10th June 2018, 9:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 28th June 2018, 9:41 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Yes, it's that time again. Currently we are in the pre-show press conference phase. Day one was earlier than ever, as EA had their conference midday Saturday. It was an okay but unexciting presentation with no major new announcements, unless you think things like a Command & Conquer mobile game and that Madden will be on PC again significant. I don't. Unravel Two was announced, which is kind of surprising given the mediocre response the first one got, but it must have sold alright. That's nice, I hope it's good. The other EA Originals title after that might be interesting, but I'm not sure. Otherwise, the main focus was Bioware's Anthem. It looks like it could be a good game, but we'll really need to see more of it to know. It's definitely going for gameplay with some Destiny or The Division style, but with jetpacks and some Bioware style elements, and I hope it works out. Still, overall EA's conference was not great. I usually find EA's the least interesting conferences, though, so that's no surprse really.
Next, Sunday, there were two conferences, Microsoft and Bethesda. Microsoft had a good show, and showed a lot of games... none of which are exclusive to the Xbox One (though this is fine, I like their enhanced PC support), and most of which are also going to be on PS4. They also showed a LOT of 2019 games. Like, most of their show felt like "coming 2019 or later", which is not great when their game lineup for the rest of this year seems to be pretty thin. And for one more criticism, the exclusives MS does have are mostly long-running franchise titles, including new Halo, Gears, and Forza games, and another trailer for the upcoming Crackdown title as well. They had a few second-tier new projects, but from an IP standpoint this was a pretty safe lineup. Some interesting games were shown, though, and I will want to play some of them. Oh, and MS also announced that they bought four new studios and started up one new one on top of that. They bought Ninja Theory (Hellblade, etc.) and Playground Games (Forza), along with two others, and are starting a new team in Santa Monica. MS needs more game studios, given how many they've shut down, but any game projects from these teams will surely be quite a ways off so this isn't helpful for MS's seriously thin exclusive game library anytime soon. They'd better hope that Sea of Thieves holds player attention long term I guess... because Crackdown is a 2019 game now, along with most of the rest of the games they showed.
As for Bethesda, I'm often a critic of theirs of course but they have done some solid press conferences. This year they spend some time on things for this year, most notably Fallout 76, which now has a 2018 release date, but most of the conference is on games for 2019 or later. Id's legacy had a very strong presence in the conference, as new Doom (a sequel to Doom 2016 was just announced here), Wolfenstein (Young Blood, a game wherey ou play as BJ Blazkowitz's twin daughters in a Nazi-run 1980s Paris, apparently), Quake (Champions, whcih still isn't out), and Rage (2) all showed up in the conference. The Elder Scrolls, including more about TES Online, the announcement of a new TES mobile game, and a far-off announcement of TES VI; Fallout (76); Prey (DLC for the last one); and an announcement of the rumored, but still far-off, space-based Bethesda game all also made appearances, so it kind of felt like Bethesda decided to toss almost all of their major IPs into this conference, regardless of how far along the projects actually are. It made for a packed show, but I wonder how many of these games we'll see at the next E3 or two... and do all four of id's shooter franchises need projects in development at the same time? I know each is different -- modern Wolf is much more story-focused; Rage is open-world and has driving; Doom presumably will be single player smaller-level focused; and Quake is a multiplayer arena shooter -- but still... huh.
Next, Sunday, there were two conferences, Microsoft and Bethesda. Microsoft had a good show, and showed a lot of games... none of which are exclusive to the Xbox One (though this is fine, I like their enhanced PC support), and most of which are also going to be on PS4. They also showed a LOT of 2019 games. Like, most of their show felt like "coming 2019 or later", which is not great when their game lineup for the rest of this year seems to be pretty thin. And for one more criticism, the exclusives MS does have are mostly long-running franchise titles, including new Halo, Gears, and Forza games, and another trailer for the upcoming Crackdown title as well. They had a few second-tier new projects, but from an IP standpoint this was a pretty safe lineup. Some interesting games were shown, though, and I will want to play some of them. Oh, and MS also announced that they bought four new studios and started up one new one on top of that. They bought Ninja Theory (Hellblade, etc.) and Playground Games (Forza), along with two others, and are starting a new team in Santa Monica. MS needs more game studios, given how many they've shut down, but any game projects from these teams will surely be quite a ways off so this isn't helpful for MS's seriously thin exclusive game library anytime soon. They'd better hope that Sea of Thieves holds player attention long term I guess... because Crackdown is a 2019 game now, along with most of the rest of the games they showed.
As for Bethesda, I'm often a critic of theirs of course but they have done some solid press conferences. This year they spend some time on things for this year, most notably Fallout 76, which now has a 2018 release date, but most of the conference is on games for 2019 or later. Id's legacy had a very strong presence in the conference, as new Doom (a sequel to Doom 2016 was just announced here), Wolfenstein (Young Blood, a game wherey ou play as BJ Blazkowitz's twin daughters in a Nazi-run 1980s Paris, apparently), Quake (Champions, whcih still isn't out), and Rage (2) all showed up in the conference. The Elder Scrolls, including more about TES Online, the announcement of a new TES mobile game, and a far-off announcement of TES VI; Fallout (76); Prey (DLC for the last one); and an announcement of the rumored, but still far-off, space-based Bethesda game all also made appearances, so it kind of felt like Bethesda decided to toss almost all of their major IPs into this conference, regardless of how far along the projects actually are. It made for a packed show, but I wonder how many of these games we'll see at the next E3 or two... and do all four of id's shooter franchises need projects in development at the same time? I know each is different -- modern Wolf is much more story-focused; Rage is open-world and has driving; Doom presumably will be single player smaller-level focused; and Quake is a multiplayer arena shooter -- but still... huh.
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