Good games bring out the best of E3 - and a good E3 brings out the best of games. That relationship is always true but not always adhered to, making E3 2015 one of the finest shows in years. Finally, the platform holders and big publishers are rolling up their sleeves for reasons other than showing off the latest military arm-hair rendering technology.
Both PlayStation and Xbox made investments in new, large-scale games, while the showing from independent studios came with a ferocity and appeal not seen in years past. As a result, and after 3 days of playing as much as we could, we’ve assembled this list of E3 2015's most exciting games. Just over half of them are original, one is available already, and those that return from existing properties really earned their spots. Good job, E3.
One stray white feather was all it took for all of us to collectively lose our minds during the Sony press conference because it has been so, so, long since we’d heard anything about The Last Guardian. Anyone familiar with Fumito Ueda’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus may notice that his next game appears to be a mash up of themes from the two. It combines the massive sense of scale from Shadow of the Colossus with the touching, personal relationship portrayed in Ico. We don’t know much about the protagonist (a young boy who has been kidnapped under bizarre circumstances) but what we do know is that his griffin-like catbird friend Trico is there to help him get out.
We didn’t see any other living creatures this time, but danger doesn’t have to lurk in the shadows. The environment itself is treacherous, and from what we’ve seen you’re always surrounded by soaring towers with no hint of where the surface of the world is when you look down. Using Trico’s strength and the boy’s small stature, the two make the perfect puzzle-solving pair. It’s the details that make The Last Guardian something special, from the boy’s exaggerated animations to Trico’s dog-like mannerisms. And that’s what we’re dying to see more of: the budding relationship between the two, which will hopefully culminate in a beautiful happy ending where they both make it out and ride off into the sunset. No one needs to think about the alternative …
In addition to being one of the best games at E3 2015, Fallout 4 should also take home the award for being the most hyped game at E3 2015. After its official announcement during the Bethesda press conference, Fallout 4 has sent the industry into one giant fanboy freakout. You all can't get enough of it, we can't get enough of it, and pretty soon, come November, we're all going to get our chance to play it. And why shouldn't we be excited? The core Fallout series has always maintained that ideal balance of strategic gameplay and dark, apocalyptic humor. Fallout 4 promises all that, and so much more.
For starters, you can play the role of an urban planner. Fallout 4 will let you custom build your own home, which can then grow into a settlement and attract traveling item vendors to supply you with new goods. You can roam the countryside with Dogmeat, your indestructible canine companion who fetches items for you. Then you can use those items to fine-tune your makeshift weapons through numerous add-ons and modifications. Of course, these minor details are really just the tip of the iceberg as there are (probably) tons of surprises waiting to be revealed between now and November. Time to refill that Rad-X prescription, because we're headed back to the wasteland.
Amidst all the explosions and noise from Star Wars Battlefront (we’re not complaining) and fanfare around the latest sports title, it was great to see EA back a whimsical-looking game featuring a walking yarn creature, aptly named Yarny. As Yarny, you use the yarn that you’re made of to cross obstacles and swing yourself from one place to another. You make your way through lush gardens, rainy streets and other dreamy settings that were inspired by real-life locales in northern Sweden, where the developers from Coldwood Interactive are based.
This physics-based puzzle platformer comes with a sentimental story, as hinted in the trailer and described by the creator, Martin Sahlin. It’s hard not to get a bit misty-eyed when you see the struggles Yarny has to face in the harsh, real world. Okay, maybe it had more to do with the melancholy music. Either way, the red thread represents all the bonds that we form with people in our lives. But then, what happens when all that … unravels?
It’s a marvel for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to even exist in its current form. Its priorities are at odds with many major franchises, more rooted in acts of graceful escape than full-on violence, and its vibrant look somehow finds beauty in a sterile, corporatized city. It’s now impossible to pick up a gun as you bounce between soon-to-be-KO’d enemies like a kung-fu bunny.
But what’s most interesting about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, beyond the immediate quality of its motion, beyond its clever integration of speed-running challenges in a city of reflective shards, and beyond its intriguing heroine, Faith, is that much of this could have been said about the previous game. It had such an impact that you can’t help but view its return with suspicion, scanning for the catch, waiting for that whiff of a vision compromised in some disappointing way. But with no gunplay (for real), a three-dimensionally expanded world and a demonstrable attempt to rebuild Faith’s story, Catalyst looks like the game DICE really wanted to make all those years ago.
The creators of Killzone are working on a game that remarkably doesn’t look like a game from the creators of Killzone. Nature has reclaimed the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a thousand years after humanity has shriveled and settled itself as primitive counterpart to new breeds of cybernetic animals. You’ll hunt them as Aloy, a human warrior with a warm heart and quiver full of specialized arrows.
Horizon’s world seems fresh and imaginative, with thunderous cyber-beasts serving as both mystery (who made them?) and formidable opponents in combat. Guerrilla exudes an exceptional attention to detail in this aspect of Horizon: Zero Dawn, granting Aloy different arrows and ropes to pin beasts down, or tear off individual pieces of armor. And when their nuts-and-bolts spill out, she finds new uses for them in crafted armor and weapons. Aloy proves her mettle not only as hunter and engineer, though, but also as an emphatic, quick-witted personality.
Good ol' Mario. He's kept us entertained for 30 years with his his joyful koopa-stomping, princess-saving adventures, and Super Mario Maker is a celebration of that legacy. Dubious looks may have been shared over the concept from time to time (did Nintendo just design half a game and give the rest to the players?), but in practice Super Mario Maker is a solid experience that truly combines the fun of Mario's 2D adventures with a lot of creative fun.
Letting you change the style of your level between four different 2D Mario games, Super Mario Maker gives you access to almost all the different pieces of the Mushroom Kingdom and sends you out into the wild. It's a ton of fun designing impossible levels (which the game happily lets you do), putting a flying Koopa on top of five springs and watching the resulting mayhem. But once you get over your desire for chaos, Super Mario Maker gives you solid tools to design levels that are every bit as good as those in the original games. You can then share those levels with other players and try out their designs in return. Plus, no need to worry about trolls - a creator has to be able to beat their own level in its current form before releasing it to the world. Super Mario Maker is good, clean, creative fun that makes doing all the work fantastic.
ABZU is the ocean of wisdom. At least, that is what it means when you combine two ancient words “AB” for ocean and “ZU” meaning to know. ABZU stood out as one of the most serene experiences during the week of E3 2015. In this beautiful underwater exploration game, creator Matt Nava (and former lead artist on Journey) wants to create a fluid world for a player to explore and discover.
Where Journey made your destination fairly obvious, ABZU is more open, and designed in a way where you’ll naturally end up where you need to go next. The world beneath the waves is vast, and there’s so much to see. As a diver with no health gauge to worry about, you can swim around and explore, do flips, ride on the back of a manta ray or swim with a school of fish. It’s peaceful, refreshing, and easy to get lost in.
It isn't just Battlefield with Stormtroopers. Star Wars Battlefront takes an arcadey approach to large-scale online battles, one that's clearly in love with its source material even as it reshapes cinematic moments into thrilling multiplayer flashpoints. The hands-on E3 demo had 20 Rebels and 20 Imperials fighting in the Battle of Hoth, with Imperial forces escorting a pair of AT-ATs toward Echo Base's shield generators and the Rebels trying to destroy said walkers. Oh, and unlike in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels can win.
Trading blaster fire feels like a pretty standard first/third-person shooter, but movement is surprisingly bouncy, especially with a jetpack in your loadout. Picking up a TIE Fighter or Snow Speeder token lying around the map allows you to call in air support, sending the camera sweeping up and away to follow your new ride. It's immediately ready for action, letting you transition straight to aerial battles without interrupting your frontline momentum. Battlefront's full of smart, unexpected choices that all get you doing cool Star Wars stuff faster, making it far teresting (and fun) than just a force-flavored Battlefield clone.
In Norse mythology, Eitr is a poisonous substance and yet the source of all life. At E3 2015, it was a surprisingly excellent action RPG, inspired in equal parts by Diablo and Dark Souls. As in Dark Souls, you may be able to take down a few monsters by mashing buttons, but all your little wounds will add up quickly. It's better to focus on an individual target, feinting, counter-attacking, and dodging in a deliberate tango which will vary by your creepy monstrous dance partner. It feels great, partly because managing all those little parries and thrusts as you keep track of foes is actually quite a bit easier with a Diablo-style isometric camera than in third-person 3D.
Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Diablo-like without scads of randomly generated loot. But equipping a shiny new weapon in Eitr feels much more substantial, since you're not just clicking on enemies until they're dead - different weapon combinations offer different combos and timing to keep in mind. Not to mention Eitr's heroine makes an impressive show of sweeping around the dark, crumbling, and beautiful world, and the minimalist, groaning soundtrack adds a freaky edge to intimidating boss battles. Eitr clearly hybridizes some familiar ideas, but each individual element feels even better for the transformation.
Dark Souls is a series obsessed with finding beauty in destruction; a death poem set in motion. Your hero - stoic and resolute - expresses himself from the tip of a sword, or a handful of gestures. Words are not needed in this shrouded land of death. Your weapons fill the silence, and in Dark Souls 3 they have more to say than ever before. Each armament - from longswords to bows to magic - has some unique action tied to it. The shortbow, for instance, lets you channel your inner Legolas by firing off quick shots after a dodge roll. The longsword can circumvent an enemy's shield with a rising slash that punches through it. The goal here is to create a more active Dark Souls, one that lets you personalize your fighting style let never before.
The backdrop for all this is a ruined world on the brink of oblivion. "Withered beauty," was how game director Hidetaka Miyazaki described it. An unspecified apocalypse looms heavy over this land, its withered denizens turning to the corpse of dragon and other fallen gods for some last-ditch hope of salvation. Not even direct sunlight reaches this place; the rays intercepted by perpetual cloud cover swirling the skies above. But while the end may be inevitable, how you choose to face it - right down to using a longsword over a shortbow - is entirely up to you.
“Not everything is going to make sense,” the narrator of What Remains of Edith Finch warns at the beginning of the game, and goodness, she is not kidding. What begins as a fairly straightforward visit to a childhood landmark very quickly turns into a bizarre tale involving the death of a little girl, an owl, a sea monster, and a family with a dark and mysterious history. There’s a lot to discover (not least of which is the question posed by the title), and none of it is ordinary.
Developer Giant Sparrow prides itself on “creating surreal experiences people have never had before,” and it certainly hits that mark with Edith Finch. Whatever may be going on in that house, it’s not your typical gaming experience. In much the same way that Giant Sparrow’s previous game, The Unfinished Swan, tapped into new areas of creativity to tell its story of a boy in search of closure, Edith Finch avoids the ordinary in favor of the intriguing. You think you know what’s coming, but you don’t; what’s coming is, at least from what we’ve seen so far, far more unsettling than anything you might imagine. How wonderful.
Mobile games often get snubbed at E3 because they’re not big or flashy and, if we’re being honest, not often thought of as "real" games. Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, meant to tide us over until Fallout 4’s release in November isn’t big or flashy, but it is most certainly a real game, one with depth and personality. Perfectly tuned for its mobile format, Fallout Shelter is gorgeous to look at, has a surprising amount of detail, and its simple Vault-building concept is shockingly addictive. It is, dare I say, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.)
Plenty of mobile games are free to play and supported by microtransactions, but so many of them fail by letting those in-game purchases get in the way of the fun. Fallout Shelter doesn’t make that mistake; you can purchase bonus-containing lunchboxes if you like, but it’s entirely optional. You don’t have to shell out a single cent to enjoy Fallout Shelter’s irreverent and surprisingly challenging approach to rebuilding society. Keeping people happy and alive in a radiated wasteland is, as it turns out, really hard. You think they’d be content to just have a roof over their head, but nooooooo. They want food and water and power and music, too. Ungrateful jerks.
Wattam is what you would get if Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy had a baby - and then gave that baby crayons and cake. It's colorful, silly, and joyous. It's a celebration of everything that links us together; of our common bonds and togetherness. It’s about blowing things up in order to bring people together, which makes absolutely no sense, but that’s ok, it doesn’t really have to.
The Earth was fighting with a Bad Guy and in order to save everyone on the planet, she blew herself up and scattered her inhabitants to the four winds. (Yeah, it’s a weird choice, but run with it.) The Mayor is the sole survivor, and he wants to bring everyone back, which he does by forming increasingly large chains of friends, which he then explodes by setting off the bomb under his bowler hat. (Mm hmm, I know, just stick with me.) Wattam is simple to play, but there’s a lot to discover, like what happens when a coffee bean befriends a pillow or when The Mayor meets his long-lost siblings. The art style is utterly endearing; even the poop is cute. (Yes. There’s poop. Golden poop, even.) To make things even more charming, the characters you encounter take their names from your PSN and Facebook friends. Whether or not you tell your mom that she’s now a chibi lawn mower is up to you.
The little Kickstarter game that could, Flame in the Flood takes you with one simple objective: survive. Well, two objectives, since you're floating down a mammoth river toward something that I'll just call Hope. It's waiting for you at the river's end, but first you have to survive the miles of treacherous post-apocalyptic terrain that lies ahead. To do that, you'll have to keep yourself hydrated, well-fed, warm, and rested, all of which are difficult to do when everything from the wolves to the bacteria in the water is out to get you.
Flame in the Flood doesn't pull any punches, and you will die very quickly the first time you play. You'll have to master necessary survival skills by trial and error, and slowly build up a bank of knowledge to see you through. Dying of septic teaches you not to drink suspicious water. Collapsing from blood loss proves that you can't fight off wolves with just a stick. Starving after eating every plant you find highlight that meat is the key to survival. And you'll learn what objects are important when you realize they could have saved you. It's a slow build to success, but every time you get a little smarter, and feel an ever-stronger urge to push further.
Though didn’t impress us by venturing into new thematic waters, it did show Naughty Dog’s peerless approach to the blockbuster action game. The over-the-top destruction on display in the game’s wild car chase somehow reflected an elegant, economical approach to storytelling. When Nathan peers over a railing to take in a huge city crawling down a hillside, it’s not just for looks - we’re seeing the road to the next story beat, and by the time the chase concludes, we’ve traversed the entirety of what seemed like just a pretty picture before.
This willingness to devote resources – be it time, money or the hard work of artists – into a wide shot like that, only to have it become a “real” constructed environment and unfurl as part of the gameplay, is what put Uncharted on the map. The framing of the chase sequence borrows well from Hollywood, and the witty repartee brings the script up to a matching level. What’s even better, though, is the brewing mystery in the story’s title. Between our trio of thieves, Nathan Drake, brother Sam and companion Sully, we’re already wondering whose epitaph Uncharted 4 will be.
By all accounts, 2015 was a damn good year for E3, and the immediate future of video games is looking especially bright. But when we look back on the E3 that was, it's easy to see that - even though these many of these projects are all worked on in strict secrecy - they still share a lot of similarities with one another.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what causes everyone to suddenly jump aboard the same tracks of parallel thought. Maybe a few dozen grappling hook enthusiasts have wriggled their way into the gaming industry; perhaps everybody's got bigger budgets to spend on eye-catching CGI trailers. Call it coincidence, or call it the natural result of humanity's collective subconscious - these are some of the biggest trends that surfaced in the many amazing .
