Viral marketing has become pretty standard fare leading up to new announcements in the entertainment industry in general, but the video game industry always seems to take things one step further. Everything will seem like a normal day, until Google happens to offer an unfamiliar search result. Scurrying down the rabbit hole, a slave to one’s curiosity, it’s not a far stretch of the imagination to stumble across an entirely new game announcement. Say, for instance, Sony Japan’s brand new game titled Panopticon, which just today released a teaser trailer on their teaser site. For those who would rather not click away and instead just see the trailer, fret not, I’ll indulge you:
Let’s break this trailer down for a moment. For just a teaser, there’s a whole lot of information to glean from the near 3-minute trailer. The most obvious would be that the game seems to be a group-based action adventure. Likely an action-RPG. In what appears to be very reminiscent of the tried-and-true Monster Hunter formula, a group of humanoids, or perhaps humans with cybernetic enhancements, group together in an effort to take down a large dragon-like beast. Some minor enhancements to the formula seemingly include the ability to mount larger monsters to attack their weak points. The setting appears to be a mix of a post-apocalyptic scenario, with some type of martial law or overbearing government keeping people oppressed; yet also features some fairly serene shots of London, perhaps pre-disaster.
Looking at the people, the part with the child suggests these monster slayers are human at birth and are then augmented somehow and fitted with robotic limbs and presumably other cybernetic abilities. What’s more interesting is that those with augmented eyes or scanners see numbers above the heads of everyone else. Numbers that appear to be counting down, which will likely tie into Panopticon‘s central plot. My conclusion is that this is some sort of gauge for how much longer a person has to live before perishing. My reasoning here is that when the child is born at the end of the trailer, he begins with the highest number of anyone else shown, 1 million, and the number is displayed in another color.
For those interested in the new title, the teaser site is also marked with a date of May 21, which is presumably when we’ll find out more information about the game. An interesting if not altogether gutsy choice, considering May 21 is also the day Microsoft will finally announce and detail the Next Xbox. Perhaps Sony is looking to steal a little of Microsoft’s thunder with an announcement of a new blockbuster franchise. However this ends up playing out, next Tuesday isn’t very far away, so there’s not much longer to wait.
What do you folks make of the teaser for Panopticon? Would you be interested in Sony’s take on the Monster Hunter formula, if they made their own modifications? Would you actually pull away from watching the Xbox announcement to find out more information? Let us know in the usual place, and don’t forget to like IGXPro on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or give us the ‘ol +1 on Google+.
