EA
- EA had its share of awkward moments in between showing off some games and dlcs to look forward to. Battlefield 1: In the name of the Tsar. The second set of DLC for the game. The Russian Empire are now a playable faction, new maps, and female soldiers. (Google it. Russian female soldiers were badass during the war)
- Your usual batch of Yearly updated EA Sports titles. Fifa, Madden and a new NBA Live. Each with their own story mode. I’m sure Fifa will get played a lot at mine. Men in blazers speak on stage, for far too long, in what will be the first of many awkward and unwanted moments from E3.
- Jesse Wellens, “A Youtube creator”, is next on stage. Gets stage fright, fumbles his lines and then awkwardly introduces Marcus Nellson, Executive producer for Need For Speed: Payback. A Fast and Furious inspired take on NFS with some Burnout looking crashes.
- A Way Out, from Hazelight studio, got some interest as a couch/online co-op only action adventure game. In which you need to work together to break out of prison and go on the run. The Last half an hour of the show was dedicated to Battlefront 2.
- Janina Gavankar, the voice actress of Commander Iden Versio in the Campaign mode, easily wins EA’s best host of the night and introduces a two minute trailer for the games single and multiplayer. Battlefront 2 has three times the content of the first and addresses a lot of peoples issues (including my own) with the first. She also announces that all add-ons for the game will be free. A rare bonus from EA! Graphically and gameplay wise, Battlefront 2 looks like one of the most impressive games shown all night. The show concludes with a live demonstration of multiplayer.
Microsoft
- Microsoft started their night by showing the Scorpio, now renamed - Xbox One X, which, when launched, will be the most powerful console on the market. They’ve clearly failed to notice that the most powerful console has lost, each generation, (N64, Xbox, PS3). Not that we don’t love these consoles for what they are, but Microsoft are trying to take the market share and at £449, not sure that’s happening.
- MS showed 42 games, 22 of which were “exclusives”, some of these were timed “exclusives” but failed to mention this. The term “World Premiere” was heard a lot. Original Xbox games are to be made backwards compatible, a good reason to dig out Jetset Radio Future.
- Hope you like racing because Forza is now up to a seventh numbered entry, not counting Horizon spin offs. That’s Mortal Kombat numbers in a third of the time… Dan Greenwalt, Creative director at Turn 10 studios, came out on stage to reveal the new 911 turbo. Please don’t reveal cars during E3… I’m sure someone cares, but taking up five minutes of your games conference to show a car is pretty boring air time.
- Metro Exodus made up for this by being a stunningly sexy looking open world game. Assassin’s Creed Origin looked like more Assassin’s Creed with some added game mechanics taken from other Ubisoft titles. The combat now looks a bit heavier and closer to For Honour than previous AC games. You have a drone, Ghost Recon style, in the form of a Hawk you can control. Current stream favourite, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was announced for Xbox One with a few new additions. State Of Decay 2 looked like it needed some more work, but it’s a long way off so they have the time. The first game was good but very broken. They have a bigger team now, and Microsoft money to fix it.
- A new team arena shooter, The Darwin Project, tries to be more exciting than it is by having a shouty commentator pretending this is the next esport. Good luck to them but somehow I don’t think you’re taking that away from Blizzard. Lots of Minecraft! Including 4K textures update for Xbox One X…
- DragonBall Fighter Z is a new Beat em up, due 2018, by Arc System Works who are best known for making hardcore beat ‘em ups Like Guilty Gear and Blazblue. Black Desert online, the four year old MMO is coming to consoles.
- A bunch of new indie titles. The Last Night, was one of the more interesting ones. A cyberpunk world with a mix of 3D and nice pixel art. Pirate MMO, Sea of Thieves, had a good reveal. The tone of the voiceover worked well with the game. At one point there was a fluffy orange tale, my brain went to, “sweet, a new Conker”, to be massively let down by an underwhelming platform game about a fox. Super Lucky’s Tale. Cuphead, September 29th. I’ll leave it at that.