People watch E3 for the surprises, and this year was probably the best in recent memory to deliver on the impossible. Sony's conference was a megaton explosion of revivals, with the return of The Last Guardian, the arrival of Shenmue 3, and a remake for Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7. Square's own conference announced a brand new sequel to the cult-hit Nier. Microsoft even got in on the action, announcing the return of Rare to the world of game design and the arrival of backwards compatibility to the Xbox One. All of these things seemed unthinkable just last week. Now, they're more real than ever.
Look, this really shouldn't be considered a 'trend' - it should just 'be'. But this year's E3 was definitely a step in the right direction, as a good portion of the big-budget games we got to see star some admirable, . You can play as either a man or woman in Fallout 4, Emily Kaldwin is as much a main character as Corvo in Dishonored 2, Aloy slays mechanical dinosaurs in Horizon: Zero Dawn, Lara Croft was front and center in two press conferences, and many, many more games either star women, or at the very least allow players to choose their gender. Progress.
There's certainly no shortage of sequels that simply expand on prior ideas - Fallout 4 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are basically like the old games but bigger - but several publishers are taking their beloved franchises in totally new directions. Persona 4: Dancing All Night takes the social-focused JRPG and thrusts it into the rhythm game genre. Two of Bethesda's biggest franchises are getting their own mobile titles: Elder Scrolls Legends takes the sprawling RPG and turns it into a collectible card game, while Fallout Shelter is a neat little life-in-a-Vault management game. Even Ghost Recon is transforming in a big way, taking a straightforward squad-based shooter and blowing it out to open-world proportions - much like Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain's own approach to breaking away from constrained level structure.
It's shocking how many CGI trailers we saw at E3 this year, but a lot of that has to do with how many games are slated for 2016 and beyond. We get it: publishers want to sell people on the high concept of their games, and they want to do it with some pizazz. Or maybe whatever game they're hawking isn't ready to be shown just yet. Regardless of the reason, CGI trailers are ultimately an empty promise. They're all style and no substance, filled with impossibly gorgeous visuals and highly-detailed action that will in no way be representative of the final, playable product. When you see a CGI trailer in a conference, it's basically your window of opportunity to grab a soda from the fridge, because other than the name, what you're seeing isn't going to exist.
If the popularity of Batman and Spider-Man tells us anything, it's that people love imagining what it would be like to swing off of anything and everything. And while trying to fashion your own real-life grappling hook will probably land you in the nearest emergency room, games let you zip around on a metal tether with all the freedom in the world. The grappling hook is one of the Just Cause series' biggest claims to fame, so of course it's back for ?
Seriously, Platinum Games went from making one or two projects at a time to making all of the games. They're working on Star Fox Zero for Nintendo, they're going to be working on Square Enix's sequel to the cult-hit RPG Nier, they're making a brand new Transformers game for Activision, and they've still got Scalebound for Microsoft (though we'll most likely see more of that at Gamescom). Three new announcements at E3 from a studio responsible for fantastic over-the-top action games. Everybody wins.
In 2015 and beyond, it's not just enough to play your games as designed. Publishers now want you to build and share your own creations made inside the game. With the popularity - or rather, cult-like devotion of millions - surrounding Minecraft, games have an increasing desire to cater to a generation of I'll-just-build-it-myself creators. Media Molecule's Dreams expands on lessons learned from its work on LittleBigPlanet, but that's expected. The bigger surprises come from companies like Nintendo and Bethesda. Super Mario Maker aims to be the only Mario game you'll ever need, as you can create and download custom stages across a variety of Super Mario styles. Bethesda's rolling out Doom Snapmap, which allows players to create their own arenas and gametypes within the ultra-violent shooter. Even , giving players the opportunity to construct their own settlements, and even do some light programming of their own.
They say that human beings are social animals, and while we all love to kill one another in multiplayer deathmatches, we also have an inherent need to unite and take out some aggression on emotionless computers. Many of the games at E3 2015 tapped into that sense of togetherness with tight squads of cooperative players squaring off against AI hordes. , and Star Wars Battlefront's co-op survival missions pit two Rebel players against an army of Imperial troopers. We would include The Division but... we've all seen how friendships crumble in those Dark Zones when there's loot to be had.
Good games bring out the best of E3 - and a good E3 brings out the best of games. That relationship is always true but not always adhered to, making E3 2015 one of the finest shows in years. Finally, the platform holders and big publishers are rolling up their sleeves for reasons other than showing off the latest military arm-hair rendering technology.
Both PlayStation and Xbox made investments in new, large-scale games, while the showing from independent studios came with a ferocity and appeal not seen in years past. As a result, and after 3 days of playing as much as we could, we’ve assembled this list of this year’s most exciting games. Just over half of them are original, one is available already, and those that return from existing properties really earned it. Good job, E3.
One stray white feather was all it took for all of us to collectively lose our minds during the Sony press conference because it has been so, so, long since we’d heard anything about The Last Guardian. Anyone familiar with Fumito Ueda’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus may notice that his next game appears to be a mash up of themes from the two. It combines the massive sense of scale from Shadow of the Colossus with the touching, personal relationship portrayed in Ico. We don’t know much about the protagonist (a young boy who has been kidnapped under bizarre circumstances) but what we do know is that his griffin-like catbird friend Trico is there to help him get out.
We didn’t see any other living creatures this time, but danger doesn’t have to lurk in the shadows. The environment itself is treacherous, and from what we’ve seen you’re always surrounded by soaring towers with no hint of where the surface of the world is when you look down. Using Trico’s strength and the boy’s small stature, the two make the perfect puzzle-solving pair. It’s the details that make The Last Guardian something special, from the boy’s exaggerated animations to Trico’s dog-like mannerisms. And that’s what we’re dying to see more of: the budding relationship between the two, which will hopefully culminate in a beautiful happy ending where they both make it out and ride off into the sunset. No one needs to think about the alternative …
In addition to being one of the best games at E3 2015, Fallout 4 should also take home the award for being the most hyped game at E3 2015. After its official announcement during the Bethesda press conference, Fallout 4 has sent the industry into one giant fanboy freakout. You all can't get enough of it, we can't get enough of it, and pretty soon, come November, we're all going to get our chance to play it. And why shouldn't we be excited? The core Fallout series has always maintained that ideal balance of strategic gameplay and dark, apocalyptic humor. Fallout 4 promises all that, and so much more.
For starters, you can play the role of an urban planner. Fallout 4 will let you custom build your own home, which can then grow into a settlement and attract traveling item vendors to supply you with new goods. You can roam the countryside with Dogmeat, your indestructible canine companion who fetches items for you. Then you can use those items to fine-tune your makeshift weapons through numerous add-ons and modifications. Of course, these minor details are really just the tip of the iceberg as there are (probably) tons of surprises waiting to be revealed between now and November. Time to refill that Rad-X prescription, because we're headed back to the wasteland.
Amidst all the explosions and noise from Star Wars Battlefront (we’re not complaining) and fanfare around the latest sports title, it was great to see EA back a whimsical-looking game featuring a walking yarn creature, aptly named Yarny. As Yarny, you use the yarn that you’re made of to cross obstacles and swing yourself from one place to another. You make your way through lush gardens, rainy streets and other dreamy settings that were inspired by real-life locales in northern Sweden, where the developers from Coldwood Interactive are based.
This physics-based puzzle platformer comes with a sentimental story, as hinted in the trailer and described by the creator, Martin Sahlin. It’s hard not to get a bit misty-eyed when you see the struggles Yarny has to face in the harsh, real world. Okay, maybe it had more to do with the melancholy music. Either way, the red thread represents all the bonds that we form with people in our lives. But then, what happens when all that … unravels?
It’s a marvel for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to even exist in its current form. Its priorities are at odds with many major franchises, more rooted in acts of graceful escape than full-on violence, and its vibrant look somehow finds beauty in a sterile, corporatized city. It’s now impossible to pick up a gun as you bounce between soon-to-be-KO’d enemies like a kung-fu bunny.
But what’s most interesting about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, beyond the immediate quality of its motion, beyond its clever integration of speed-running challenges in a city of reflective shards, and beyond its intriguing heroine, Faith, is that much of this could have been said about the previous game. It had such an impact that you can’t help but view its return with suspicion, scanning for the catch, waiting for that whiff of a vision compromised in some disappointing way. But with no gunplay (for real), a three-dimensionally expanded world and a demonstrable attempt to rebuild Faith’s story, Catalyst looks like the game DICE really wanted to make all those years ago.
The creators of Killzone are working on a game that remarkably doesn’t look like a game from the creators of Killzone. Nature has reclaimed the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a thousand years after humanity has shriveled and settled itself as primitive counterpart to new breeds of cybernetic animals. You’ll hunt them as Aloy, a human warrior with a warm heart and quiver full of specialized arrows.
Horizon’s world seems fresh and imaginative, with thunderous cyber-beasts serving as both mystery (who made them?) and formidable opponents in combat. Guerrilla exudes an exceptional attention to detail in this aspect of Horizon: Zero Dawn, granting Aloy different arrows and ropes to pin beasts down, or tear off individual pieces of armor. And when their nuts-and-bolts spill out, she finds new uses for them in crafted armor and weapons. Aloy proves her mettle not only as hunter and engineer, though, but also as an emphatic, quick-witted personality.
Good ol' Mario. He's kept us entertained for 30 years with his his joyful koopa-stomping, princess-saving adventures, and Super Mario Maker is a celebration of that legacy. Dubious looks may have been shared over the concept from time to time (did Nintendo just design half a game and give the rest to the players?), but in practice Super Mario Maker is a solid experience that truly combines the fun of Mario's 2D adventures with a lot of creative fun.
Letting you change the style of your level between four different 2D Mario games, Super Mario Maker gives you access to almost all the different pieces of the Mushroom Kingdom and sends you out into the wild. It's a ton of fun designing impossible levels (which the game happily lets you do), putting a flying Koopa on top of five springs and watching the resulting mayhem. But once you get over your desire for chaos, Super Mario Maker gives you solid tools to design levels that are every bit as good as those in the original games. You can then share those levels with other players and try out their designs in return. Plus, no need to worry about trolls - a creator has to be able to beat their own level in its current form before releasing it to the world. Super Mario Maker is good, clean, creative fun that makes doing all the work fantastic.
ABZU is the ocean of wisdom. At least, that is what it means when you combine two ancient words “AB” for ocean and “ZU” meaning to know. ABZU stood out as one of the most serene experiences during the week of E3 2015. In this beautiful underwater exploration game, The creator Matt Nava (and former lead artist on Journey) wants to create a fluid world for a player to explore and discover.
Where Journey made your destination fairly obvious, ABZU is more open, and designed in a way where you’ll naturally end up where you need to go next. The world beneath the waves is vast, and there’s so much to see. As a diver with no health gauge to worry about, you can swim around and explore, do flips, ride on the back of a manta ray or swim with a school of fish. It’s peaceful, refreshing, and easy to get lost in.
It isn't just Battlefield with Stormtroopers. Star Wars Battlefront takes an arcadey approach to large-scale online battles, one that's clearly in love with its source material even as it reshapes cinematic moments into thrilling multiplayer flashpoints. The hands-on E3 demo had 20 Rebels and 20 Imperials fighting in the Battle of Hoth, with Imperial forces escorting a pair of AT-ATs toward Echo Base's shield generators and the Rebels trying to destroy said walkers. Oh, and unlike in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels can win.
Trading blaster fire feels like a pretty standard first/third-person shooter, but movement is surprisingly bouncy, especially with a jetpack in your loadout. Picking up a TIE Fighter or Snow Speeder token lying around the map allows you to call in air support, sending the camera sweeping up and away to follow your new ride. It's immediately ready for action, letting you transition straight to aerial battles without interrupting your frontline momentum. Battlefront's full of smart, unexpected choices that all get you doing cool Star Wars stuff faster, making it far teresting (and fun) than just a force-flavored Battlefield clone.
In Norse mythology, Eitr is a poisonous substance and yet the source of all life. At E3 2015, it was a surprisingly excellent action RPG, inspired in equal parts by Diablo and Dark Souls. As in Dark Souls, you may be able to take down a few monsters by mashing buttons, but all your little wounds will add up quickly. It's better to focus on an individual target, feinting, counter-attacking, and dodging in a deliberate tango which will vary by your creepy monstrous dance partner. It feels great, partly because managing all those little parries and thrusts as you keep track of foes is actually quite a bit easier with a Diablo-style isometric camera than in third-person 3D.
Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Diablo-like without scads of randomly generated loot. But equipping a shiny new weapon in Eitr feels much more substantial, since you're not just clicking on enemies until they're dead - different weapon combinations offer different combos and timing to keep in mind. Not to mention Eitr's heroine makes an impressive show of sweeping around the dark, crumbling, and beautiful world, and the minimalist, groaning soundtrack adds a freaky edge to intimidating boss battles. Eitr clearly hybridizes some familiar ideas, but each individual element feels even better for the transformation.
Dark Souls is a series obsessed with finding beauty in destruction; a death poem set in motion. Your hero - stoic and resolute - expresses himself from the tip of a sword, or a handful of gestures. Words are not needed in this shrouded land of death. Your weapons fill the silence, and in Dark Souls 3 they have more to say than ever before. Each armament - from longswords to bows to magic - has some unique action tied to it. The shortbow, for instance, lets you channel your inner Legolas by firing off quick shots after a dodge roll. The longsword can circumvent an enemy's shield with a rising slash that punches through it. The goal here is to create a more active Dark Souls, one that lets you personalize your fighting style let never before.
The backdrop for all this is a ruined world on the brink of oblivion. "Withered beauty," was how game director Hidetaka Miyazaki described it. An unspecified apocalypse looms heavy over this land, its withered denizens turning to the corpse of dragon and other fallen gods for some last-ditch hope of salvation. Not even direct sunlight reaches this place; the rays intercepted by perpetual cloud cover swirling the skies above. But while the end may be inevitable, how you choose to face it - right down to using a longsword over a shortbow - is entirely up to you.
“Not everything is going to make sense,” the narrator of What Remains of Edith Finch warns at the beginning of the game, and goodness, she is not kidding. What begins as a fairly straightforward visit to a childhood landmark very quickly turns into a bizarre tale involving the death of a little girl, an owl, a sea monster, and a family with a dark and mysterious history. There’s a lot to discover (not least of which is the question posed by the title), and none of it is ordinary.
Developer Giant Sparrow prides itself on “creating surreal experiences people have never had before,” and it certainly hits that mark with Edith Finch. Whatever may be going on in that house, it’s not your typical gaming experience. In much the same way that Giant Sparrow’s previous game, The Unfinished Swan, tapped into new areas of creativity to tell its story of a boy in search of closure, Edith Finch avoids the ordinary in favor of the intriguing. You think you know what’s coming, but you don’t; what’s coming is, at least from what we’ve seen so far, far more unsettling than anything you might imagine. How wonderful.
