E3 2018

The gigantic, great, gaming expo has graced us with its generous presence once again. Over the last week Los Angeles has been host to E3, the worlds premier video game reveal event and I think enough time has passed to digest what was dropped and take a look back over it all to see if it was all worth a million press conferences a day and a screwed up sleep pattern (if you live in the UK like I do), so without further ado let’s just jump right in!

 

Square Enix is a good place to start and kicked things off on Monday with a look at some of the old stuff you come to know and love...and another Tomb Raider game. Kingdom Hearts 3 is now a thing and you can play as all your favourite frozen characters whether you want to or not because that’s pretty much all the trailer showed off. Final Fantasy 14 made some desperate noises regarding the crossover play with Monster Hunter World, everyone’s favourite genocidal Hispanic maniac is back in Just Cause 4 - I wonder if it is still a just cause now that Rico’s been doing the same thing for three games, surely it’s just for the fun of it now right? - and something called Dragon’s Quest 11 was announced but none of that sunk in for me. It’s a JRPG which just isn’t my bag but I’m sure here are a lot of you that are ready to grind you’re balls off for a slightly better pair of gloves. There were some new IP’s from SE (Square Enix), or at least a new IP seeing as The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit (which is a stupid name if I do say so) is a spin-off of Life Is Strange which will apparently give some clues to Life Is Strange 2 which means dick all to me as I haven’t played Life Is Strange. The Quiet Man was actually a new ip with some odd selling points in my mind: firstly, they said you can complete it in one sitting. Now for me quick games are a godsend when you’re on a tight schedule and need to knock out a couple of articles but games that short don’t usually get this much attention, sure Limbo and Braid are exceptions but the indie games hold down the bite size game fort quite nicely so there’s no need to muscle in on their territory. Secondly, The Quiet Man seamlessly blends realistic, live action CG which I’ll remind you many games have tried before and failed, so good luck guys!

Let’s look at Sony next, as one of the big boys the expectations are obviously high for them to deliver. On some fronts that was achieved but there was also still that stale air of familiarity and safety which was embodied by the amount of reused IP’s or dangling holding patterns in front of their player base. Death Stranding, Kojima’s new baby, was shown off again with a little more given than last time but this game was announced two years ago and still has no release date. I’m glad I’m not in that camp but I’m already super salty about how long Half-Life 3 is taking so adding to my stress levels wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s still an open world, almost rogue-like sounding affair which I’m sure will be a fine game when it finally comes out. There’s already an update for God Of War, which has become more popular than Fortnite with a free helping of Meth whenever you load it up, so I’m sure that will keep players happy for another 5 minutes or so. Cod Blops 4 was announced with a new format to DLC release that hasn’t gone down well with the community, The Last Of Us 2 got a trailer that showed very little other than a lovely lesbian kiss and neck stabbing along with conformed multiplayer. Nioh 2 has a trailer and will apparently involve character customisation but this is a Koei Techmo and Team Ninja game, so that means dubious attitudes towards body image and gender politics. A new Spider-Man game was announced with a gameplay trailer that actually looked alright, free roam web-swinging and Arkham Asylum style combat mix well together -trying to steal your shtick back ay lads? And to round off the familiar, the Resident Evil 2 remake got a showing, that is all. Control - from Remedy, the guys behind Alan Wake and Quantum Break - Ghost Of Tsushima and Deracine took pride of place for Sony’s new IP’s: a telekinetic shooter, an open world samurai slash-em-up and a virtual reality thing about some girl in a boarding school. Not much was really said about any of them so we’re still a bit in the dark. 

Ubisoft next and most things they offered could be summed up with the words “here’s another...”. Like: here’s another Crew game or here’s another Division game or, maybe most heartbreakingly, here’s another Assassin’s Creed game. Don’t get me wrong I like Assassin’s Creed but it needs to stop now, you’ve pretty much conquered the open world, put it bed and start on something new. For Honour has an update that adds a new faction and game type and Just Dance 2019 was announced I’d anyone cares. One returning IP that actually did interest me was Beyond Good and Evil 2, which some of you may remember was announced last year at E3. This year it was announced that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hitRECORD is working with Ubisoft to bring user-made content to the game. The gritty sequel to the first Beyond Good and Evil’s almost threatless, cartoony world looks like it could be a worthy successor to the 2003 “commercial flop”. Trails Rising is another Trails game and that’s as much as I’ll say about that. Star Fox is getting wheeled out once more in Starlink: Battle For Atlas. There really wasn’t that much to talk about in regards to this one either other than: putting Star Fox in a game surrounded by humans looks really weird - kinda like Sonic 2006 if you know what I mean - and the toys to life thing seems like a massive gimmick that any mainstream gamer wouldn’t touch in a million years. Lastly, a couple of fresh new IP’s. Skull and Bones, a Sea Of Thieves clone, announced a new game type including PvPvE situations and Elijah Wood has jumped into the Ubi-boat with Transference. Transference utilises VR in this creepy, atmospheric psychological thriller billed to be “the bridge between games and movies”. Developers have definitely found the niche for VR, it seems like the best VR games are horror based as the 360 game-view suits itself perfectly to those tight, claustrophobic scenarios making you shit yourself thoroughly and consistently. 

Speaking of shit, let’s kick off the look at Nintendo’s press conference with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This is the 16th Fire Emblem game which means the same old routine is holding strong. Octopath Traveler, an RPG courtesy of Square Enix, is new...to the switch, but it was overshadowed by the announcement of Fortnite coming to the Switch also, covering any porting title sins. Daemon X Machina was an actual new IP out for the Switch that centres around Mech combat with little else said but unfortunately the few new things were definitely crowded out by the bevy of stuff we’ve seen before. Another Smash Bros featuring every character to ever appear in a Smash Bros game, another Mario Party utilising the versatility of the Switch screen, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 DLC that adds more story - because nowadays games don’t come with finished stories - and probably chief amount all was Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee editions. This is a new Pokemon RPG for the Switch that will also integrate with Pokemon Go!, it will also come with a special Pokeball controller which will obviously throw the hardcore Go! players into a frenzy I’m sure, especially when it comes with an exclusive Mew. 

