Link, Master Chief, Batman and Nathan Drake will be back in action.
The leading men are among the protagonists starring in totally new video game installments in 2015, joined by newcomers like a team of intergalactic monster hunters and their prey (“Evolve”), a band of high-tech criminals and their tails (“Battlefield Hardline”) and a battalion of explorers and their procedurally generated universe (“No Man’s Sky”).
Here’s a glimpse of some of 2015’s most anticipated games:
• “Batman: Arkham Knight” (for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC; June 2): After three editions of stomping, gliding and grappling through a virtual Gotham, Batman has keys to the Batmobile in Rocksteady Studios’ Dark Knight finale. This time, besides old-school baddies like Penguin and Scarecrow, Batman is facing off against a new menace called Arkham Knight.
• “Battlefield Hardline” (for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC; March 17): Visceral Games is dodging the military in favor of an interactive game of cops and robbers in the latest entry of the first-person “Battlefield” shooter series. The war-on-crime action will include bank heists, police chases and hostage rescue missions.
• “Bloodborne” (for PlayStation 4; March 24): “Dark Souls” mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki takes a stab at PlayStation 4 with this relentless role-playing title set in a gothic enclave that’s been overrun by infected monsters. “Bloodborne,” much like predecessors “Dark Souls” and “Demon’s Souls,” is expected to be quite the nightmare.