Mobile games often get snubbed at E3 because they’re not big or flashy and, if we’re being honest, not often thought of as "real" games. Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, meant to tide us over until Fallout 4’s release in November isn’t big or flashy, but it is most certainly a real game, one with depth and personality. Perfectly tuned for its mobile format, Fallout Shelter is gorgeous to look at, has a surprising amount of detail, and its simple Vault-building concept is shockingly addictive. It is, dare I say, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.)
Plenty of mobile games are free to play and supported by microtransactions, but so many of them fail by letting those in-game purchases get in the way of the fun. Fallout Shelter doesn’t make that mistake; you can purchase bonus-containing lunchboxes if you like, but it’s entirely optional. You don’t have to shell out a single cent to enjoy Fallout Shelter’s irreverent and surprisingly challenging approach to rebuilding society. Keeping people happy and alive in a radiated wasteland is, as it turns out, really hard. You think they’d be content to just have a roof over their head, but nooooooo. They want food and water and power and music, too. Ungrateful jerks.
Wattam is what you would get if Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy had a baby - and then gave that baby crayons and cake. It's colorful, silly, and joyous. It's a celebration of everything that links us together; of our common bonds and togetherness. It’s about blowing things up in order to bring people together, which makes absolutely no sense, but that’s ok, it doesn’t really have to.
The Earth was fighting with a Bad Guy and in order to save everyone on the planet, she blew herself up and scattered her inhabitants to the four winds. (Yeah, it’s a weird choice, but run with it.) The Mayor is the sole survivor, and he wants to bring everyone back, which he does by forming increasingly large chains of friends, which he then explodes by setting off the bomb under his bowler hat. (Mm hmm, I know, just stick with me.) Wattam is simple to play, but there’s a lot to discover, like what happens when a coffee bean befriends a pillow or when The Mayor meets his long-lost siblings. The art style is utterly endearing; even the poop is cute. (Yes. There’s poop. Golden poop, even.) To make things even more charming, the characters you encounter take their names from your PSN and Facebook friends. Whether or not you tell your mom that she’s now a chibi lawn mower is up to you.
The little Kickstarter game that could, Flame in the Flood takes you with one simple objective: survive. Well, two objectives, since you're floating down a mammoth river toward something that I'll just call Hope. It's waiting for you at the river's end, but first you have to survive the miles of treacherous post-apocalyptic terrain that lies ahead. To do that, you'll have to keep yourself hydrated, well-fed, warm, and rested, all of which are difficult to do when everything from the wolves to the bacteria in the water is out to get you.
Flame in the Flood doesn't pull any punches, and you will die very quickly the first time you play. You'll have to master necessary survival skills by trial and error, and slowly build up a bank of knowledge to see you through. Dying of septic teaches you not to drink suspicious water. Collapsing from blood loss proves that you can't fight off wolves with just a stick. Starving after eating every plant you find highlight that meat is the key to survival. And you'll learn what objects are important when you realize they could have saved you. It's a slow build to success, but every time you get a little smarter, and feel an ever-stronger urge to push further.
Though didn’t impress us by venturing into new thematic waters, it did show Naughty Dog’s peerless approach to the blockbuster action game. The over-the-top destruction on display in the game’s wild car chase somehow reflected an elegant, economical approach to storytelling. When Nathan peers over a railing to take in a huge city crawling down a hillside, it’s not just for looks - we’re seeing the road to the next story beat, and by the time the chase concludes, we’ve traversed the entirety of what seemed like just a pretty picture before.
This willingness to devote resources – be it time, money or the hard work of artists – into a wide shot like that, only to have it become a “real” constructed environment and unfurl as part of the gameplay, is what put Uncharted on the map. The framing of the chase sequence borrows well from Hollywood, and the witty repartee brings the script up to a matching level. What’s even better, though, is the brewing mystery in the story’s title. Between our trio of thieves, Nathan Drake, brother Sam and companion Sully, we’re already wondering whose epitaph Uncharted 4 will be.
If you looked at the line-up with no knowledge of what came before, you wouldn't guess that the world was making sarcastic comments about how hard women are to animate less than a year ago. While it's still sadly common to see a press conference's worth of games headlined by a single gender, this E3 saw a slew of titles where women are taking center stage, either as integral and active participants or as protagonists in their own right. We may have expected Lara and a possible female addition to the Gears clan, but this year's showing blew right past that goal post and gave us a cheeky wave on the way out.
Gotta say, we like that style, and want to highlight those ladies that stand as the face of their games and the companies that created them. To that end, we've compiled a list of the most prominent female characters of E3 2015 for their adulation and your perusal. Who knows - maybe you'll find a leading lady whose story you'll want to follow.
It doesn't take long to figure out that "the old ones" Aloy speaks of in the opening moments of Horizon's reveal trailer refers to us, and we see soon thereafter how far mankind has fallen from grace: humans exist in tribes, vulnerable to mechanical beasts that roam the land. It's an imposing, intimidating future, and yet Aloy handles it like a pro as she hunts grass-grazing automatons and fends off a robot dinosaur. When the end of the world comes, Aloy is someone you want on your side.
Once a precocious little girl whose drawings could get very dark if you weren't careful about raising her up right, Emily is all grown up in Dishonored 2 and taking down targets of her own with magical and tech-assisted abandon. She strikes an imposing figure while tearing through mechanized warriors and turning into a shadow creature, breaking down every defense thrown in front of her. Plus, she does it all with elegance and poise. Her parents would be so proud.
We know almost nothing about the girl from Microsoft's new IP, Recore. Not her name, where she comes from, or what she's doing out in a desert wasteland filled with aggressive constructs. Still, in the game's debut trailer, we see her tenacity and the loyalty she inspires in her robo-dog companion, and that's enough to make us want to learn more.
You've been able to play as a post-apocalyptic guy or gal ever since Fallout 2, but some persistent rumors indicated that might be not be the case in . Bethesda showed off Fallout 4's new-and-improved third-person perspective with a bog standard white dude protagonist, but only after casually brushing aside said concerns with a great "step aside, honey, I got this" moment in the bathroom mirror character editor. Turns out the dude's wife isn't just an NPC - she's another blank canvas for you to customize and play as.
Beyond Eyes' ten-year-old protagonist isn't like the other super-powered, butt-kicking, free-running characters on this list. She has no preternatural abilities, no apocalyptic future to prevent. Instead, she's young girl without sight, on a personal journey to find her lost cat, Nani. But even without the use of her eyes, Rae's other senses let the world blossom around her like a droplet of paint bleeding across paper fibers. She sees things through the lens of her own imagination, which amplifies the beauty of the mundane - and the fear of the unknown.
Faith Connors was a female protagonist before it was cool, man. Back in ye olden days of 2008 when the original Mirror's Edge was released, we followed her on a quest to clear her sister's name from a murder she didn't commit. It looks like Faith will have bigger prey to tackle in the Mirror's Edge Catalyst reboot, but her unparalleled skills in parkour and hand-to-hand combat mean we're not worried one bit about her ability to succeed. Faith inspires … well, faith in us.
We've known about Evie's existence in the upcoming . Potentially more ruthless than her gang-leading brother, Evie gives any standing in the Assassin's way reason to be very, very afraid. As the second female assassin on our list, it makes us wonder who would win in a fight: Emily or Evie?
To Lara Croft, surviving catastrophic adventures is like eating a bag of potato chips: she can't stop after she's started, even if the results are highly unpleasant. After nearly falling to her death from a mountain cliff, she frantically outruns a blizzard as it rips the ground out from under her feet, right before she's buried in several feet of snow. Even when she emerges less than gracefully, coughing powder out of her lungs and stuck in the cold without any supplies or shelter, she still looks like one hell of a survivor. Good thing, too - something tells us that this game won't be any kinder to her than the last one.
It was hard to see much of anything in the Gears 4 trailer, since the developers took 'dark and gritty' to its literal conclusion, but we were able to pick out a new new Gears sneaking through the shadows. One of them is a woman named Kait (which we now know from the Gears Twitch stream), and from the clip we saw of her in combat, she seems every bit as snarky and capable as the Gears who've come before her.
Here's one we're not sure what to make of just yet. In an all-too-brief trailer for Xbox One game Ashen, we see a male decked out in adventurer's gear recruit a woman to help him explore a decrepit tomb. As the male character inspects some ancient treasure, he gets swarmed by monsters, and the female character gets separated. At the trailer's close, we see only the female character still alive, kneeling on a hilltop. We're not sure what it all means, but the twist of having the male adventurer seemingly die, then ending on a shot of the female character, is symbolic in its own way.
Fullbright is no stranger to female protagonists, focusing on the story of a girl named Sam as her sister Katie slowly uncovers its details in the stellar Gone Home. The studios' newest game, Tacoma, follows in that same vein, with a new, as-yet unnamed female protagonist who's tasked with exploring the remains of a space station to find out what happened there. She's a lot chattier that Katie, and has to be, because her only companion is a voice on her communicator giving her instructions from back at HQ. Other than that, she's on her own to discover the station's fate, and deal with that she might find (or, well, the other way around).
Much like Tacoma's astronaut, Delilah spends most of her time on one end of a walkie-talkie, only on the opposite one from the player. Delilah is a national park supervisor in Firewatch, and communicates regularly with her man on the ground, Henry (aka you), about the state of the forest and his watch. As one of two characters in the game (three if you count the wilderness itself), Delilah is an important part of Henry's adventure, and interacting with her is almost as important to the game as not falling off of a cliff or getting eaten by anything. Their relationship changes dramatically depending on how Henry responds to her, so it's worth your time to listen to what she has to say.
Rainbow Six Siege might've had us grimacing uncomfortably at E3 2014 when its only female character was a glorified flag you can use as a human shield. It's doing a whole lot better this year though, in no small part due to the introduction of the Rainbow unit's leader, a stern and serious woman named Six. Played by the timeless (and apparently ageless) Angela Bassett, she will be the voice of authority during the team's missions, organizing them and making sure everything goes according to plan. We're not yet sure how much of a role she'll play in the missions themselves, but we're sure to see more of her before Siege lands in September.
The diver from Abzu might seem effectively genderless, given that she spends all of her time in a diving suit, and it has no effect on her ability to ride on the fin of a giant manta ray. But when it's normal to dub an agender character male by default, it's nice to see the script flipped. In Abzu, this unnamed female diver's only goal is to explore the ocean depths, make friends with fish, and discover secrets buried so deep that the surrounding fish have headlamps. Not deterred by the thought of vicious sharks or a nasty case of the bends, this diver will risk life and limb to discover what lies below, all to the sound of a whimsical score.
Star Wars Battlefront has always been exciting. But you know what’s better than exciting? Giga-exciting. And fortunately, that’s exactly what DICE’s game now very much is, after its Hoth-based E3 gameplay demo.
It looks insane. It plays like someone just threw a first-person camera into a Star Wars movie battle. It has all the exciting, flash-bang bombast you want, and all the chaotic, intimate, human focus Star Wars needs. It is, quite frankly, a relentless, giddy, air-punch generator, and if you haven’t watched that demo yet, you must do so immediately, below, before you click on to learn all the new Battlefront details from . Also, some guy called Skywalker turned up. We hear he’s quite a big deal.
Also, why not check out everything we know about while you're here? Seriously, why the hell not? It's going to be great!
You know that really smarmy trick devs and publishers play when they know they have a really good looking game? The one where they run what looks like a cut-scene, then reveal it to be in-game just as you’re waiting for the cut? For once, we don’t actually begrudge EA or DICE that smugness. Seeing the gun and HUD come up over that Hoth corridor was, visually at least, the holymotherfuckingshitballs moment at E3. And it continued.
Although transparently choreographed to show the game at its most cinematic, Battlefront’s E3 2015 gameplay demo has us sold. In terms of fidelity, it’s stunning, DICE’s take-photos-of-ever-Star-Wars-prop-ever-and-use-them-for-textures strategy turning in genuinely unbelievable results. Seeing the game running for the first time is – at last – a real next-gen moment. But beyond that it’s the feel of the damn thing. TIE fighters move in just the right way as they scream and bank through the sky. AT-ATs shuffle and judder exactly as they should. Explosions and blaster fire have that same presence and texture you instinctively know is right. Even the radio chatter, right down to the acting style, is 100% Star Wars.
There might not be a strict class system in Battlefront, but that doesn’t mean that this is all-shooting, all the time. Although not formally discussed during the game’s on-stage E3 demo, we saw plenty of very cool, very Star Wars points of difference between the characters in play.
Some have small booster packs allowing quick, extended jumps, ideal for dodging out of the way of incoming fire or beating an opponent in the race to an objective. AT-AT drivers look to be able to pepper the ground with airstrikes. Orbital bombardments are in as well. And to defend against those, some players can also pop up impromptu bubble shields to protect anyone who can hop under them in time. Combined with Battlefront’s breakneck pace and constant pockets of aggression around multiple objectives, the resulting sense of giddy, dynamic, organised chaos feels… well it just feels very, very Star Wars.
It may seem an innocuous point to make, but it’s not. Obviously, this is something that should just happen, but if it didn’t, then the whole deal would be off. It would be catastrophic. Star Wars Battlefront would be over. But fear not. Taking down AT-ATs with Snowspeeder tow-cables is totally a thing. We’re not currently entirely sure how complex a process it is (as in, whether you need to actually aim and fire the cable, before carefully, manually snaring the legs, or whether it’s automated after doing a certain amount of damage), but it happens, it looks brilliant, and those big laser-dogs crump down just as they should. That’s what matters.
Don’t pretend you won’t 100% lose your mind when you first do it. Because you will. It will be lost.
Battlefront purists, fear not. While you may have – understandably – worried that some of the essence of the series would be lost via DICE’s transition from thirdto first-person shooting, that is not the case. This is an equal opportunities Star Wars shooter. Whether you want the immersion of FPS, or the wider viewing angle of TPS, Battlefront has you covered.
As the E3 demo switched between multiple viewpoints, both rebel and imperial, so too did the camera mode. It seems that either perspective will be freely available at the touch of a button. Old fan or new, this Battlefront should let you liberate the galaxy or blast rebel scum in exactly the fashion you wish. Huzzah!
Gameplay aside, this is the other big E3 reveal. Well, insofar as something that was obviously going to happen can be deemed a reveal. Joining the already announced Darth Vader and Boba Fett, Skywalker The Younger is a playable hero character in Star Wars: Battlefront. Sporting an insta-kill lightsaber and a very meaty Force push, Luke is Godzilla to normal ground troops, and a fearsome match for enemy hero units.
Though don’t judge us if we push our nerd glasses up our faces for a moment and question the canonical validity of Return of the Jedi Luke appearing in the battle of Hoth. We’re going to judge ourselves harder than you ever could, believe us.