- Terry Crews did his best Terry Crews impression, to promote Crackdown 3. A shinier looking Crackdown. There was a lack of the building destruction that they’d been promising. Lots of Shadow Of War, if you liked Shadow of Mordor, this is for you. The show wraps up with a long showing of Anthem, from Bioware. A cooperative multiplayer for up to four players. It looks very impressive. If it isn't all lies, it might be quite good. Mass Effect doesn't give me much confidence.
Bethesda
- Doom VFR... bit weak, You can only move to certain spots. Doom was all about the speed and movement…
- Fallout VR. Much better, what you'd expect from Fallout. Go anywhere and do what you want.
- Morrowind trailer for Elder Scrolls Online.
- Elder scrolls legends (the card game) is out June 29th.
- Skyrim for switch... aww, cute.
- Dishonoured 2 DLC. Death of the Outsider. Sept 16th.
- Quake Champions and the announcement of a $1 million tournament.
- Evil within 2. Trailer's good (with a weird Duran Duran cover)... but the first game looked good, too. (October 13th).
- Wolfenstein 2: The new Colossus. 27th October. Continuing where the New Order left off.
Stream goes funny... conference is over.
No elder scrolls 6…
Ubisoft
- Opening with their own cashin version of Minions, to show off Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Miyamoto-san’s, Bullet Bill, Megaman arm is the highlight here.
- A lot that was shown was doubled up during other shows. The interesting things that weren’t, were; The Crew 2…Now with boats. It’s a shame these games use the same driving engine as Watchdogs. Far Cry 5, Set in middle American with crazy cults running the land. At least I Think this is a fictional game. Elijah Wood Is heading a psychological VR game called Transference. Ubisoft Shanghai Took all the sailing and boats out of Assassin’s Creed: Black flag and made it into a whole game just about pirates. Skull and Bones.
- I’ve wanted Beyond Good and Evil 2 for a long time, although not like this. There’s a massive change in tone. The characters seem really irritating. I don't need monkeys down with the kids ‘n’ tings ‘innit, who swear a lot. Ya get me. Beyond Good and Evil was already good without being 'adult'.... It just seemed more juvenile. Like they mashed the Beyond Good and Evil characters into some other game they were working on. (This is how Assassin’s Creed started, so wouldn’t be a first).
Sony
- Sony open with some nice music and a water feature to reveal Uncharted: Claudia Black Edition. There’re audio issues, so not sure what they’re talking about but it doesn’t matter. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
- An expansion for Horizon is very welcome as The Frozen Wilds is revealed. The audio returns in time for Days Gone, showing off its world and hundreds of zombies. Sneaking around has a Last of Us vibe… and there is a barb wire bear!
- Shaun Layden comes to the stage to say some stuff about it being “all about the games”, then leaves the stage hostless for the next hour. I guess that’s Sony’s way of avoiding having awkward hosts.
- Cult favourite Monster Hunter returns to the Playstation with Monster Hunter: World. Lots of big dinosaur things and lots of big swords, like a hell of a lot.
- A full on remake of Shadow of the Colossus, not just a HD’d update… set for 2018. Guess I’m buying it again.
- Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite. Fighty fighty. Sept 19th.
- Call of Duty: WW2. Shooty shooty. Nov 3rd
- Skyrim VR…. Makes the Switch version seem a bit silly… Trollolol
- More VR games. Star Child, The Inpatient, Moss.
- Monster of the Deep. A VR fishing game set in Final Fantasy 15.
- Bravo Team made me want a VR Time Crisis, come on Namco.
- God of War…. Early 2018…. Go find the trailer…
- Detroit: Become Human. David Cage, Cyberpunk… all I need to know… I’ll follow Marcus.
- Destiny 2. Sept 6th.
An hour in, Shaun comes back and says “Thanks for coming” and makes a jab about “true” exclusives and proceeds to close the show with a really long look at Spider-Man. Insomniac have done an amazing job, it looks incredible, the fighting is clearly inspired by The Batman Arkham games with added web and acrobatics. The web swinging looks as fun as it was in Spiderman 2 and we see a brief tease of Miles Morales. Spiderwebs everywhere!
Bry Wyatt
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