When you’ve been around for 30 years, you see plenty of comebacks. Which is why, in hindsight, you should never say never. In E389’s Time Extend, we declared that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was ‘a hilariously dark joke that Nintendo will never tell again’. Mere days later… well, you know the rest. Or maybe we managed to reverse manifest it. In which case, perhaps it’s time we revisited Half-Life 2 and explained why Valve is absolutely, definitely, 100 per cent done with Gordon Freeman.
This issue’s Hype selection is all about surprise revivals. The existence of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is no great shock, of course, though when Square Enix announced it was remaking its seminal PS1 RPG, few expected it would become a fully fledged trilogy. We certainly didn’t anticipate this middle chapter offering quite so much more than its immediate predecessor, expanding your party and offering more tactical options in combat. Not forgetting, of course, rideable, customisable Chocobos
The Phantom Thieves are back, too, still looking sharp and stylish seven years from their debut, albeit with a chibi makeover in strategic spin-off Persona 5: Tactica. Meanwhile, five years since he strode off into the sunset in Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life, Kazuma Kiryu has evidently decided a quiet retirement is not for him: he may have a string of spy gadgets in tow and a new moniker, but as disguises go, that pair of Clark Kent glasses doesn’t fool us.
Finally, we witness the return not of a game but an idea. Eve Online has been around for two thirds of Edge’s lifetime – aremarkable accomplishment for an MMORPG. Eve: Vanguard sees CCP revisit a concept it last explored in 2013’s Dust 514,