Star Wars: Battlefront has arrived. At this year's Star Wars Celebration convention, we got the chance to see Battlefront in action and speak with the developers about what to expect from this new game. There's a lot to comb through, but at the top of the pile is the release date, which is currently set for November 17 in North America and November 20 in the UK. It's coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC through Origin.
Not long after that, the first DLC pack will be released, but we'll get to that in just a moment. Did you know that you can play in either first or third-person? We've got those details and so much more straight from the show floor, so read on and prepare yourself for the intergalactic battle of a lifetime.
Meanwhile, here's the latest trailer for December's movie, and our breakdown of its secrets.
If your favorite skirmish from the Star Wars franchise is the Gungan battle on Naboo, well, I've got some bad news for you. Star Wars: Battlefront will focus primarily on the original trilogy, with warzones across four planets: Endor, Hoth, Tatooine, and Sullust. Those first three should come as no surprise to Star Wars fans, as we've seen 'em all before. But that last one, Sullust, is largely unknown outside of the now-defunct expanded universe.
According to Wookieepedia, "All of Sullust was composed of multicolored rock, veined by lava channels; the planet went through atmospheric blackouts caused by gouts of smoke and ash." It's basically a hellish volcano planet, neat. The developers also revealed their first free DLC update for the game, which will be the Battle of Jakku. Naturally, this will take place on Jakku, and will help explain why the planet looks the way it does when you see in it Episode VII.
This DLC will be released to all SWB players on December 8, though if you pre-order the game you'll get the DLC a week early on December 1.
If you were hoping to hop in an X-Wing and fly from the jungles of Endor to the Death Star's core, well, maybe next time. Similar to the developer's own Battlefield franchise, Battlefront will feature three primary ways to wreak havoc on the other teams: troops, vehicles, and aircraft. In the demo we saw, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, Snowspeeders, AT-ATs, AT-STs, Speeder Bikes, and the Millennium Falcon were shown - all of which will be fully playable. They'll also be confined to the planet they're currently stationed on, so don't think you can just bail on a fight by flying into the stratosphere.
Star Wars games, especially the multiplayer ones, have all faced the same problem: everyone wants to be a Jedi (or Sith). Who has time for a lowly Stormtrooper when you could be a lightsaber-wielding, lightning-shooting badass? All the footage we saw featured Stormtrooper and Rebel Alliance soldiers fighting with various blasters and other ranged weapons - that is, until freaking Darth Vader popped in at the end a ripped a few Rebels a new one.
No, there's no Darth Vader character class or anything like that. By fulfilling certain conditions (that are still unknown), players will be able to spawn in as an iconic Star Wars character, such as Darth Vader or Boba Fett. Each of these legendary warriors will be packing their own special weapons and abilities (yes, Vader can force choke people). As for those certain conditions, DICE couldn't confirm if these transformations will be earned as Killstreak rewards or via some other means.
If you and a friend want a more relaxed Star Wars: Battlefront experience - meaning you're not dying over and over in multiplayer - then the co-op missions might be more your speed. These are specific challenges that recreate iconic moments from the original trilogy, such as the battle for Hoth. They're designed to be highly replayable with various customization settings, and can be tackled online with a buddy, or offline via split-screen (also with a buddy).
Partnerships are a sacred contract between you and another player, and once you've entered one you're entitled to certain benefits. For starters, you and your partner can always see each other on the minimap, and you can always spawn on that person so that you're never apart. Presumably, this only applies if both players are on the same team; otherwise, this could lead to some real unfortunate respawns.
Partners can also share unlocks with each other. While the developers weren't ready to talk about all the character progression options in the game, they did note that if one player had unlocked a special, high-powered weapon, they could share that weapon with their partner, even if they're at a much lower level. In this way, players can use partnerships to boost others up who are perhaps new to Battlefront.
Not much more to say about this one. Unlike developer DICE's Battlefield 4, which capped out at 64 players, Battlefront will feature games that hold up to 40 players total. If you're looking for something more manageable, the game will support multiplayer with as few as eight players (or those two-person missions mentioned earlier).
During our demo of the game, we noticed the person playing earned more points for scoring headshots, grenade kills, or other extravagant executions. And then there was the ominous 'Nemesis bonus'. DICE wouldn't comment on what the Nemesis bonus entailed, or if it's attached to a larger Nemesis system, but all those secrets will surely be revealed in the coming months leading up to Battlefront's release.
And for more on all things Star Wars, check out our .
So, E3 happened and, as expected, Fallout 4 dominated proceedings. In the course of two days, we learned more about Bethesda's post-apocalyptic RPG than we have in the course of several years of desperate hunting. Rumours were confirmed, gossip was waved away and, most excitingly, there were some real surprises in store, too.
The biggest of all, of course, was the release date. The game will be out in November, bucking the usual E3 trend of a first reveal coming years in advance. Apart from anything else, that means we got trailers, full feature rundowns and huge chunks of gameplay to watch from the get-go - here's everything we know so far.
Our Vault Dwellers have always been the strong, silent types, seemingly communicating all information via telepathy or morse code spelled out by gunshots. This time - whether you play as a male or female character - your character has a . It's apparently taken four years to write and record the 13,000 lines of dialogue required for each character, but producer Todd Howard wanted us to connect with our characters more, and this is the way to do it.
It helps that we'll be designing them to within an inch of their life, too. Far from the buttons and sliders of most RPG character creation sections, Fallout plonks your character in front of a bathroom mirror and lets you literally play with their face until you have it the way you want it. Design their spouse too and the game auto-generates a baby based on your creations. For its final trick, the voice of your Mr. Handy robot can cope with thousands of the world's most popular surnames, meaning you'll be referred to by name as you go. Immersion is the name of the game, seemingly.
This is the one main rumour that proved to be true - Fallout 4's Massachusetts setting is real if a little twisted. The big hitters are all there - there's a settlement inside Fenway Park, and the series has always made reference to M.I.T, now known only as The Institute - but this is an an alternate history, too. Real-life locations that have since been demolished still remain, like the old city centre, Scollay Square.
It's faithful enough that ex-Boston residents working on the game have said it made them homesick - but its the differences to previous games that has us interested. Fallout 4's Boston is significantly more built-up than the Capital Wasteland or New Vegas, with ramshackle skyscrapers and busy settlements popping up across the game trailers. Does that mean this game is set a fair bit later than either of the last two games?
"I'll be playing the game and run into something and be like, 'Who built this? What is this? It's so big!'" So says Todd Howard, a man supposedly overseeing the game. If he's not seen it all, what chance do we have? The focus clearly seems to be on building a world that offers up the kind of stories we can swap with friends, one of Bethesda's chief talents - and size is important in that respect.
We've not had any official word on exactly how big it is, but screenshots show off far more than simple urban wastes, and lead producer, Jeff Gardiner, summed it up by saying "I've played the game probably 400 hours, and I'm still finding stuff that I haven't seen yet." Get working on some thumb calluses - we're going for a virtual hike.
First up, you start the game pre-war. You know those old trailers for Fallout that showed the '50s techno-Americana bliss before the bombs dropped - you're living it. For a bit. Soon, you're running for the familiar environs of a vault (number 111 in this case) and a mushroom cloud signals the end of taht chapter.
I assumed that that meant you'd end up playing as the auto-generated baby mentioned earlier. Nope. As it turns out, your chosen character survives in their vault for 200 years. No one else does. Presumably, this will be the thrust of the storyline - working out just what Vault-Tec did to keep you from dying (or aging), while your spouse and child didn't make it. Fun!
That's not to say you'll be alone. The entire first trailer made it pretty clear that true series hero, Dogmeat, will be playing a major role. I'm guessing this is a different abandoned Alsatian to the one that glitched out and disappeared in my Fallout 3 save file (although in a game where someone can live for 200 years and come out of it a bit groggy, who knows) - it's certainly a more useful version.
Dogmeat can now take more advanced orders, attacking or distracting enemies, fetching items you can't be bothered to schlep over to and, most importantly, is totally invincible meaning I won't have to stop playing to have a bit of a cry at any point.
Fallout 3 ran on the Gamebryo engine. That was modified and re-released as the Creation engine for the release of Skyrim. Fallout 4, which has apparently been in development since 2009, runs on its own version of Creation. Bethesda, it seems, does not like change.
That's not to say that it'll feel like an old game. It's clear enough from the trailers that significant work has gone into the lighting and animation style, while the face-to-face, zombie-like conversations of old are out completely. Facial expressions are far more complex, and the conversation system is dynamic, not only letting you see the scene in third-person, but even break off to run away or attack your unsuspecting talking partner.
Fallout always did a (slightly) better job than its fantasy equivalents at using junk items in meaningful ways - and yes, the Rock-It Launcher returns, thankfully - but Bethesda's collection of inventory ephemera gains new purpose with the addition of a huge new crafting system.
Every weapon and armour set can be added to, altered and made to look significantly more badass with the application of a plethora of junk. How toy rockets are being used to create a sturdier rifle stock is never fully explained, but we'll be happy just to trade in a hundred broomsticks for some discernible reason, thank you very much.
Certain plots of land in the game can be used to create full settlements, from scratch. Think of it like the building system of a game like Rust, but with way> fewer penises. Build it, and wasteland inhabitants will come - the more you offer to passers-by, the more they'll want to set up shop (if they're rare items merchants, sometimes literally).
But the bigger you build, the more of a target you become. You'll need to set up defenses (including stringing powerlines around from generators) to, er, dissuade raiders from stealing your stff and killing your new citizens. But it's worth it - build more than one settlement and you can mogul it up by sending trade caravans between your towns.
Fallout's never taken itself too seriously - expect 4 to follow suit. Even without whatever the inevitable Wild Wasteland perk brings with it, we've already spotted the obligatory nuke launcher, rideable Vertibirds, airstrikes, jetpacks, and baseball bats with buzzsaw blades strapped to the end.
Best of all, your Pip-Boy's now an in-game console of its own - you'll be finding, let's say, familiar retro games to play on your green and black display. The original Donkey Kong featuring a Pipboy player-character, the slightly eerie inclusion of Missile Commander and more will be appearing.
The biggest surprise of all was that Fallout's incredible mod community will be getting a much bigger audience this time around. Todd Howard confirmed that Xbox One players will be able to download mods made for the PC version of the game first, with PS4 to follow suit later.
There's no word on exactly how this will be done - I'd guess at a pool of approved mods, but even without the truly outlandish stuff, that's a huge step towards keeping Fallout a going concern on console for years to come.
If you're really invested (and if you can still find one for sale by this point) the Collector's Edition of the game will come with a wearable Pip-Boy phone case. Slide your phone inside, download a companion app, and you can interact with the game in (slightly embarrassingly) realistic fashion.
This year, the real winners of E3 are the players. Yes, yes - this phrase gets trotted out so often, it has become cliche. However, it really does feel like is show that offers something for everyone. Want mega-blockbuster games? Try Fallout 4, Halo 5, Uncharted 4, Ghost Recon Wildlands. Want something more designed? You've got Unravel, Abzu, The Last Guardian. Nostalgia? How about the Final Fantasy 7 remake, Shenmue 3, Rare's back catalogue... It's all here. Games win!
However, for every winner, there's often a loser. We've decided to round up a selection of our personal winners and losers from the show, demonstrating that for every awesome action, there's often a sad or amusing reaction. These aren't really games... more people, events and concepts. And Pele, who is all three.
Want to read about the actual games that won E3? Check the video below...
For dominating the first day with a . Which was full of Fallout 4. And Dishonored. And Doom. We can't over-stress how awesome Doom is.
For everything that on that stage.
For having pitched entirely at making them happy. And - to be clear - it made a lot of people (us included) very happy.
For having to witness Nintendo curtail the Wii U generation, via a public curbstomp of ' too much of, and franchise spin-offs few care for'. The muppets were funny, mind.
For now being the of video games.
...because all is years away.
For being the most genuinely excited and person at E3.
It's never good when you spawn a meme during a press conference, and EA's sports community guy did EXACTLY that. Poor fella.
For getting paid to derail a whole conference and .
Poor, poor David Rutter. It was like watching a sporty King Canute trying to turn back a tide of Pele gaffes.
For leaving a legacy that now includes three .
Sorry Tiger, it's Rory McIlroy's PGA Tour Golf now. .
For refusing to die.
For refusing to die.
For having the at E3.
For having the worst game name of E3.
For being than Jacob Frye in Assassin's Creed Syndicate.
For being awkward in front of millions of viewers (and the legendary Aisha Tyler) at the Ubi conference.
Because all the cool Nintendo games are coming to 3DS.
Because none of the Sony games are coming to Vita. :-<(/caption>
We got a lot of 'em - Final Fantasy 7, , The Last Guardian - and they genuinely set our worlds alight.
Did you notice how most games were a lot more stylised at E3? There certainly wasn't any talk of 'realistic physics' or 'high polygon counts'. The focus is back on the joy of playing. Sorry, realism: (pun intended) are better than reality...
Ubisoft has given a firm release date for Tom Clancy's The Division: March 8, 2016. Yup, you'll be able to play this MMO shooter RPG hybrid thingy early next year on PS4, Xbox One or PC. Your choice. Additionally, those who play on Xbox will get exclusive access to the game's Beta in December 2015. Yup - that's the end of this year. Better start packing your virtual bug-out bag.
The Division is an incredibly ambitious project, and was unveiled back in 2013. Much like Destiny, the gameplay is split into large, co-op friendly missions, socialising, and PvP combat. You get a persistent character, and will randomly encounter other players within the world. It's properly exciting, but don't just take our word for it - here are nine key things you need to know about The Division.
Before the world saw The Division, it was treated to a long, rambling video detailing how precarious civilisation is. Everything is teetering on the edge of ruin, and something as small as a massive catastrophe could bring it all crumbling down. The government has systems in place to deal with such a situation (it actually does, we looked it up), including soldiers ready to mobilise to help rebuild the world.
But in this near future scenario everyone is a threat. Weapons and ammo are relatively scarce and water is even scarcer. You play as a team going on missions in New York City - or what remains of it - attempting to put the pieces back together after a virus that spreads via infected bank notes wipes out a good portion of the population. There's probably a message about capitalism and greed in there somewhere, yeah?
In an early demo, the hero opens up his map, displaying New York City as a hologram around him. Blips on the map show different available missions - one is a public quest in the sewers, and others pull him to different locations around the city. Any of these missions can be accepted, and see you traversing the open-world to head to whichever quest you want. In the demo, the devs opt to take the one marked 'Critical', indicating there's a priority system for in-game missions.
The world of The Division is densely packed, as the gameplay relies on tight shoot-outs that make the most of duck-and-cover mechanics. Ubisoft says the world of The Division is filled with dynamic events meant to keep players on their toes, so expect Destiny-style public events and random encounters. The missions themselves seem fairly straightforward, but it's the world that really makes us this one interesting. According to Ubi, your decisions will change the world too (like Dragon Age: Inquisition) although the true extent of this remains to be seen.