So Sony just about kept afloat and Nintendo almost certainly sunk in regards to their showings, Microsoft on the other were coming in hot and with good reason. Sure, there were reused IP’s: Cuphead’s getting an update with new enemies, characters and bosses. Crackdown 3 was shown off, with even more Terry Crews this time. Devil May Cry 5’s trailer showed off a great non playable fight scene before cutting to an action shot of Dante riding in, which I'm pretty sure was the trailer for Devil May Cry 4 as well. Forza Horizon 4 showed some cars driving dangerously fast around some roads, this time in England, which is a selling point apparently - speaking as a Brit, our roads aren’t that impressive. Metro Exodus showed off the same wasteland environment we saw from the trailer last year, the game looks brilliant but information is eeking out slower than I’d like. Dying Light 2 showed us that setting things on fire could result in you getting burned, glad I know that now. The saccharin covered Ori and the Willow of the Wisps got a new trailer, I wasn’t paying 100% attention but I’m sure it’s still about friendship, love and no repercussions. All of this information is enough to make your head spin and we’re nowhere near finished, here come the good ones. Well get the obvious best one out the way now, Battletoads is back bitches! A brand new installment of the iconic beat-em-up from the good old days of console/arcade gaming is coming to the Xbox next year, so that’s a month or two of my life gone already. Gears Of War has come screaming back with a 5th installment this time focusing on Kait Diaz and her crazy visions but that wasn’t all from Epic as they revealed the brand new Gears Pop!, a Funko Pop characterised Gears Of War mobile game. Halo: Infinite got a great reception just by showing a trailer resulting in the iconic Mater Chief showing his grizzled, macho helmet - not a euphemism - and I for one am very pleased to see Halo’s return, sure I’m a fan boy but without fans a game is nothing, this is one I’ll be keeping my eye on. Onto the new IP’s now - yes we’re still going - and for all you fighting game lovers out there Jump Force will definitely get your pulse racing. Think all the best characters from anime and throw them into a fighting game: Naruto, Saudis, Luffy, Frieza, Zoro, Light Yagami and Ryuk. It’s definitely a who’s who of anime action stars (with the exception of Light Yagami and Ryuk) and I’m sure it will be a decent game, not one that does it for me however. Sekiro, Shadows Die Twice is an action adventure from FromSoftware - The Dark Souls guys - set in 16th century Japan you play a shinobi left for dead and down one arm. Essentially it’s a hack-n-slasher with additional abilities being switched in and out of the player characters newly attached prosthetic arm, think Bioshock with a katana. Finally from Microsoft was Cyberpunk 2077. This one hits home nicely for me because Cyberpunk 2077 is a videogame adaption of Cyberpunk 2020, a tabletop game in the same universe. It’s an open world RPG set in a dystopian futuristic California, players can customise their characters and, in typical RPG fashion, will be able to build up skill trees specifying in different areas. I like the premise and theme but a game can be made or broken on its gameplay so I’m hoping it gets off to a good start. Great trailer though.

So we’re nearing the end and we’ve seen a lot of things to get our collective juices flowing but we still aren’t done.

Bethesda arguably had the beat showing at E3, not because of everything they were showing off was stellar but there was one thing that cemented their challenge for the crown. Teasing aside, let’s take a look at what they had on offer: Prey had some update or such (not that anyone cares) and Rage 2 was announced, giving you another opportunity to drive around a desolate wasteland shooting at bad people - but I really don’t know why you wouldn’t just play Borderlands anyway - Doom Eternal was announced but is obviously being kept back for Quakecon later this year so it was pretty pointless bringing it up now. Elder Scrolls: Blades is an Elder Scrolls game announced for mobile devices, so if you ever wanted to play an Elder Scrolls game and super strain your eyes then bows the chance. That’s not all though as Elder Scrolls 6 was teased to a huge roar from the crowd, though not much else was said. There was a new IP in effect in the form of Starlight that was teased though it was classed as “next gen” which could imply that it’s not coming to the Xbox one, PS4 or Switch. Any Wolfenstein fans out there? The reveal of Wolfenstein: Young Blood showed BJ’s twin daughters finishing off their fathers work. With the characters being twins this edition of Wolfenstein obviously offers solo and coop play but these must be some fucked up girls so carry on THEIR fathers legacy, he was a maniac. The one thing that Bethesda has to offer that made people lose their minds was the announcement and reveal of Fallout 76! It’s nothing special, just an alternative version of history set 25 years after the nuclear annihilation of earth set in Virginia. This MMO version of Fallout, with an open world map four times bigger than Fallout 4 I might add, will give players a different look at the Fallout world along with letting them party up with friends to complete missions. There will also be new monsters inspired by Virginian folklore along with a malleable game world that can be reshapen with the use of missiles for example. I’m a Fallout fan so this is definitely intriguing to me, I like the multiplayer and world shaping aspects but I am as ever a bit worried with the online dedication and the fact that there won’t be any human NPC’s, just your fellow online man.

Fallout 76 could well have been what put Bethesda over the top for winning E3 in some people’s opinion. For me, it was Microsoft not for the reveal of a new Halo game but because it felt like they were back to form after the last couple of years.

There’s a lot to look forward to over the coming year - unfortunately with a lot of chaf - What caught your eye? Let me known on twitter at @gcgamingtank and as always, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.