The Biggest Games from Tokyo Game Show 2024

First revealed just a few days before Tokyo Game Show by developers RGG Studio, the latest entry in the Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) franchise sees the famously gonzo open-world crime series go off the deep end in full pirate cosplay.

Technically a spin-off of the long-running Yakuza franchise that began in 2005, the newest game stars series’ regular Goro Majima and follows the events of the previous mainline game, 2024’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The plot revolves around an amnesiac Majima, criminal extraordinaire, who’s on a quest to control the underworld of Hawaii.

Playable for the first time, few knew what to expect when lining up for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and after almost 30 minutes with the game, it still doesn’t make any sense. But, clearly, that’s the point. The demo opens with an anachronistic pirate vessel arriving in modern day Honolulu, where Majima and a crew consisting of a seemingly normal father/son duo, and a baby tiger make shore. From there, players are encouraged to explore the island, beating up gang members and taking on odd jobs like mini-kart racing and delivering food by bike in between playing dress up.

The Like a Dragon series isn’t easy to explain, and requires some blind faith for many to pick up. But as its ever-growing fan base can attest, it’s completely ludicrous, telenovela-meets-Mario Party take on gaming is worth pushing past the skepticism.

Although Metal Gear creator, Hideo Kojima, made his own splash at TGS, his original baby had its own major presence with an enormous jungle-themed display housing a playable version of Konami’s upcoming remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

Guests were invited to sit in on the game’s opening cinematic scenes (which are still very, very long), before picking up the controller themselves. At first blush, Delta can be a difficult one to demonstrate, with the vast majority of its available time taken up by cut scene dialogue and in-radio transmissions pontificating about the nature of war. Once the game actually lets you play, it’s a very pretty but mostly fine recreation of how you may think 2004’s Snake Eater originally looked and felt.

For purists, having a perfectly recreated 1:1 gameplay experience with one of history’s most beloved action-stealth titles will be a good thing. For anyone looking to see quality of life enhancements, well, there aren’t any. For better or worse, Delta looks to be exactly what was promised: the definitive version of a game released 20 years ago that may look very new but plays very old. It’s the exact, somewhat dated gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 3 with a fresh coat of paint.

It will surely be a massive success.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater doesn’t have a confirmed release date, but is expected to launch by the end of 2024.

Another game with a very long wait time to see was Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds, whose massive two-part demo required a 90-minute reservation to play. The sequel to 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, the biggest entry in the franchise selling over 20.5 million copies, Wilds is expected to be the kind of overwhelming experience that will take over your life, should you choose to commit.

The demo allows you to create a custom character and feline sidekick before throwing players headfirst into its expanses. The first half is a basic tutorial, which should come as a welcome to anyone who is otherwise dumbfounded by the sheer wealth of options for the in-game combat. With 14 weapons to learn, it’s essentially a fighting game positioned as an action-adventure hunt, with each play style controlling so differently, you’ll need to figure out through trial-and-error which will make the most sense for long-term advancement.

The second half of the demo opened up the world beyond pursuing a single monster and shows how dense and reactive its regions can be. With so many different systems at play between weapons and their alternate stances, different classes of items to select, each with their own drop-down menus, and actions upon actions that require adapting to muscle memory, it’s the farthest thing from a casual experience shown at TGS. But, for many, it was game of the show. Hard to argue when a full 90-minutes left us wanting more.

Nexon’s The First Berserker: Khazan could be called a sleeper hit of Tokyo Game Show, a booth most people didn’t have on their bingo cards that drew them in repeatedly through word of mouth.

During its short 30-minute demo, it was hard to glean the full context of the story, with many on-site consoles set natively to Japanese, but visually and mechanically the game resembles a dark, manga-inspired take on the Souslike genre. With more fluid movement and combat than most games with that moniker, however, The First Berserker often feels like a blend of the contemplative combat of Elden Ring with looser controls pulled from 2000s-era games like the original God of War trilogy.

With cel-shaded graphics that evoke a comic-book or anime aesthetic, the game is fixating and at times feels like the illustrations of Vagrant Story and longtime Final Fantasy concept artist Akihiko Yoshida come to life. It’s also blindingly difficult.

The First Berserker: Khazan will be released for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC some time in 2025. Players can sign up for its closed beta, which runs from Oct. 11 – 20.

It’s been over 11 years since Digital Extreme’s Warframe initially released for PC and as a launch title for the PlayStation 4, and it’s grown exponentially since. A massively multiplayer online shooter whose story expansions and add-ons stack as one long ongoing continuity, rather than disappear season-to-season, Warframe is technically one of the most successful “indie” live-service game there is.

Behind closed doors at Tokyo Game Show, Rolling Stone was able to speak with the developers about the game’s future, which begins with this week’s release of the latest update: Koumei & the Five Fates, which adds the 58th playable character to the game, Koumei the dice-maiden, a warrior whose look and abilities are inspired by Japanese culture. The devs also teased a playable demo for the next expansion, Warframe 1999, launching Oct. 16.

For anyone who, like me, might’ve invested dozens of hours in Warframe in the early days of the PS4, but dropped off, the next phase of the game looks almost unrecognizable, but still plays with the same core DNA as before. As always, Warframe’s content updates are 100 percent free, just like the base game, and all the story campaigns and updates are accessible in-game to binge ahead of the next big things around the corner. If you’re tired of investing in live-service games that are consistently blown up and totally reworked every few months, it might be time to look at Warframe — especially ahead of its spiritual successor, the fantasy-bent action game Soulframe, which looks to be launching in 2025.

Rolling Stone last played SNK’s Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves at this year’s Summer Game Fest and are happy to report that the latest build of the game shown at TGS is still very awesome. Perhaps even more awesome in fact, with two new characters playable at the more recent event: newcomer Preecha and franchise mainstay Mai Shiranui.

The gameplay is still a lighting fast throwback to the SNK arcade classics of the Nineties, and its visual design an excellent, comic-book like counterpart to rival Street Fighter 6’s more exaggerated realism. The two games are having a moment as part of the ongoing fighting game renaissance, but more ambitiously, also crossing over into each other’s worlds with season passes that bring each series’ characters to the other’s games. Announced earlier this year, Fatal Fury’s Terry Bogard is now playable in Street Fighter 6, with Mai herself coming in early 2025. As announced at TGS, Street Fighter staples Ken Masters and Chun-Li will be added to City of the Wolves in summer and winter of 2025, respectively.

Alongside all of the blood-curdling horror games and bombastic shooters was a single booth filled with joy, where one of the best surprises was tucked away on the show floor. Historia Inc.’s Faaast Penguin (it must be pronounced at length), is a deceptively fun mash-up between Mario Kart and Fall Guys, wherein 40 players square off in a soapbox derby style race to the bottom. Controlling like a modern kart racer, with tight steering and secret level hacks to find as shortcuts, the game is fiercely competitive as players are knocked out through each of its four rounds but is less frustrating than Fall Guys thanks to more intuitive handling.

Free-to-play, with tons of purchasable cosmetics, Faaast Penguin is an easy to pick up ray of sunshine that frankly does more than it should to fill the now decade-long void where a new Mario Kart should be.

The game is available now on PlayStation and PC, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch and Xbox.