While playing Dark Zone we discovered that not all enemies are just desperate villains with scavenged weapons. Most have split into specific groups, having rallied around leading figures or ideals. The group we encounter are called The Cleaners - they believe that they can burn away the corruption gripping New York. With flamethrowers. Yes.
The Division's focus is on online play, meaning you're sharing the open world with plenty of friends (and foes). There is no offline mode but, like Destiny, you can opt to play solo. Gameplay looks like it's balanced around group encounters, too so while you can play alone, you'll likely appreciate having someone to flank when you're holding out behind cover. Different characters can have different abilities, too, making it important to form a balanced group. Don't worry - you can drop in and out of friends' games, so if your party lacks a certain character class, you should find it easy to invite a new player in.
There are - apparently - 1000s of weapon and gear combinations, so loot clearly plays a key role in the game. You can even craft fresh supplies, and customise the survival kit you carry around.
Even in terms of gameplay, The Division is a fully-fledged RPG. Enemies have health bars above their heads, numbers fly through the air like rice at a wedding when you shoot them, and you can loot weapons from their corpses. The first demo ends with the player looting a sweet new gun from a storage locker.
Interestingly, you'll also be able to trade, which is something missing from most other console-focused RPGs. This is player-to-player trading, so presumably you'll be able to sell others your surplus equipment and unwanted guns. Will this be done face-to-face in world? Maybe in the game's social area? Seems likely.
From what we've seen, the RPG elements mix well with the action gameplay. The characters take cover behind walls that crumble realistically as enemies pepper them with fire. You can shoot holes in billboards to take down bad guys, and blow up walls to get to your targets. At one point in the early demo a player drops a rolling mine that zooms to an enemy hiding behind a car and blows him - and the vehicle - to smithereens.
There are special PvP areas called Dark Zones, which may support between 50-100 players. These are lawless, contaminated areas completely thrown open to player versus player combat. The benefit of the these areas is that you can find special loot and weapons, providing you can escape the zone with it: “In the Dark Zone, the items that you come across, there’s something different about them,” says The Division's Director, Ryan Barnard.
But to avoid losing this gear you have to successfully get out alive, at which point they become yours forever. Where that gets tricky is that extraction involves calling for a helicopter using a signal flare, potentially alerting surrounding players that someone’s trying to get out with a bag full of exciting gear. It takes the chopper 90 seconds to arrive, and anything can happen in that time...
When you're in a Dark Zone, anything goes. Chances are, you'll meet other human-controlled players, and when that happens you can opt to either work with them, or try to gun them down. You're all competing for the same loot, so expect every uneasy alliance to be filled with tension. Yeah, you're probably going to get a knife in your back (or 100 rounds of SMG ammo, more accurately) the minute you call for extraction.
But that's only half the story. If you're a particularly shameless brand of asshole, you can murder your own team while waiting for extraction. You can then loot their furious corpses, and escape on the chopper. It's pretty funny, and you'll laugh heartily until you realise that you're going to die alone.
That's not all when it comes to Dark Zones. When you're inside PvP you'll see a wanted-style rating system that will draw attention to the most dangerous individuals. There’s also talk of dynamic missions against tough AI, where players can form those uneasy alliances with rival teams to help complete quests for high level loot rewards (traditional green, blue and purple style rarity colour ratings are mentioned). Again, yeah, sounds like Destiny.
Did you hear about that Division companion app, which lets you enter the game using a tablet to control a drone? Sorry, that has been ditched, despite sounding very cool indeed. "It was proving to be too much of an advantage in PvP [so] we decided to level the playing field," says associate design director Julian Gerighty.
Makes sense - in Dark Zones especially, the difference between life (and glorious loot) and death (fury and emptiness) is slight, so anything that tips the balance needs to be carefully considered. Shame, but we understand why this happened.
When Ubi announced that The Division was delayed until 2016, it also mentioned - rather too casually - that Ubisoft Annecy was helping out Massive with the game's multiplayer. And while you might see this as one Ubisoft studio being parachuted in to help out another, struggling studio... it's actually a damn good thing. See, Ubi Annecy is the team responsible for creating the excellent Spies vs Mercs multiplayer in Splinter Cell, and the groundbreaking online play in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. The studio is probably one of the most creative and talented multiplayer devs in the world.
And that gives us massive hope for The Division. Ubi wouldn't bring in the Annecy studio unless it wanted The Division to be the best (they have plenty of other teams to simply 'do a job' if the game simply needed 'fixing'), and to have some genuinely creative features. So put down your pitchfork and flaming torch, and see the good in this latest, rather frustrating delay...
Ghost Recon Wildlands was revealed at . As you'd expect, this one's a third-person shooter, which lets you take control of a four-man squad of military hardcases. Yes, there are guns. Yes, there are explosions. But that's where the similarities with previous Ghost Recons end...
Wildlands is an open-world game, drawing inspiration from Ubi's other franchises like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. Here you can choose to tackle missions in different orders, and you can approach objectives however you want. It's exactly the refresh the series needs. So, click through and discover why this is shaping up to be one of the finest Clancy games in years...
Yes, yes, we literally just mentioned that it's an open-world game. The initial fact sheet from Ubi talks about how it's set in Bolivia, a country with an incredibly varied landscape. Mountains? Check. Jungle? Check. Salt flats? Check. Towns and cities? Check. It also definitely helps that Bolivia has a real-world reputation for being the home of powerful drug cartels, ruthless hostage-takers, and general ne're-do-wells.
You'll be able to explore 100s of villages, local landmarks, and geographical points of interest in the game, and there will be plenty of locals to interact with too. As is quickly becoming standard, there's a day and night cycle, and a full weather system too. Will there be other locations? Nothing confirmed, but the end of the E3 trailer does hint at Europe and North America (although that could just be a visual demonstration of the distribution of drugs...)
As you definitely worked out from the reveal trailer, Wildlands is about a giant, ruthless Bolivian drug cartel. It's the Santa Blanca cartel, to be precise, and this organisation has turned a large portion of pretend-Bolivia into a Narcostate. That basically means they rule with an iron fist, terrorising the locals, and paying off the authorities. You know the score.
The Ghosts are dropped behind enemy lines to break Santa Blanca's hold on the country. So, expect to be liberating regions, assassinating key players, and blowing much of the cartel's man/firepower to tiny pieces. Oh, and wiping out a LOT of drugs to cut off their cash supply. You're essentially attempting to rescue an entire country. No pressure.
It's an open-world, so you'll be free to tackle objectives as you see fit. We already know there are enemy outposts to liberate (like in Far Cry), and the E3 demo shows off a high-profile target mission. However, the trailer makes a point of explaining that the unfortunate 'White Hat' character can be dealt with in a number of ways. He can be killed, captured, or just humiliated. It's an interesting twist on the regular 'go here, kill this dude' style mission.
Elsewhere, you'll be able to sabotage equipment, kidnap and interrogate key targets, and assassinate your more powerful foes. Expect some hostage rescue too, as that's always been a key feature of Clancy games. We see in the trailer that you'll be upgrading gear and stealing relics too. Hello, collectables!
Quite a lot, actually. Aside from the option to tackle missions as you see fit (and the trusty Ghost Recon drone is back to help you scout and tag objectives ahead of time), you'll also be able to manipulate the world. For example, you'll be able to side with local rebels to help out in battles against more powerful factions within the Santa Blanca cartel. Or you can try and instigate in-fighting within the cartel itself, by manipulating information. Or you can create distractions in one place to help you sneak in and complete primary objectives with greater ease.
Careful, though. As with most open-world games, your actions will have an impact on the region. What this means is you'll be forced to make choices, which could come back to bite you later on. This is just our speculation but... say you take the easy option and just assassinate White Hat, as in the trailer. What's to say that another drug baron won't come along and just take over his operation, because you didn't sneak in and completely destroy the factory? Consequences, you see.
Right, obviously there's the gyrocopter drone. In Wildlands you can use it to tag enemies, and to detonate next to them - very cool. We've also seen a load of vehicles in the trailer for getting around in: rib boats, jeeps (with optional mounted turrets), dirt bikes, trucks, and loads more. Expect planes and choppers too, as the press release describes action as taking place in land, sea, and air. Good stuff.
The setting seems to be present day (or very, very near future), so don't expect stuff like the weird iGun from Future Soldier. Weapons will be standard military fare: silenced pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, snipers etc. Invisibility camo? Unlikely. Guns that shoot around corners? Probably not. Let's not forget too, that the Ghosts are behind enemy lines, so high-spec hardware is tough to find. Oh, and you'll be able to fully customise your Ghost too, with the loot you find. We're already roasting to wear that stetson worn by White Hat in the demo...
For sure. We already know that you'll have four-player co-op, and that you can play the mission featured in the demo with four separate people. Don't worry, you'll be able to play the whole thing solo too. Friends will be able to seamlessly drop into your game and help out whenever you choose, which is great, because having separate co-op campaigns is SO last-generation.
As for PvP multiplayer... unconfirmed at this stage. Ghost Recon usually has it, and we note that Ubisoft Annecy (a multiplayer-specialist studio) is one of the teams working on the game, so it's highly likely that PvP is on its way too. Will that be map-focused? Or open-world like GTA Online? Look, we're not even sure that it exists at this stage, so this is all speculation. But open-world multiplayer would be damn good fun...
Good question. Ubi isn't saying, so don't expect it in 2015. Given the relative releases of Rainbow Six Siege (October) and The Division (March 2016)... we think it's sensible to assume Wildlands isn't coming until at least October 2016. Boo hiss etc. It's an ambitious project, running on an entirely new proprietary engine, so things like this take time.
But don't be all doom and gloom, Timmy. Apparently the team has been working on it for 3 years now, so it might release sooner. That demo did look very solid, and we have been playing it at E3... Maybe Ubi will surprise us all and announce a pre-Christmas release date during GamesCom in August. Fingers crossed.
During every gauntlet of E3 press conferences, there's always one. One moment that stands out above the rest; the kind of experience you look back at fondly, long after the game it was tied to has come and gone. It could be a hilarious line, like "Attack its weakpoint for massive damage" or "one million troops... WOW." Or maybe it's that moment when months of hype pay off with a spectacular reveal, or a seemingly impossible announcement totally blindsides you (in a good way).
Whatever it ends up being, that memorable moment is something to treasure. Now that the press conferences are in the books, it's time to reflect on the moments that wowed, shocked, and delighted us. Stay awhile and reminisce with us about these less-than-a-week-old events, won't you?
Back in the early days of Xbox, then-president of the Interactive Entertainment Business division at Microsoft Don Mattrick likened backwards compatibility to backwards thinking. "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," the Wall Street Journal in a 2013 interview, stating that only five percent of users would utilize the feature anyway.
If only Mattrick could have heard the thunderous approval from the crowd at Microsoft's E3 press conference, when it was announced that that backwards compatibility will arrive on the Xbox One this fall.
Guerilla Games doesn't have much of a reputation to those who haven't played a Killzone game, but their next game on PS4 offers the kind of world that'll command anyone's attention. As with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, this post-apocalypse isn't a barren desert; it's a lush, overgrown jungle resting atop a collapsed metropolis, and it's absolutely gorgeous. There seems to have been some kind of robot rebellion leading up to this strange future, because wildlife like deer and birds have been replaced by metal simulacrums (that use car alarm noises to call for help).
The trailer gives you just enough time to fall in love with the female protagonist Aloy, who seems as tenacious and capable as Lara Croft. Her arsenal is an interesting mix of old and new: arrows with bullets for heads, spears made from sharpened machine parts. And then BAM - in charge some colossal cyborg dinos, complete with blue lasers and primal screams. Watching Aloy take down one of the beasts with some metal tethers and a stab to its robot heart is enough to make Horizon shoot to the top of your 'most anticipated games' list.
It was pretty great to recognize Angela Bassett as boss Six in the trailer for Rainbow Six: Siege; her likeness was so accurate that it even recreated her distinctive mouth movements perfectly. An actress of her stature joining the game’s cast was announcement enough, but when the woman herself walked out to share the stage with Aisha Tyler to discuss her role, we kind of lost our minds.
Bassett is an Oscar-nominated actress with a 20-year career that’s included turns as Betty Shabazz and Tina Turner, who (unlike so many others) regards her role in a shooty video game with the same craftsmanship that she does any other acting performance. She treated her appearance on Ubisoft’s stage with elegant, effortless grace, giving her digitized role - and the audience that would be enjoying it - respect. Her appearance at Ubisoft’s press conference also put two women of color on the same E3 stage, a sight practically unicorn-like in its rarity. It was a moment of true class in a sea of hype and awkwardness, and we loved it.
I don't know about you, but I spent the first few seconds of Sony's press conference saying, "No, no" with intense disbelief, and the three minutes that followed watching a boy and his giant bird dog explore a temple while trying not to cry. After years and so, so many vaporware jokes, we not only saw The Last Guardian emerge from obscurity, but there was a release date attached to its fuzzy, feathery tail. Does anyone else hear a triumphant music number coming from nowhere?
The trailer itself was fairly calm, showing the unnamed little boy we all remember from 2009 shouting to call his towering Falcor-like guardian. Most of the gameplay involved him moving onto different platforms, manipulating objects to make a new path, and making death-defying leaps of faith with the belief that the guardian would catch him, oh lord please catch him! Yet it was so charming, so beautiful, so lost to us for so long that even that simple bit of gameplay was enough to get us making incomprehensible noises of joy at each other. And then they followed it up with a splash image that simply read 2016, and the tears were unstoppable.
Let me take you on a journey back in time to PlayStation Experience 2014, where Sony and Square Enix pulled one of the greatest bait-and-switch moves in game conference history. In the middle of a long evening of new game announcements and trailers, a trailer was shown filled with the nostalgic images of Final Fantasy 7. 'This is it,' thought literally everyone watching at home. 'This is when that Final Fantasy 7 remake finally gets announced.' The trailer continued: Cloud fighting Shinra's grunts, the Highwind taking flight, and Sephiroth stepping through the fire. Any moment now those visuals were going to change into something new, something modern. A new FF7 was right around the corner.
Except it wasn't. Instead it was a port of the PC version to PS4. We all died a little inside that night. But at E3 2015, Sony and Square Enix redeemed themselves by finally, at long last, announcing the remake Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for. A new Final Fantasy 7, redone with a fresh visual style, is on the horizon. The internet's reaction can be summed it with one phrase: 'NO WAY!!' followed by 'WAIT, WAIT, NO WAY!!' It was a huge surprise, tempered only by the fact that Sony's press conference was filled with huge surprises.
Nintendo’s been getting pretty good at having some fun with their Directs and Digital Events, but the E3 transformation of Reggie Fils-Aime, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto into muppets - and then into muppet versions of characters from Star Fox - was their most delightful move yet. Nintendo didn’t take the gimmick too far, but did let the muppet hosts stick around for a while, mostly just to dance. It was pure, unfiltered happiness, which is basically Nintendo’s shtick.
