The PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct aired Sunday, September 28 at 9 am Pacific with never-before-seen trailers, announcements, and updates from our reporter on the ground at Tokyo Game Show. Also a lot of scary eyes... you'll see.
You can watch the archived stream on YouTube or in the player above, but if years of social media conditioning has led you to prefer scrolling through a feed of brief written comments, I've got you covered.
I liveblogged the PCGS Tokyo Direct, sharing the trailers and announcements as they happened, and you can browse those posts below. Now that they stream is over, they're presented in chronological order, from oldest to newest.
Without further ado, here's what went down in Tokyo:
What's been going on at TGS so far
The PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct starts soon! While we wait, here are some of the headlines that have come out of this year's Tokyo Game Show already:
- I played China's 'anime GTA' Ananta and I wasn't surprised to find Spider-Man swinging and Batman punching, but I wasn't quite ready for the vampire who vomits rainbows
- Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 gets Tokyo Game Show sign of life: 'Since we called the first instalment Vol. 1, it’s only natural to expect a second one'
- Forza Horizon 6's Japan map is mondo-huge, Playground's 'biggest map yet' and also its 'most full'
- New Virtua Fighter presentation takes a lot of time to say not very much aside from a short teaser and a brand-new battle system
It's time! …for Blood!
Woo! The PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct is underway with hosts Elle Osili Wood (from TV) and Midas (from PC Gamer), who's queued up the first world premiere of the show from Tokyo gaming mecca Akihabara.
I'm proud to be a part of a publication that's happy to kick off a showcase with 1997 DOS shooter Blood. Actually, it's Nightdive's remaster, Blood: Fresh Supply, which is itself is getting an upgrade with Blood: Refreshed Supply—more details here.
Hey, it's little Alex Horne!
This genuinely startled me. Even the US side of PC Gamer has been whiling away the 2020s watching the UK's Taskmaster, and I wasn't prepared for a Horne appearance here. He's voicing a character in upcoming adventure game Earth Must Die alongside a bunch of other British talent—you can see the trailer on YouTube.
Get 'em, Minotaur
If you ask me, Theseus should take his spool of thread and go see if he can work out whether or not his ship is the same ship it used to be, and leave the Minotaur alone. Go slap around ol' King Minos if you're mad about the human sacrifices! Glad to see the Minotaur take charge here.
It's Wes!
PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon has spent the past week at Tokyo Game Show and will be popping up throughout the Tokyo Direct with reports from the show floor. (Last I talked to him, he was telling me about a vomiting vampire in the 'anime GTA' game he played.)
Enter the Moomin
I guess I missed Moomin growing up in the US, because I had to look them up when Snufkin Melody of Moominvalley was announced, and then again this year when I heard about Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth. They are very popular Finnish trolls, I've gathered—there's a theme park in Japan, even! Anyway, the game looks lovely.
Awaysis
This trailer from 17-Bit Studios and Cult Games directs us to "taste the Awaysis," but what is the Awaysis? I couldn't tell ya! Justin's got more on it here.
Billie Bust Up
"Billie Bust Up" sounds like a phrase improv performers would use to warm-up. Billie Bust Up Billie Bust Up Billie Bust Up. And is that an axolotl named Aristotle? Axolotl named Aristotle axolotl named Aristotle axolotl named Aristotle. (I'll let Issy actually tell you what the game's about.)
Yakuza Kiwami 3 and some love for the PC
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama has so many nice things to say about PC gaming in this interview that I might have to follow the lead of the many Yakuza-heads on the PC Gamer team and get into them myself.
It's interesting to hear that the founding idea of the series was "Japanese people making a game for Japanese people"—Yokoyama says it came as a surprise to him that the games were embraced globally.
Damn, this raccoon is sick
In the good sense. He does it all: package deliveries, BMX rail grinds, fishing, sushi-making, logging.
Love those crunchy sounds
The shooting in Gravebound looks cool, but that industrial noise track and chunky metallic sound effects are what made it stand out to me.
Monster guts
We've got another new game announcement here: Following in the footsteps of games like Viscera Cleanup Detail, Kaiju Cleanup has us picking apart the remains of Godzilla-style monsters.
Swery x Suda51
Game design legends Suda51 and Swery are talking about the just-released Hotel Barcelona, which they made plans for on a visit to Banff in Alberta, Canada. They apparently pitched the idea to Devolver, but Devolver didn't bite, and so Swery surprised Suda 51 by diving into development at his own studio. The game, which is as weird as you'd expect from the pair, launched on Steam last week.
Red planet, red army?
It's labor vs capital in a turn-based tactics war for Mars. I love the pixelated zoomed-out map shots here.
Cat attack
"Scratch, smash, survive" is also the motto of real cats I've known.
Killing Floor 3's Rearmament Update
The folks from Tripwire are here with the first big content update for Killing Floor 3, the Rearmament Update. That shotgun looks pretty sick.
Satisfarmory?
