Hey, within 10 years, assuming it doesn’t get cancelled, this might actually come out?” With Perfect Dark, there is no such hope there. The fact that a new studio was formed to get this game out, and it still has only shown one CGI trailer, at least to my memory, is “worrying” to say the least. Microsoft has really dropped the ball the last two console generations with Halo’s slow slide into irrelevancy, Gears of War being placed in stasis, Fable being a bit of a punch line, but Perfect Dark, to me, is the ultimate joke. At this point, I expect them to just kind of quietly cancel this game and for them to bring back Blinx the Time Sweeper or Fusion Frenzy.

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For comments, list what games you are looking forward to that are still missing.

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