It was a perfect reminder amongst the gore and guns of other press conferences that not everything has to be gritty or mature to be fun. Nothing wrong with a well-placed headshot, of course, but the muppets of Nintendo channelled childlike joy that left us grinning. : “You know and I know the warmth you feel whenever there’s a muppet around.” Everything really is better with muppets.
Sony's press conference was filled with games we had long-suspected of being vaporware, but arguably more surprising was Yu Suzuki taking the stage to reveal Shenmue 3. Okay, so it was to reveal a Kickstarter for Shenmue 3, but still. While The Last Guardian and a Final Fantasy 7 remake were at least churning in the rumor mill, the revival of Shenmue came completely out of left field.
Chills are still running up the arms of Dreamcast diehards and Shenmue supporters the world over, and financial pledges for the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter have poured in at a rate that's shattered records (and looks poised to overtake Bloodstained as the crowdfunding platform's most-funded video game project). Hearing that beautiful orchestral theme again, it's hard to blame fans for getting swept up in the moment.
When Bethesda finally pulled the lead-lined curtain off of Fallout 4, I was satisfied. It looked great, but after years of waiting to hear even the slightest peep about the next game in one of my favorite series, I was ready to keep waiting until next year to actually play it. After all, there was a ten-year wait between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, right? Waiting ‘til spring or fall 2016 would be nothing next to that.
But Bethesda decided to get the whole thing out of the way at once, announcing a Fallout 4 release date of November 10. It makes sense in retrospect, since Skyrim, Bethesda Game Studios' last big project, shipped three years ago. That's plenty of time for a big, seasoned studio to get another project together, I just… just wasn't ready to get my hopes up for it. Sniffle.
When Nier New Project director Yoko Taro took the stage at Square Enix's press conference, it felt like a fractured dream after hours of restless tossing and turning. Square Enix's press conference was easily the most boring of the lot, long on time and short on announcements that weren't already announced the day before, but then… there was that helmet. And everybody watching who hadn't played Nier - which was a cult hit at best, so a lot of them - had no idea what was happening.
See, the helmet was a replica of Emil's weapon-form head from the original game, but nobody said anything about it. They didn't even acknowledge it was there, letting Taro deliver a standard "please look forward to it" speech as if he didn't have a terrifying Majora's Mask reject sitting on his scarf-wrapped shoulders. Which he did... unless it was just a mass delusion. Actually, it might have been a mass delusion.
Destiny’s elegant construction as game and machine has kept players in a lovely loop of gunplay and character improvement. Its structure has bounds, though, and can eventually start to feel static when hours of Raids and Strikes start blending together. Developer Bungie wants to bring a ghost into Destiny’s machine now, and earn the “expansion” label for its next project, The Taken King.
The Taken King will pull up to Destiny on September 15 like a dump truck and unload a rattling avalanche of new guns and armor. There will be no shortage of MORE, but that’s to be expected. What we want is more different.
Your successful mission to kill Crota in the previous DLC has consequences, beyond the rewards that spill out of him. Bungie essentially casts Crota’s body into the foundation of The Taken King, connecting the premise not to an uncontrollable galactic event, but to something you accomplished yourself. Crota’s god-like father is furious in the aftermath of your deeds, swiping a ghostly hand across the galaxy to wipe you and your regicidal guardian out. Also, his name is Oryx. Has there ever been a nice person with that name?
As Oryx lands his “Taken” armies on the rocky Martian satellite of Phobos (no stranger to demonic invasion in games), your perception of the Cabal changes. They’re hit hard by the corruptive effects of Oryx; their defeat shaking their standing as a strong faction in Destiny and making Bungie’s new villain appear even more threatening. The actors are shifting positions, albeit subtly, in Destiny’s story.
Destiny: The Taken King introduces three new sub-classes as ‘lost Guardian arts,’ with a standout going to the Warlock. Bungie’s knack for on-the-nose naming still thrives with Stormcaller, which lets you summon maelstroms of electric energy and charge forward, blue lightning flowing from your fingertips, just like Emperor Palpatine leaning forward on a Segway. Do we really need to go over the appeal of that?
The Titan gains Sunbreaker, which lets you hurl a big ol’ hammer like a boomerang, while the Hunter obtains a support class in Nightstalker. Summoning a glowing bow from the ether gives the Nightstalker a quick step up in combat, but the utility of the power isn’t as cool as the flashy looks. Between your transformation into an electric wraith as Stormcaller, and the Nightstalker's ethereal magic bow, I feel like Destiny is subtly tilting its sci-fi/fantasy balance, and maybe even making a case for guns not being as cool as instant storms.
The regular enemies in Destiny are so numerous and so effortlessly destroyed after a certain point, they all start blending together. Knights and Phalanxes can’t escape Oryx’s influence, returning in The Taken King as his corrupted thralls.
This is bad news for you, a Guardian, but good news if you’ve long stopped thinking of aliens as anything more than snarling sacks of XP. Their appearance is striking and creepy at the outset, forcing you to face a perversion of the old and familiar.
Destiny’s Crucible matches get a distinct air of intergalactic sports with the Rift game type, which Bungie sees as the long-awaited answer to a capture-the-flag style objective mode. It’s simple: get the spark and dunk it through a space-time rift (video games!), or do a backflip dunk to get extra points.
Meanwhile, “Mayhem” mode amps up the silliness by boosting the recharge rates of supers. The resulting fireworks, especially with the flashy new sub-classes in the mix, is meant to be thinly veiled chaos. The mechanical basics of Destiny’s PvP combat are still there, but they feel heightened to an extreme degree in Mayhem - perhaps to the point where more balanced matches seem mundane in comparison.
Oryx’s quest for revenge initially brings you to Phobos, where you’re sent into a crumbling Cabal vestige to investigate. The interior is pockmarked with explosions and strange slices of three-dimensional distortion, with debris weightlessly suspended in the moment of impact. The hmm-what-happened-here setup is eerie and well executed, eventually leading to your first glimpse of Crota’s big bad dad.
Bungie says it wants to drive players into further environmental discovery in The Taken King, later sending them into Oryx’s dreadnaught, a “giant, evil mausoleum.” If the developer follows through, it’ll resurface one of Destiny’s most romantic concepts: the guardian rummaging through mysterious, fantastical places, his or her footsteps bringing otherworldly machinery to life.
Every year, the E3 press conferences serve as the bombastic kickoff to a festival of big-budget games and indie innovators. This is where all the megaton reveals and announcements will happen; where developers, CEOs, and celebrities alike will take the stage and delight the audience with snappy or slightly awkward banter. And E3 2015 had more press conferences than usual, with a few newcomers joining the fray. But like gladiatorial combat, the real question on people's minds is: who won?
Every press conference had something great to offer, but some simply had more greatness than others. We've gone ahead and ranked all the press conferences, minus the (GR+ is owned by the same parent company, so we'd be contractually obligated to give them first prize). So, which press conference stood triumphant during E3 2015? In our minds, the ordering goes something like this...
The Square Enix press conference had the air of a Japanese investor meeting, which isn't necessarily good or bad. Everyone on stage was polite and calm, moving from one game demo to the next with minimal fanfare - a stark contrast to the whiz-bang theatrics of most other press conferences. There were a few gaffes, like a translator who seemed to be asleep at the wheel and an enthusiastic Kingdom Hearts fan who realized too late that he was cheering for the wrong trailer. But man, Square Enix has it where it counts: the games.
Any mention of the Final Fantasy 7 remake gets our hearts aflutter, the teacup attack in Kingdom Hearts 3 is a winner, and the tweaks to Hitman's assassination sandbox are definitely intriguing. Plus, the cult classic Nier is actually getting a sequel, something we never would've expected in a million years. And we'll never, ever forget the surreal weirdness of a presenter with a skull mask on, and absolutely no one in the room acknowledging it.
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Electronic Arts has a heavy burden: the need to show off a slew of sports games to an audience that, let's face it, is largely apathetic about Madden, FIFA, et al. Not only that: everybody watching had their hearts set on some in-game Star Wars Battlefront footage, and EA knew it. That made it all the more difficult to sit through Pele's absent-minded musings about 'the beautiful game', or a Minions mobile spin-off.
Of course, none of those somewhat dull moments seemed to matter after the glory of the Battlefront footage. Watching soldiers shoot their way through the trenches of Hoth looked incredible, and the shifting perspectives gave a great view into vehicle handling as well. And that ending where Luke and Vader clash... we got chills. Besides getting to see our nerdy lightsaber duel fantasies realized, Unravel looks adorable, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst seems like it'll have glorious amounts of freedom, and Mass Effect: Andromeda showed just enough to get us interested.
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We get the sense that E3 is becoming more and more irrelevant to Nintendo, and you can tell by the fact that its biggest surprises - the unexpected arrival of the unreleased NES EarthBound and Ryu's appearance in Super Smash Bros. - were announced on the Sunday before the big Nintendo Direct. Thanks to Nintendo's unique videos, they can announce whatever they want, when they want, and they don't have to be tied to E3 to do it.
That's not to say there weren't things to get excited about during the Tuesday Direct. We saw the first footage of Star Fox Zero, the reveal of a Paper Mario/Mario Luigi RPG mash-up, and a new multiplayer Zelda game on 3DS, and all of that looks great. There are even going to be Skylanders figurines for Donkey Kong and Bowser that will act as amiibo when you twist the base - a pretty big surprise, especially coming from a company as protective of its characters as Nintendo. Long-awaited titles like Xenoblade Chronicles X and the fantastic-looking Super Mario Maker finally got release dates, too. Nintendo's actual E3 conference may have been a bit lacking, but when you combine it, along with Sunday's announcements and the World Championship, Nintendo's E3 wasn't too shabby. Plus, it had Nintendo Muppets. And that's pretty great.
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Ubisoft didn't pin all its hype to one or two games - it spread the love across a diverse collection, which is great. By now, we know to brace for a few awkward moments when Just Dance hits the stage (this time with some off-key singing courtesy of Jason Derulo, aka Blueshirt McSingguy, aka Mikey '2Tyte' Jeanz), and some stilted recreations of actual conversations during multiplayer sessions. But any Derulo downers were offset by Aisha Tyler's charm, and Ubisoft had something for everyone with its game showcase.
Two surprise announcements stood out in particular: Ghost Recon Wildlands, a drug-busting take on the tactical shooter, and For Honor, a PvP battle between history's deadliest warriors. The tense multiplayer of had us enraptured (even with all the scripted teamchat), with Trackmania, Trials Fusion: Awesome Levels Max, and South Park: Fractured But Whole rounding out the strong showing. We could've done with some more Evie and/or gameplay for Assassin's Creed Syndicate, of course.
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Kinect was a no-show, there was no mention of apps, and there was nary an Usher in sight - Microsoft in 2015 is leaner, meaner, and all about games. There were the expected heavy hitters, of course, and Halo 5 and Gears 4 certainly didn't disappoint, but it was all of the little surprises that added up for Microsoft in a big way.
Backwards compatibility was Microsoft's bombshell announcement of the show. It doesn't seem like much, but when it feels like everyone's essentially written off the concept with this generation and doubled down on re-releases, seeing a big publisher find a way to get older games to work on its current hardware is a pretty fantastic move, and it'll be a great way to get more people to leave their 360s behind. Speaking of re-releases, Rare Replay shows the right way to go about it, packing in 30 classic and contemporary Rare games in one package for $30. Rare's even making a brand new game, and it's all about pirates! Microsoft also unveiled a unique spin on early access, letting potential buyers actually try a demo before they spend money on an unfinished game (what a concept!). And last but surprisingly not least, Microsoft HoloLens made an impressive showing with Minecraft (of all games). A solid show from Microsoft.
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This E3 marked the first time Bethesda has ever hosted a press conference, but you wouldn't be able to tell by watching it, as the publisher took the stage with a confidence and presence like they'd been doing this for years. Bethesda's conference boasted no frills, no nonsense, and no gimmicks - just a solid 90-minute block of fantastic-looking games.
Doom is shaping up to be a wonderful blend of old-school and modern game design, with fast-paced, fluid gunplay, ridiculous hellbeasts, and the newly-announced Snapmap allows for players to make and share their own levels and games. Dishonored 2 is coming next year, and bringing along a surprising new protagonist with Emily Kaldwin. But the big surprise here came from Fallout 4 and its November 10, 2015 release date. Bethesda kicked off E3 in spectacular fashion.
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Sony doesn't have a huge first-party lineup slated for 2015, instead relying on Batman, Destiny, and a slew of indie games to satiate PlayStation Nation’s hunger for games. And no, Sony didn't do much to tell us differently at its E3 conference. What it did do, however, is announce the arrival of three particular games - games that have long stoked the dreams of many a PlayStation fan.
Sony opened its show with The Last Guardian, reintroducing Team Ico's lost game to the masses, and revealed a 2016 release date to go along with it. Fans have also been clamoring for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, and have repeatedly been told no - until Sony unveiled a trailer confirming its existence. Then they gave the stage to Yu Suzuki, creator of the cult-favorite Shenmue series, and announced a plan to crowd-fund the closure that fans have been craving for years. Oh yeah, Sony's also the new home for Call of Duty, yoinking it away from Microsoft in dramatic fashion. An impressive gameplay demo for Uncharted 4 closed one of Sony's best conferences in years - , this is one for the history books.
… what else could there possibly be? And yet all the press conference holders managed to surprise everyone in some way, making this particular E3 a genuine thrill no matter what kind of games you’re into.
So, we’ve decided to round up the biggest and best surprises of E3 2015. Why? Well, maybe you missed a few of these. Or perhaps you just want to bathe in the warm glow that comes from an ‘dream game’ being announced. Or you just want to leave a comment grumbling about the continued absence of Half-Life 3. Fill your boots, buddy: here the 15 biggest surprises from this year’s E3.
“If everything’s a dream, don’t wake me.” Cloud had the right of it way back in 1997. A remake of the timeless Final Fantasy 7 has always seemed like a pipe dream for fans the world over, and yet, here we are. It’s actually happening.
While we may not have seen their faces, Cloud, Tifa and co will be returning to Midgar in a full remake that sees a far more modern take on the Mako reactor-run city. The skyscrapers may look a lot more pristine than the boxy ones we remember on PS1, but the dingy streets of the Sector 7 slums and that barren playground filled with memories of Aeris capture the spirit of FF7 in way I only thought possible in feverish fanboy dreams.
There's been speculation about who would star in Dishonored 2 since the day Bethesda dubbed Dishonored a series-starter (which was itself within a week of that game's launch, so it's been a while). There were whispers of "Wouldn't it be cool if Emily..." in the in-between space, but the thought of the little girl under Corvo's care in the original game becoming an assassin in her own right seemed unlikely. But if Dishonored is good at anything, it's making the unlikely work, and Dishonored 2's announcement was headlined by the assassin Empress herself ripping through a target's mechanical forces with brand-new black magic.
