Tokyo Game Show 2019 Event Report

Tokyo Game Show 2019 (TGS2019) is the biggest gaming event in Japan and took place this year at Makuhari Messe in Chiba from 12-15 September. 260,000 visitors attended within these four days and got to experience the next generation of gaming with new announcements, pre-release game tests and attending other exclusive events by creators.

The showcasing of the worldwide development of 5G was one of the most exciting attractions this year. With 5G, communication will be taken to a new level as standards are risen for high-speed, high-volume data transfers. Fighting games in particular will benefit from this new technology, as mobile phones were previously incapable of transferring the required data in real-time. With 5G it will be possible to fully enjoy such games on a mobile device. At the docomo booth at TGS2019, visitors were able to try out games such as Street Fighter V and Tekken 7 on mobile phones and experience battles without any lag thanks to 5G. Although the main focus seems to be simple fighting games that anybody can play, there will surely be new games developed that wouldn’t be possible without 5G.

: Enthusiastic fans look upon the games with a critical eye

Perhaps the game attracting the most interest at the venue was Death Stranding (Sony Interactive Entertainment), which has been shrouded in mystery since its announcement 3 years ago. It is the newest work by video game director Hideo Kojima, who is well-known for Metal Gear. It will be released on 8 November 2019, but visitors were able to try it out at the event.

: Players around the world complete the mission as Sam

: One of the highlights was the movie-like video by director Kojima

Director Kojima also appeared on stage to talk about the game and introduced it as a ‘Social Stranding’ game. The player enters the story as the character Sam Porter Bridges and embarks on an adventure with a mysterious baby in a world where humans have been isolated and separated from each other by something called Death Stranding.

: All players are Sam. However each Sam is from a different world.

: The goal of the mission is to deliver something, but the goal is far away

One of the unique points of the game is that items, hints and ‘likes’ left by other players are important to your playthrough. Similar to Metal Gear, there will also be exciting action gameplay where you are expected to sneak up on enemies without being noticed.

Another game to look out for is Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix), which will be released in March 2020, as well as Dragonball Z Kakarot (Bandai Namco).

: Dragonball Z Kakarot (Bandai Namco) is an action RPG that lets you experience the world of Dragonball as Son Goku (Kakarot)

: The Final Fantasy VII photo spot was very popular

Each booth was showing videos of their newest games on big screens. Most of the videos had been edited into compilations showing various highlights of each game, all of them very high quality. Among these, perhaps the most unique was made by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The video itself had already been released on YouTube back in July, ahead of TGS. It is titled PlayStation®4 Lineup Music Video Yume no Naka e ft. Suis from Yorushika’.

Although there are 12 completely different games appearing in the video, they are all cleverly linked together through the animation. These games will be the highlight of the summer and are weaved in expertly with original animation, so any anime fans out there should definitely give it a watch. The music video features exciting clips of upcoming PS4 games and animation produced by Masanobu Hiraoka, who worked on the ending sequence for Little Witch Academia. The song ‘Yume no Naka e’ is based on the 1973 song of the same name by Japanese singer Yosui Inoue, which was daringly arranged by Asahi from Necry Talkie (also known as vocaloid producer Ishifuro) with vocals by suis from Yorushika. The movie can currently be viewed on YouTube.

There were also many creators from overseas showing off their works. China, South Korea, Malaysia, Germany were just a few of the nations who had game creators at the venue charming the visitors with works that had an international flavor.

As we are talking about TGS, what is a game convention without cosplay? On the night of the 14th there was a special cosplay event called Cosplay Night.

: The stage of Cosplay Night.

: Picture spots were also available outside during the day.

TGS2019 also hosted an e-sports tournament which decided the Japanese representative for ‘eFootball Winning Eleven 2020’. While e-sports are well-established around the world, they are still yet to properly come to prominence in Japan, so a special event was held including this tournament and other e-sports matches. These events are sure to have raised interest in Japanese e-sports.