ASH PLAYS: The Most Anticipated Games of 2020

It’s no secret that fans of metal also have a profound love for video games. Whilst there have been obvious crossovers where metal and games have been a match made in heaven; Guitar Hero and the soundtrack to 2016’s DOOM for example, the cross-pollination of interest for games and metal fans exists on a much deeper level. And with that, we here at Distorted Sound are thrilled to introduce a new bi-weekly column from VENOM PRISON guitarist Ash Gray. Titled Ash Plays, every two weeks, Ash will pen his thoughts on the games he has been playing alongside listicles on anticipated games and more! To kick off this new column, we start with the most anticipated games for 2020. Take it away Ash!

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Words can’t really express how nervous/excited I am for this game, it was my childhood, a game I spend over 100’s of hours on. I know they have swapped out some major components of the combat system but also did mention that it could be an option to play through the game as the original. Either way there is no way I’m going to miss out playing as the gang again and grinding out Vincent, Cloud and Yuffie.

Cyber Punk 2077

Makers of The Witcher, which may I add The Witcher: Wild Hunt might be possibly one of my favourite RPGs of this era, I’m quite excited to jump into their latest project and taking a completely new approach in aesthetics and gameplay. I’ve been following this game for sometime now on the way to build up and another top tier game coming our way I believe. Apparently every option makes drastic changes so like The Witcher I’m going to be regretting decisions and playing through the whole game again and again.

The Last Of Us Part II

What do I need to say? I can’t words is going to do this justice, I mean what game is more hyped than The Last Of Us Part II at the moment? Naughty Dog absolutely smashed the first instalment straight out of the park, the game filled with fear, emotion and such great storytelling. Coming from an RPG background as a kid with Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear Solid, storytelling in games for me is the most important element. I enjoy multiplayer games but nothing beats an unforgettable story line and if you’ve played the first instalment we all know from first 30 mins of this game it was game changing and you were hooked from that point.

DOOM Eternal

I did say storytelling is important in my last choice, however we can shoot the hell out of things and have high velocity game play which never ends for 15 hours straight leaving you with the feeling that you might have just ripped the limbs off every demonic thing possible in hell. The reboot of DOOM was a turning point for me in FPS, I enjoyed the hell out of it, it was refreshing to just make the whole thing back to it’s FPS roots of just…. shooting. I know this was meant to be a 2019 release and got pushed back but nevertheless it’s releasing in 2020 and I believe it’ll be one of my top picks.

Nioh 2

I feel like Nioh was an overlooked Souls worship game, it had difficulty, good story, cool upgrades and features and looking at what they have released on previews for Nioh 2 it just looks like they have expanded on this more. I’ll do anything to play a game that makes my blood boil that much that I keep playing and playing until I finish one boss fight. Souls fans can only relate till you’ve put yourself through this then I’m sure you’re excited to play most Souls related games.

Dying Light 2

I was very late to Dying Light and what a shame that was, why I left it so long was stupid. I’m not a HUGE fan of open world to the point where we have to walk 89 hours to get to a mission but Dying Light made it so fluent and fun to just jump across roof tops, dodging hordes of zombies and smashing them in the head with a pipe. Looking at the second instalment I have noticed they have really expanded on the decisions, story line and equipment so yeah I can say this will be a day one game for me.

Halo Infinite

Get me this on Windows and let me play it in ultra high graphics. A lot of people have slowly drifted away from Halo 3 onwards but I have enjoyed most of them to date. I really don’t know to much right on this, I haven’t had the time to research this too much however I have heard they’re going to try open world with this title which could be very interesting and Halo has enough cool features already to make this work well with land, air and space. While I’m at it, I may as well mention story, it’s always been consistent enough to keep me interested.

Ghost of Tsushima

Another game that has been just sat in front of me dying for a release date (a real one anyway or not delayed) I don’t know much about this other than OH MY LORD it looks incredible and I feel this will be completely what I need. If you know more about this game feel free to speak to me about it.

Lost Soul Aside

2020 apparently… Let’s see. If not I’ll just put Diablo here instead.

Biomutant

2019… 2020, When? I’m sure I’m not the only one excited for this and waiting eagerly, looks like my idea of hack and slash meets RPG kind of like Nier Automata either way a never ending list of games I’m patiently waiting for seem to be out in 2018 then 2019 oh let’s resurface this title again then 2020, so yeah let’s just hope 2020 is the year for a lot of these delayed games.

And that rounds off our first guest column from Ash! Stay tuned to Distorted Sound next as we bring our next column in our Ash Plays series!