While the industry has made progress in recent years (and particularly at this E3) when it comes to showcasing interesting and admirable female characters, many developers are still reluctant to put a lady as the lead in a triple-A series. Not only did we get that out of Dishonored 2's announcement, which focused on Emily tearing her way through her mark's many defenses in cool and collected fashion, but the fact that Corvo will also be playable wasn't mentioned until after the conference was over. In an industry where a male protagonist will get first billing when both are an option, putting Emily forward as the face of the game is a shock - and a good one.
This was the first time that Square Enix has had its own E3 press conference in quite a while, but you wouldn't know it from the show itself: most of the publisher's big announcements were actually at the Sony show the night before. Still, there was at least one pleasant (and not completely undefined) surprise: a new Nier, coming from Platinum Games.
The untitled sequel (or prequel or side-quel or whatever it actually is) to the cult hit JRPG looks to star a white-haired young woman with a nice, sharp sword, but that's pretty much all we know for now - it's still super early in development, and we'll apparently learn fall. Still, the original Nier had some really cool ideas and a surprising story scattered amongst its many stumbling blocks, so hopefully Platinum can go back and do the premise justice.
The chances of this actually happening were always somewhere between England winning the World Cup and The Last Guardian actually being shown off. And Yu Suzuki teasing a picture of a forklift truck by saying he'd 'found this at E3' just seemed to be the trolliest thing he could have done. We've been hurt too many times before. Indeed, evidence suggests there was a story on this very website in 2005 saying that Shenmue 3 was likely to be announced later that year. Bollocks.
And even when Yu Suzuki himself took to the stage and asked for people to back Shenmue 3 on Kickstarter, it still seemed like the game would be thwarted. Surely there aren't enough people that care to be able to fund a $2 million game on Kickstarter? To everyone's immense surprise (probably Suzuki's too), the game hit that target in mere hours. And now it's happening. Shenmue 3 is happening. Time to put in a betting slip on England, just in case…
Some of us never gave up hope of seeing The Last Guardian again. Even as the years ticked by, and Fumito Ueda left the project, some of us still believed that the game was actually fundamentally complete - it just needed finishing and, perhaps, porting to PS4.
Well, it looks like that is exactly what's happened. And Ueda-san himself was even in the audience to take a bow. Granted, the game still looks a little last-gen (another surprise, eh?) and I'd bet anything that you will get unintentionally killed by an overly-affectionate nuzzling giant rat thing pushing you off a precarious walkway more than once. But if it can capture even 50% of Ico or Shadow of the Colossus' magic, then that can all be excused. Some of us (the same ones, admittedly) still believe this could be another classic. But its existence is enough, either way.
This whole VR thing seems to be getting out of hand. Oculus, Sony, Valve, and now Starbreeze are all making their own headsets that attempt to put you inside the action like a Keanu Reeves film (take your pick). But when Microsoft finally showed us what HoloLens can actually do (and with Minecraft, no less!), our jaws were suitably dropped.
Instead of putting you inside the game, Hololens puts the game in the real world. It's like those AR Cards that come with your 3DS, but by strapping the visor on, your entire field of view can display game objects in your living room. Microsoft demonstrated this by giving us a bird's-eye view of a world inside Minecraft. You can interact with the world like some digital god, picking up, moving, and placing new objects, peeking your head inside buildings, raising the world up to look underground, and even summoning lightning strikes. It's an impressive tech demo, and we can't wait to see what comes next for HoloLens.
“This was a hellacious undertaking – much more than when we signed up for it.” So said Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park: The Stick of Truth, back in March 2014. Given the rocky history of the South Park game (which switched publishers, and got multiple delays that meant it released onto old hardware, post-PS4/XO launch) a sequel seemed near-impossible. And yet we got news of a second game, Fractured But Whole (lol etc) at Ubi’s press conference.
In fact, Ubi is clearly both proud and confident of the series, as it decided to open the whole press conference with the reveal. And quite rightly so: Stick of Truth is an impressive RPG that flourished on supposedly ‘old’ tech last year. So, it’s a surprise that a sequel exists - given the history - but a very, very welcome one.
Skylanders toys are incredibly popular. Amiibo figures are incredibly popular. So, like mixing peanut butter and chocolate to make a delicious (if terribly fattening) snack, Nintendo and Vicarious Visions are teaming up to bring Nintendo characters Donkey Kong and Bowser to Skylanders: SuperChargers. The iconic ape and turtle ... thing ... will be equipped with new gear such as a flaming warhammer, and will also be compatible with unique vehicles in which to ride.
What made this partnership even more surprising is that back when Skylanders was little more than an idea, Nintendo rejected the idea of publishing the toys-to-life game. Now that the genre has become deeply ingrained into popular culture, it looks like Nintendo and the Skylanders franchise are ready to kiss and make up. It's heartwarming, really.
Honestly, this thought must have crossed every Xbox One owner's mind as they stare at their collection of Xbox 360 games starting to collect dust on the shelf. We've only got so many HDMI ports on these tellies, you know. But then, totally out of the blue, there it is: an announcement that Xbox One will have full backwards compatibility. And you don't have to pay anything extra for content you already own.
Of course, it's a rather lackluster line-up of games that are supported at present. And the chances of getting OutRun Online Arcade snapped alongside Game of Thrones is unlikely due to the license expiration issue. And you don't really play the games off the discs you own - you put them in and then download the game in question to your hard drive. But even so, it's way better than nothing and put a big smile on a lot of faces.
And before you ask, no, it's not a Conker semi-sequel exclusive to Project Spark (thank God). Sea of Thieves is the pirate MMO you've wanted ever since you mirthfully tittered at Jack Sparrow's antics in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it looks to have that trademark Rare spark of whimsy and adventure that made us fall in love with the developer back in the day. The lush, tropical environments and seafaring exploration shown in the debut trailer will shiver your timbers, even if that sounds like a massive HR violation.
What we saw of Sea of Thieves during infused with even more vibrant color and a hint of the supernatural (i.e. a bunch of swashbuckling skeletons). And if the online collaboration works as advertised, starting up a pirate crew of your very own should be an incredible experience, even if the captain puts you on on poopdeck-swabbing duty between battles.
It has been too long since the last Ghost Recon game. When Ubi announced it was going to close out its conference with a reinvention of a classic franchise, and we first saw a camera pan of that skull (a long time Ghost Recon image)... we just knew. And to be clear, the world is a better place with an open-world, utterly beautiful, wonderfully violent Ghost Recon game in it.
Ubi was a massive tease about it too, only revealing the name of the game right at the end of the footage (when, admittedly, most had guessed it anyway). Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, is how well the Ghost Recon brand seems to mesh with the free-form gameplay offered by large, open spaces. It may be ‘just another shooter’ to some, but this has the potential to be rather special.
I’m not really sure what’s going on in Recore’s larger game, but here’s what I do know: you can resurrect your mechanical doggie friend as a larger doggie friend. Or maybe he’s more gorilla-like in his new body. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Mechanical animal pals with what I assume to be a “core” of the title at their center, which can be moved from metal frame to metal frame, allowing your companion to essentially shapeshift. It seems likely that this ability will be core (I’m sorry, I really am) to the gameplay.
One thing I also know is that Recore stars a young woman, who’s picking fights in a desert landscape with large technobeasts as she searches for...what? Not treasure, at least not of the gold and shiny kind, but something precious, almost certainly. There was very much a Lara Croft vibe going on with the small bit of action we saw, though in a most inhospitable landscape. Recore is quite a welcome surprise addition to the roster of Xbox One exclusives.
In a show like , which was full of slick-looking sequels, the wholly original For Honor stood out like a sword in a stone. It plays to the fantasy fun of Deadliest Warrior, where combatants from different time periods somehow find themselves in a Dark Ages Dynasty Warriors feud. And while any brand new game is always exciting, For Honor is most surprising for one simple fact: it looks stellar.
Sure, the idea of multiplayer-focused matches between sword-wielding savages isn't new, per se - PC games like Mount Blade and War of the Vikings have been doing that for years. But the concept comes to life when mixed with Ubisoft's production values: the graphics look stellar, the animations are forceful, and the warriors themselves all look like powerful, armored bruisers. We weren't planning for one of our most anticipated multiplayer games from E3 to involve steel swords instead of lightsabers, but now we've seen For Honor, and here we are.
During its press conference, EA managed to get World Cup winning football legend Pele onto its stage. Pele is arguably the most well-known footballer of all time, so his presence should be a Big DealTM. No-one expected this year’s FIFA to carry so much clout, especially as it’s a (largely) European sport at a (largely) American show. We have to admit, we were quietly impressed when he appeared on stage. And then…
...things took a turn for the worst. When asked to tell a story about how he coined the phrase ‘the beautiful game’, Pele simply said “No” (which rather stunned EA’s host) and started to go on a long-winded monologue about Brazil and Swedish women instead. While what he was saying was vaguely interesting, it totally killed the momentum of EA’s show. So much so, that we decided to make a meme out of the scenario, which blew up on Twitter. And that was quite surprising too…
The Nintendo World Championships were pretty great, filled with thrilling competition and plenty of heart-pounding moments, but the biggest surprise came during the pre-show, when EarthBound creator Shigesato Ioti appeared on screen and delivered a personal, heartfelt speech about what the series means to him, and announced the arrival of EarthBound Beginnings on the Wii U eShop.
Why is this a big deal? Well, for one, it marks the arrival of a game that had already been fully translated and prepped for release on the NES back in 1990, but was cancelled because it was deemed to be a waste of money - a niche game in a niche market. With EarthBound Beginnings' release in the Wii U eShop, Nintendo is continuing to admit that this series does in fact exist outside of Japan. It also makes the future of of the series on North America and Europe much more exciting. Could we see an official release of Mother 3 on our shores? EarthBound Beginnings' existence makes it more likely than ever.
The Star Wars universe is by now so stuffed with detail that Wookiepedia sometimes feels closer to reality than the more-often vandalised Wikipedia does. Given that DICE is now .
In fact, we got a sense of that depth in just five minutes, when we saw the at EA's E3 conference. Those with a keen eye (or, yes, keen fingers and a browser open on a certain in-universe online encyclopedia) can spot some very neat details - both references to the films and the fabric of the game - in the course of one highly-scripted gameplay trailer. Here come my favourites.
The outfits, the AT-ATs - everything in the trailer is designed to give you a pleasant little shiver of nostalgia. But that verisimillitude runs far deeper than surface level. There's no such thing as "the" blaster - and this trailer proves it.
Almost every character we see is carrying a different variant of the humble laser gun, from rapid-fire hand pistols to hulking heavy machine gun-looking bastards. Each one's a direct reference to one of the hundreds(!) of variations in the Star Wars universe - more power to DICE for giving each one a distinctive feel.
That's not to say DICE hasn't brought a few inventions of its own along. Most obviously, there's a hitherto-unseen grenade being used by Empire troops here. While they do carry around the faithful Thermal Detonators (seen on the left of the equipment panel above), there appears to be a one-time-use grenade that can be picked as heavy equipment, too. When thrown, it creates a blast, which quickly implodes and explodes again, seemingly insta-killing anyone in its radius. Don't be surprised to see some extra flourishes here and there.
If this is true, it's proof-positive of DICE's total commitment to Star Wars nerdery. See those binoculars that a Rebel player uses at the beginning of the trailer? Well, they're not your regular binoculars - they're electrobinoculars, tech-enhanced looking glasses used throughout the film series and beyond.
But blow the trailer up to HD and you can see just what they look like up close - look that up and you find out these are a specific brand of electrobinoculars. , to be precise. And where were they used in the film series? The Battle of Hoth. Along with the cold-resistant Stormtrooper armour on show in the demo, it seems DICE might not just be faithfully representing classic films, but single moments within them.
When the player takes control of Luke Skywalker at the end of the trailer, the panel we've seen used for equipment or weapon types on vehicles and lesser characters suddenly becomes a little more focused. That symbol on the left denotes the Force Push, we've seen that much, but the others are left unused.
The traditional Blaster-blocking doesn't appear to be one of them - looking closer, I'd suggest the top one looks like a charge attack and, thinking a little more wildly, the one on the right could be a Yoda-style lightsaber-throw technique. Whatever it is, there's some flashy fun we're not privy to yet.
The film's Hoth battle only featured humans on the Rebel side, but Battlefront's clearly willing to play fast and loose with tradition on this count. That's a Sullustan you can see shamelessly invoking the good name of Porkins above, and Greedo-style Rodians are milling about, too.
There are a few other changes to the timeline. Most obviously, Luke's in his Return of the Jedi turtleneck phase - but there are also Alliance fleet warships hanging (and occasionally exploding) in the sky alongside the Empire Star Destroyers.
Look, I'd probably take whatever I was given if it came to the chance to fly a Star Wars spaceship, but I'd definitely be a little bit sad if it wasn't a TIE Fighter. The evil, winged billiard balls are objectively cooler than anything else going in the universe - and they've got the moves to prove it here.
Watch the player in the Y-Wing earlier in the trailer - it's a fairly standard, plane-style flying experience. X-Wings seem to follow a similar pattern. Then watch the section where a TIE Fighter swerves upwards to avoid an Ion Cannon obstacle - it shoots vertically into the air, then inverts almost on the spot to give chase to an X-Wing. It's a move that shows off just how tricky the little fighter is - another piece of detail that feeds into the gameplay.
Check out the guy taking point on that Rebel squad in the ravine - he's using some kind of personal, portable shield to soak up fire. We see a bubble shield later in the trailer (used, brilliantly, to deflect an orbital bombardment), but that doesn't look as though it can be picked up or moved. It seems DICE has a few more tricks up its sleeve.
This one's very easy to miss. Look into the distance while an Empire player takes up the gunner position on an AT-AT - there's a faint blue circle in the distance (used to denote friendlies while you're in vehicles), which, after a flurry of blaster fire, turns into an explosion.
That explosion is absolutely miles away, comfortably further than any other unit we can see. The way it lights up the ground implies it could be a walking unit, too, not just a TIE Fighter swooping in from outside the stage. Are we only seeing a portion of Hoth?
For all the flashy graphics, cool moves, and complex combos, a fighting game is only as good as its cast. Without a strong roster of compelling, unique fighters to choose from, brawls will end up feeling kinda 'meh'. But Capcom's legendary Street Fighter series has always offered a diverse range of awesome characters - and it looks like will be no different. Whereas Street Fighter 4 put a lot of emphasis on its eccentric newcomers, SF5 looks like it'll bring back old favorites - with a few new twists.
Only a handful of fighters have been revealed so far, but rumors are always afoot about who might secure a spot in the roster. We've rounded up all the for-sure fighters who will be in SF5 - and just for the fun of it, included our picks for some hopefuls (or ridiculous long-shots) that might make a return. So, which character will you be choosing as your go-to main? Time to make your selection.
These guys and gals will definitely be in Street Fighter 5.
It simply wouldn't be Street Fighter without series frontman Ryu. With his iconic gi, noble fighting spirit, and fireballs aplenty, Ryu is back to kick some butt in SF5. As always, his suite of specials - hadokens, shoryukens, and hurricane kicks - make him a well-rounded fighter that can deal with any situation, against any opponent. Ryu's the kind of character that appeals to beginners and veterans alike, thanks to his versatility and timeless moveset.
