Tokyo Game Show 2023 delivered many great announcements over the course of its 4-day event, it's hard to know about them all. We gathered the one's we thought were most important. Find out the livestream highlights, event statistics and more.
Tokyo Game Show 2023 Returns to Form
Number of Attendees Double From Last Year
The recent Tokyo Game Show 2023 (TGS 2023) featured new games, gameplays, ports, and announcements. TGS 2023 featured exhibits from 787 businesses and organizations, a record number representing 44 nations and regions. The event drew 243,238 in-person visitors across four days. The figure is nearly double that of last year's exhibition and approaches the in-person attendance of 262,076 in 2019.
During the event, 25 official programs were live-streamed on several different platforms, including TGS's official YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Niconico, and the Steam Special Site. The virtual venue Tokyo Game Show VR2023, which celebrated its third anniversary and will be open until October 1, 2023, welcomed numerous gaming fans.
As the event ended wound down, an announcement revealed that next year’s Tokyo Game Show will take place from September 26th to September 29th, with the location being Makuhari Messe again.
Tokyo Game Show 2023 Highlights
TGS23 had 4 days of live streaming, with tons of publishers giving updates on their upcoming games. We listed the highlights you should know below.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Shows Never-Before-Seen Footage of Mini-games
Probably one of the most anticipated titles to have a show at TGS, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was shown to be a game with a wide range of material to offer to both new and returning gamers. Aside from the main story continuing from where it left off in FF7 Remake, there will be several mini-games. These include a remake of Mog House from the original Final Fantasy 7, a card game called Queen's Blood with its own quest line, and a piano-playing mini-game, in which players can play famous songs from the game at various difficulty levels.
Chocobos will also return in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and players will be able to ride, customize, and race them. Quests are also shown to be obtained from NPC quest givers and bulletin boards.
FF7 Rebirth is set to release on February 29, 2024.
Like A Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth Gameplay
In Sega's Livestream Program, a new trailer for Like A Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth shows that the series will leave its usual Japan setting and will take place in Hawaii. The trailer followed Kasuga, main protagonist of Like a Dragon 7, in search of the corrupt cop, Roman, who had set up Tomizawa, one of Kasuga's allies. The trailer also showed several gameplay features, such as exploration and mini-games. One minigame that they highlighted in the demo reel was Bike Delivery, where Ichiban has to deliver burgers on a bike while doing BMX bike tricks and insane jumps to get a higher score. It was highly reminiscent of Crazy Taxi. It also showed new gameplay mechanics and improvements from Like a Dragon 7, with party members now able to be manually repositioned and interact with objects around the battle area.
Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is coming out on January 26, 2024 for all platforms, and is already available for pre-order. Meanwhile, in the Xbox Livestream Broadcast, it was mentioned that Like a Dragon: Ishin! will be available with Xbox Game Pass in 2023. Like A Dragon Gaiden will be available on Xbox Game Pass on November 9, 2023.
Dragon's Dogma 2 Gameplay Deep Dive
New information has been disclosed about Dragon's Dogma 2, first unveiled back in June 2022. The game's director, Hideaki Itsuno, showed 9 minutes of brand-new gameplay, showing that players will still travel with AI-controlled companions called "pawns" just like in the first Dragon’s Dogma. There are now four starting vocations instead of three - Mage, Fighter, Thief, and Archer (the last two being split off from the old "Strider" vocation). Like in the original game, players can get into more advanced vocations the more they grow their character.
There’s no official release date for Dragon’s Dogma 2 yet, but we know it’s set to come out for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Microsoft Announces Several Games Coming to Xbox Platforms
Microsoft streamed during TGS 2023 and reaffirmed their commitment to building their presence inside the Japanese market. They especially showed this with their limited time offer to have the first month of Xbox Games for Japanese gamers to be just a mere ¥100. Their shows had an emphasis on bringing on more games from Japanese developers as well as Western games to Japanese audiences. Aside from Like A Dragon 8: Infinity Wealth mentioned above, here are some of the highlight games coming to Xbox Game Pass.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, a remastered collection of Capcom's classic Ace Attorney series, will be released on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on January 25, 2024. This collection includes hit Ace Attorney titles like Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice. It will also include two previously DLC-exclusive Special Episodes.
The Ace Attorney Trilogy will be available to play via Xbox Game Pass on September 26, 2023, along with the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Elder Scrolls Online Japanese Localization
The Japanese localization for Elder Scrolls Online is coming with the release of Update 40 on November 14, 2023. Update 40 also comes with the new Endless Archive PvE activity and various quality-of-line additions and fixes.
Square Enix's Octopath Traveler II coming to Xbox
Octopath Traveller II, initially released on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and PS5, will be coming to Xbox platforms and Windows in early 2024.
Honkai Impact 3rd Going To Mars
Honkai Impact 3rd fans can look forward to a new story set on Mars. Da Wei, the CEO, director, and founder of HoYoverse (also known as Liu Wei), provided the update for the cherished title. He reveals that captains will be venturing to the red planet for Part 2 of the game’s story.
Players will traverse desert-like environments, which is said to feature a "unique civilization and nature" with its own NPCs and even main characters. Aside from a new environment for players to explore, this chapter also offers a new plot and a revised fighting system where players get to jump freely among other upgrades.
Seasons of Wonder Night 2023 Winners
Step into a realm of innovation, creativity, and boundless imagination! Eight unique indie game developers presented their masterpieces to esteemed judges. The most intriguing indie game at this event is Tiny Drive, a pseudo-hologram driving game. The game itself wasn't particularly interesting, but it was the technology Portalgraph that won it the Best Technological Award. Portalgraph allows you to physically move around a digital hologram, showing accurate points of view for 3D digital scenes. The tech demo showed a few scenarios in which you could view things at different angles, including a vocaloid performance as seen from above.
You will get the most laughs with Give Me Toilet Paper! for its experimental use of toilet paper in the gameplay which earned the Best Experimental Game Award. The game had you putting Nintendo Switch JoyCons into a roll of toilet paper, which you had to balance using a cardboard surface. The simple premise of avoiding dangerous obstacles just to deliver toilet paper to a person in need had many people amused. These two games also won the Audience Grand and Semi Grand awards.
Oddada, It's a Wrap!, and Stories From Sol: The Gun-dog brought home awards for their excellent art, game design, and presentation, respectively.