No, it's not actually called Satifarmory. This is Farmbotic (formerly known as Farmatic), a farming/automation sim with some Stardew Valley-like side activities, including a bit of cave combat, from the looks of it.
Wes is back with Denshattack
I never really considered it, but I guess trains are always doing sick rail grinds.
Slay the Doomspire?
With Slay the Spire 2 delayed to next year, it seems that there's a gap in my deckbuilding schedule for the rest of the year, so maybe I'll check out Doomspire—it's already out on Steam, which gives it a pretty big advantage over a game that is not yet out!
The Relic: First Guardian
Not to be confused with The Last Guardian—that's completely different. I love those thin lines of color that follow big sword attacks. Issy's got more on this one, which will be out early next year on Steam.
Those eyes are freakin' me out
A few trailers went by here: Puzzle game Motion Rec has a cool mechanic, Mind Diver forgoes the mind palace for a whole mind ocean, and then there's Dyping Escape, whose trailer I've embedded above. I'm genuinely creeped out; more on that one here.
Up now, the world premiere of Turnbound, which you can read more about here. (There's a demo on Steam, too.)
The end is nigh
Someone once told me I'd make a good cult leader, and the comment really stuck with me. Maybe I shouldn't play this game. I might not like what I find out. Join Us will be out next year.
Time for a time RPG
I'm pretty sure that's not what 12,000,000 BC looked like, but I am willing to overlook that. Somehow I'm not sure if I've seen Threads of Time until now, despite how strong that look is. It's got a Steam page for more.
You know we had to have some Warhammer in the show
Dawn of War 4 is looking pretty sweet. I'll throw it to Justin for more on that so that I can get another cup of coffee.
Pyramid power
Now we're getting a tour of ancient Egypt—well, something like it—for the world premiere of new Soulmask DLC.
Hello, Reach
And here's a look at VR exclusive Reach, which looks quite a bit more acrobatic than I'm used to from VR games.
In with Outward 2
I didn't play the first Outward, but I did listen to Chris Livingston talk about it, which is more than enough to make me excited for this sequel. If you're not familiar with the original, see Chris' take on it here.
This excerpt will give you sense of what it's all about:
"I've been battered unconscious by large birds and angry deer, gouged by hidden spike traps, and pummeled senseless by scruffy bandits. One time I even ran into the wrong castle and was imprisoned in a mining colony beneath it, from which I only escaped by first convincing the guards to let me work in the kitchen, stealing back my precious backpack from the fort's storage room, then leaping into a pit and washing up later on a beach, freezing, confused, wracked with pain, and dying of thirst. I had to build a fire for warmth, chow down on some dried mushrooms, tear my hood into linen scraps to use as bandages, and brew a potion with my alchemy kit to regain my senses."
Playtest registrations for Outward 2 are open now, and it's coming summer 2026.
Good kitty
Mugs have no right to sit on tables. Also, House Flipper 2 is getting a pets expansion!
Three games from Annapurna Interactive
Here's a trio of upcoming games from Annapurna, as seen on the Tokyo Game Show floor: Demi and the Fractured Dream, D-topia, and musical RPG People of Note.
Poetry in motion
Oku's got a cool painterly look, and I love the idea of a "poem challenge"—Issy's got some details on how that works here. It won't be out until 2027, so we have a while to hone our haikus.
Morbid Metal from the showfloor
Dang, this looks cool. Wes returns to the broadcast here with a look at Morbid Metal from the TGS showfloor. You can try the demo and sign up for a playtest on the roguelike's Steam page.
The blinking… noooooo
I watched the movie Arachnophobia at my neighbor's house when I was probably too young to be watching the movie Arachnophobia, which is my excuse for having a tense relationship with spiderkind. It's the first-person blinking here that really bothers me. Is that allowed?
A demo for Huntsman is coming next month. 😨
4X foxes
I was into the Redwall books as a kid, so I think I'm conditioned to be into anything with anthropomorphic animals going on fantasy adventures. Raev: Kingdom on the Distant Shores looks neat, and I'd like to imagine that humans run around at the outskirts of this fox city, going through people's trash.
Absolum-lutely
Absolum is one of our most anticipated games at PC Gamer: A few months ago, Evan said that its Steam demo is the best demo on Steam. And now you've seen the violinists behind the best demo on Steam.
Absolum is out on October 9—so pretty darn soon. We'll have a review!
Quick, you've got 500,000 tasks to do!
This must be what attracted Alex Horne to the show: 500,000 tasks. I love a stupid minigame, and Task Time is promising an effectively bottomless well of stupid minigames.
Oh god, even more eyes
The Dyping Escape eyes freaked me out earlier, and now we've got a trailer full of eyes. The final announcement of the show is BrokenLore: Don't Lie, and the little cartoon guy jumping around at the start led me to have very distorted expectations about what the rest of this trailer was going to look like. Don't Lie is scheduled to release sometime next year.
And that's all for the first PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct!
