During this year’s digital Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony revealed the release windows of many highly anticipated PlayStation 5 titles, including Square Enix’s Project Athia. Unlike the Xbox’s upcoming game releases that still seem to be shrouded in uncertainty, Sony seems to have things figured out, especially when it comes to its in-house and third-party PS5-exclusive games.
There’s a bunch of upcoming games that PlayStation users are looking forward to this year and the following years after, including Horizon: Zero Dawn, Ratchet & Clank, and sequels to God of War. These aforementioned games are expected to release within 2021, but titles like Hitman 3 and Returnal are arriving very soon.
That being said, excited fans don’t have to spend a lot of time waiting because Sony released a bunch of awesome titles alongside the PlayStation 5’s release. In other words, fans can keep themselves busy for several weeks or months with games such as the Demon’s Souls remake or Spider-Man: Miles Morales until the game they want gets launched.
That being said, one thing that some fans have an issue with is the fact that many of these titles are also available to play on the PlayStation 4. This means that they won’t be able to fully utilize the new hardware. Of course, many don’t think this argument makes sense, and are just happy that they can play incredible games on their PS4.
During the Consumer Electronics Show 2021, Sony showcased its lineup of unreleased PlayStation 5 titles along with their release schedules. The last part of Sony’s highlight reel, which you can watch above, reveals the release windows of many upcoming titles, even the ones that were only vaguely teased about in the past.
One of the featured PS5 games is Project Athia, which we now know is scheduled to launch in January 2022. There’s not a lot of details about Project Athia so far, except for the fact that it’s an open-world fantasy action-adventure by Square Enix—or rather, an internal team from the studio who separated themselves from the development of Final Fantasy XV.
As far as we know, Project Athia will feature a female main character who finds herself in a strange world that isn’t originally where she’s from. The game’s announcement trailer debuted during the PS5 reveal event instead of a Final Fantasy XVI one, which was what people expected. However, both titles are now confirmed to be in the works.
If Sony’s lineup of PlayStation 5 releases will successfully follow its expected launch schedules, then Project Athia may be a solid conclusion to a year full of PS5 releases. According to the lineup, Sony will release different titles for every quarter this year, including Stray and Ghostwire: Tokyo.
On the other hand, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as well as Horizon Forbidden West are both vaguely marked as “2021,” so these two will probably be released any time within the year. For now, Square Enix fans who are waiting for more Project Athia news should wait until the summer.
It’s hard to create any substantial theories out of Project Athia’s short trailer so far, but if we were to make a learned opinion, it looks like it could play similar to the Horizon franchise. In any case, if the upcoming title will truly be released in January 2022, then Square Enix should reveal more information soon.
