Top 5 Predictions for 2016
Welcome to my Five5 series, in which to celebrate the launch of 2015 in Gaming I will be posting 5 articles over 5 days, each with my top 5 games of a particular topic. I'm also giving away a Star Wars PS4 bundle to one random person who buys the AU$3 book - which you can grab by clicking the button below. Enjoy!
What’s an end of year celebration without some speculation of the future? Today we’re doing things a little bit differently - instead of listing 5 games in a particular category, I’m going to lay down 5 predictions I have for the gaming industry in 2016. It’s going to be great this time next year, coming back to this list, and seeing just how damn wrong I was.
Deus Ex GO
2014: Hitman GO. 2015: Lara Croft GO. 2015 also saw the release of Rise of the Tomb Raider. 2016 is going to see the release of One of Square Enix’s largest Western games in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Deus Ex GO will be announced at E3 2016, with a release coming within a few months of that announcement.
The Nintendo NX will support a Wii U gamepad, sold separately
In 2015, Nintendo sneakily started selling the Wii U gamepad separately from the console itself, presumably for those that had a pad break or stolen so they can continue to use their Wii U. Given that Nintendo has released some phenomenal software on the platform even though it hasn’t sold well (last reported numbers were 11 million consoles sold worldwide - for context, the gamecube sold 30 million and was considered a “failure”), it would make sense for them to want to at least allow those that didn’t pick up the console to play those old games. Letting Splatoon, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Super Mario Maker and a ton more games go to waste just isn’t Nintendo. Plus, Nintendo have been big on backwards compatibility ever since the Wii - a trend I very much doubt will disappear here.
Disney Infinity NOT 4.0
Disney Infinity has progressively released all of it’s major pillars as far as the franchise goes - Disney/Pixar, Marel, Star Wars. In 2016 Disney are going to start branching out and create a different kind of spin off game that may incorporate different characters into a single world, similar to how Lego Dimensions is going about things.
Watch Dogs 2 / The Last of Us 2 / Mother 3 English version
This year will see the announcement of a ton of games, but the 3 I think are the most likely (without including yearly franchises like Assassins Creed and Call of Duty - of course we’ll be getting those) are Watch Dogs 2, The Last of Us 2 and Mother 3 as a virtual console download. Watch Dogs 2 will be announced a week before Ubisoft’s E3 press conference (or possibly at it, but I’m going to guess before), The Last of Us 2 will be Sony’s big holiday exclusive, and Nintendo will drop Mother 3 without warning, and it will be titled Earthbound (something). I’d hazard a guess and say it will come out alongside the Lucas amiibo in January, but that may be pushing it a little far.
Zelda Wii U - Linkle is a playable character
While the response to Linkle has swayed along all ends of the spectrum, Linkle is no doubt going to be a fan favourite when Hyrule Warriors: Legends drops next year. I think Nintendo is expecting that at the very least. The latest 13 seconds or so of footage we got for Zelda Wii U was of Link on a horse - with a hood on. Traditionally, Link hasn’t worn a hood in other games, though he does in the first trailer we were shown, so it could well be just him. At the same time, Linkle’s base outfit includes a hood on it by default. This leads me to predict that in Zelda Wii U, when we finally see it in full next year, will allow for players to pick their gender, and may even include the other character as one that needs saving.