In SF5, Ryu seems to have retained his signature moves - including his normal attacks, such as the crouching medium kick that easily combos into a point-blank hadoken. His V-abilities are also perfect for anyone who loved Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Ryu's V-Skill is a parry (the only one in the game), while his V-Trigger, Denjin Renki, lets him power up fireballs for extra guard-breaking power.
The first lady of fighting games is back, and it looks like her kung fu is better than ever. You no doubt know Chun-Li for her adorable hair buns, spiked bracelets, and thigh muscles that look beefy enough to snap bones like twigs. Like Ryu, Chun-Li has her standard special moves at the ready: lightweight kikoken projectiles, lightning legs that strike like a machine gun, and a variety of tricky flip kicks that can throw opponents off-balance.
Her playstyle favors agility over big damage, but Chun-Li's more than capable of some devastating combos and meaty hits. Counter to Ryu's lightning-based V-Trigger, Chun-Li enhances herself with the power of flowing water, which makes her normal attacks deal additional hits. Her V-Skill also enables tons of tricky mix-ups, since she does a short hop into the air.
In English versions of Street Fighter, he's Charlie; in Japanese, he's Nash. Convenient, then, that his full name clears up any possibility of mistaken identity. Charlie is a staple of the Street Fighter Alpha series, before he met a heroic end saving Guile and Chun-Li from a fatal explosion. So if he's dead, how is he back for SF5? One look at his new form, which appears to be bits and pieces of rotting flesh stapled together like Frankenstein's monster, should provide some answers.
Not only has Charlie's appearance changed - he also has some new game-changing special moves in addition to his previous toolkit of sonic booms and flash kicks. Through some kind of strange magic (no doubt related to the jewel embedded in his forehead), Charlie can now teleport around the screen for devious mix-up opportunities. He's also got a face-electrifying command grab, and his V-Trigger lets him instantly dash in any direction. Crazy!
For us, the moment M. Bison returned to Street Fighter was the most important day of our lives. But for him... it was Tuesday. The classic big bad of Street Fighter is back, and that head of white hair under his trademark cap indicates that yes, the ol' dictator can actually age. Known for his mighty Psycho Crusher and unrelenting Scissor Kicks, M. Bison is the perfect fit for players that like to apply pressure on their opponents and never let up.
In addition to his lightning-fast teleport, it looks like Bison will have another tool to get close to fighters that like to keep him at bay: a projectile reflector that sends a burst of Psycho energy back at whoever's chucking fireballs. And his V-Trigger mode lets Bison unleash his raw Psycho power on the poor opponent, complete with devastating double-headstomps and additional hits on his Scissor Kicks.
SPIRAL ARROW! Prepare to protect your legs for dear life, because Cammy's probably going to kick her way clear through your shins. This British special forces agent has been a fan favorite ever since her debut as a new challenger in Super Street Fighter 2, getting by without a projectile thanks to her screen-crossing dive attacks. Cammy's one of the most nimble, tricky-to-read fighters in the whole franchise, and her extensive, finesse-demanding combos always get spectators pumped up.
In SF5, one of Cammy's existing moves has become an invaluable asset: the Axel Spinknuckle, which is now her V-Skill. This attack was already pretty effective at throwing your rival off-balance in previous games, but it can actually pass through opponents in SF5, making it one of the simplest and most effective cross-up attacks imaginable. Cammy's V-Trigger, Delta Drive, also makes all her special moves safer by giving them similar phase-through properties. Your enemies will be spinning in circles trying to figure out which way they should block.
We never would've guessed it before, but this stylish punk from the streets of England is back after being AWOL since Street Fighter Alpha 3. Birdie seems to have neglected his workout regimen, since he's got a spare tire where his six-pack used to be. That might have to do with his voracious appetite for junk food, a new character trait that factors into his existing chain-grabbing moveset. Basically, this is Birdie by way of SF4's Rufus, minus his iconic mohawk with the physically impossible circle in the middle.
Birdie's suite of V-Gauge abilities all revolve around food. His V-Trigger, called Enjoy Time, has him scarf down a hot pepper and go red with heat, adding extra damage and guard-break to his attacks. And his three distinct V-Skills feel like something out of Smash Bros.: Birdie can gulp down a donut for a V-Gauge boost, a banana for a stationary, opponent-tripping peel, or an energy drink which he rolls along the ground as a projectile. And Birdie's never sated - every match ends with him hungrily digging into a pastry that's the size of a small child.
These characters are likely to be included in SF5's roster, but there's no official word from Capcom as of yet.
Acting as the American yin to Ryu's Japanese yang, Ken Masters is as much a part of the series as his trusty sparring partner. His trademark fiery dragon punch is always a crowd-pleaser, and Ken's quicker hurricane kicks offer just enough variety to distinguish his Shotokan fighting style from Ryu's (they did study under the same master, after all). Plus, what would flowchart following gamers do without him?
Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger Uppercut! With the way people gravitated to him when SF4 first debuted, Sagat seems like a no-brainer addition to the hypothetical SF5 roster. Less of a villain and more of a principled antihero, Sagat's eye patch, scar, and obsession with moves named after large feral cats are all a well-established part of Street Fighter lore. We're just hoping that, if he is in SF5, he won't be as overpowered as he was in his first SF4 incarnation.
Of the four brand-new fighters to be introduced in the Street Fighter 4 roster, Viper's the one with the most staying power. Capcom set out to create a cool, technically complex heroine that felt like she could belong in the King of Fighters universe, and the result was a hit with players who don't mind difficult inputs for combos. Plus, her part in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 made her something of a hit - her crazy Seismic Hammer and Thunder Knuckle setups are always a sight to behold.
Believe it or not, Poison had never been playable until Street Fighter X Tekken (unless you somehow picked up the ridiculously obscure Final Fight Revenge). But popular demand spurred Yoshinori Ono to include her in the game, and the resulting elation following her announcement was an encouraging sign for fans of the transgendered fighter. Now, with two fighting games under her belt - including a strong showing in Ultra Street Fighter 4 - there's no reason Poison can't come back for SF5.
Here's another female fighter who should totally stick around for SF5. Ibuki makes up for her relatively weak damage by having some of the trickiest mobility in the game, letting a skilled player dash circles around their confused opponent. Adding her to the Super Street Fighter 4 roster was a stroke of genius, and her aerial attacks and kunai-tossing work just as well in 2.5D as they do in regular ol' 2D.
Alright, we could probably go on stating obvious character inclusions all day. Blanka, Zangief, E. Honda, Dhalsim - we have no doubt in our minds that they'd make the cut for SF5, and if they're ever confirmed, we'll gladly add them to the list. But it's interesting to hypothesize about the borderline characters; fighters who have enough clout to sneak their way into the SF5 roster. The more the merrier, we say, so if Capcom sees fit to include the followings fighters, we'd be delighted.
Despite only appearing in Street Fighter Alpha 3, Karin’s a fan favorite who never misses the chance to demean her assailants. Born into the rich Kanzuki family, Karin fancies herself to be Sakura's rival after Sakura trounced her in a scuffle. Like Dudley, she’s always accompanied by her loyal butler; unlike Dudley, she rarely treats her butler with much respect. But all is forgiven when you see her crazy kick loops in the corner!
Everyone's favorite loincloth-wearing tyrant deserves to make the jump to 3D. Ever since he debuted in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, he's been a fairly popular mid-to-high-tier character, knee-dropping and Chariot Tackle-ing his opponents into oblivion. His Aegis Reflector super move can also be a game-changer, bouncing back incoming projectiles and setting up nasty unblockables on knockdown. We'd gladly welcome this metal-controlling megalomaniac into the SF5 roster.
When it comes to Capcom games, Maki’s been around the digital block. First appearing in Final Fight 2 as an analogue for the absent Guy, Maki resurfaced in Capcom vs SNK 2 before finally landing a gig in the Street Fighter lineage, with a slot in the Street Fighter Alpha 3 ports for the Game Boy Advance and PSP. Like Guy, she's another disciple of the Bushin-ryu style, using her tonfa to lay the smackdown on Mad Gear goons and rivals alike. Maki and Ibuki would get along like ninja peas in a pod.
It seems like SF fans have been quietly waiting to see the triumphant return of Q. This terribly mysterious fighter might be man, machine, or monster - no one's seen underneath his metal mask and lived to tell about it. His fighting style is also quite unlike any other character in the series' history: a sort of lanky, lumbering brute that can withstand absurd amounts of punishment when played correctly. Something tells us that Q is just enough of an oddball sleeper hit to make it into the next game.
This zany pro wrestler has only appeared in Street Fighter Alpha 3, but she gets a nod in SFxT via Kuma's alternate costume. With her ridiculously impractical attire and a grappling style fashioned after Zangief's piledrivers, R. Mika deserves life in 3D for the next crossover. Like Hugo, she utilizes her butt as a weapon, flinging herself into the opponent backside first for maximum damage. It's all for her fans, and the Japanese wrestler's moxie comes through in her win quotes: "Don't underestimate me! I believe in my dreams!"
So, which fighter are you planning to play as (or hoping makes a comeback)? Let us know in the comments below!
Wow, we weren't expecting this. Ubisoft opens with incredibly meta trailer for an all-new South Park adventure. Instead of playing as fantasy-RPG LARPers, Cartman and friends don superhero costumes in South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are working with Ubisoft San Francisco (and not original devs Obsidian), and it's all abo- hey, I just got the title. Dammit.
Doom isn't just another shooter. It's a very important game with a very specific feel, purpose and tone. It's not just about shooting monsters. It's about shooting a particularly disgusting breed of Hellspawn at a particular speed, while ducking around with a particularly giddy, kinetic sort of movement. Its combat must be deceptively clever, and its violence must be brutal and cartoonish all at the same time. So has this here new Doom got it right? Having fine-toothed my way through all the new E3 footage (campaign trailer, multiplayer trailer, and extended stage demo), I reckon the answer is a resounding 'Yes!'.
I've slow-moed the footaged, and screen-grabbed the crap out of my findings, so click on as we peer through the murk of low-res web-streams to pick out the quintissentially Doomy gems hidden within.
Skreeeeeee! You know that sound. That shrill, metallic scraping that indicates that you have entered a fresh new room and are ready to Doom your way all over its wretched inhabitants. It's less a sound effect, more a glorious, chest-beating battlecry, and it's in the new Doom trailers multiple times.
AKA, At Doom's Gate. AKA, the greatest FPS theme music ever written. 'Inspired' by a whole bunch of 'proper' metal, but remixed into something immensely more, air-punchingly triumphant, Bobby Prince's E1M1 theme has been modernised (but not too much) for the main Doom trailer, and that officially makes it Doom.
Yup, you can definitely see those in the multiplayer trailer. That’s Doom’s dual armour/health system to return then. And speaking of which...
Those tube-like pick-ups are really rather reminiscent of Doom 3's large health packs. Does that mean that regen is definitely out then? No it does not. But it does mean that collectible health is definitely going to be a thing. ie. Get the hell out from behind that cover, you wuss, and get on with killing some things. And speaking of killing some things...
Perfect. It's just perfect. Glorious, in fact. The first time you see the Super Shotgun splatter a zombie in the main gameplay trailer, it hits a fairly wide group of three and tears through the lot of them with a single shot, evaporating the first and blowing the merry crap out of the other two. That is how a double-barrelled shotgun should work in Doom. We can continue.
This will be your new soldier zombie, I reckon. He's not visibly carrying a shotgun, but he does look like a meaty, but distinctly human, bastarded, outfitted with military armour and technology. These will be the guys you'll be mowing down for ammo drops, then.
There is a saw. It has a chain. It is ripping through a monster with disgusting aplomb. Enough said.
Seriously, would you look at how kinetic this thing is. Doomguy is always moving. Doomguy is always moving fast. And most importantly. Doomguy is always moving forward. Moving forward and killing without stopping. All of this is correct.
Doomguy runs. Doomguy vaults. Doomguy lands and kills a thing. Then he runs to what looks like the end of the level, leaps straight over, and kills a buttload of things 50 feet below him. We are not looking at Doom 3's claustrophobic corridor horror here. This is big, rangey, omnidirectional combat that allows you to explode out at anything you want wherever it may be. DOOM! And on a related note…
Praise Satan for this. Giant arenas, a fantastic sense of space and scale. All the freedom of combat strategy that comes with that. And best of all, that opens the scope right up for...
This is how Doom combat works. One or two big, scary, f*ck-you monsters as your main targets, throwing down the big fire, and a whole mob of smaller, quicker, more focused mooks making your life a living nightmare by getting in the way, running distraction, and trying to limit your movement. Until, that is, you combine strategy with viscerality, and go all one-man RTS with a chaingun to take them down. Speaking of which...
Particularly in the Hell-set part of the on-stage demo, Doomguy does not stop. He's ducking, he's weaving, he's decapitating, he's whirling past big enemies to take out their mooks, before coming back to the big guys with bigger guns, and crucially, he's always, always switching weapons. That's a big old weapon wheel right there, and with the game slowing - but never stopping - when he opens it up, that means you'll have total tactical freedom to use what you want, when you want, to destroy who you want, on a second-by-second, monster-to-individual-monster basis.
My, that rich blue glow up there... Could it... Could it be a Soulsphere? AKA the Supercharge pick-up, AKA, 'Watch out goons, I have 200% health and I'm coming through'? Yes. Yes it could. And it is. But of course it's placed tantalisingly in view, but desperately out of reach, up on a high, high platform with seemingly half a mile of non-linear exploration and a couple of impossible-looking jumps between you and it. Of course it is, because that is the Doom way, and this is Doom.
I haven't seen it happen clearly yet, but there are teleports in Doom multiplayer, so there will be telefrags. Splash.
Remember the old Berzerk pack in the original Doom? That delightful mmedical care package that turned you into a flame-eyed brute capable of punching a demon into soup with a single hit? It seems you don't need it any more. Do enough damage to an enemy, and a ludicrous melee mangling is yours for the grabbing. Thats' just How Things Work now. Because Doom.
And good Lord, does he look chunky and rather up for a fight this time. That’s how we want our big Doom monsters to look. Huge, imposing, slight cartoonish, and utterly, utterly unintimidated by how expertly we’ve been slaughtering their minions. New Doom Cyberdemon, you are a thoroughly acceptable Cyberdemon.
Because that is how you deal with Cyberdemons. DOOOOOOOM!
Fallout 4 is properly, actually real. Bethesda has shown it off at E3, with a load of gameplay footage showing how the game begins and offering a few glimpses of what you can expect to be doing for the next hundred or so hours of your life once you get your hands on it. Which will be this, year, by the way, as soon as November 10. No, I cant wait either.
I've taken a look through the footage and pulled out some of the juiciest, most tantalisingly awesome stuff from what's been shown so far. None of the following slides are radioactive (correct at time of publication) so click on through and enjoy at your leisure...
Things seem to have moved on in the Fallout universe. Society is starting to recover, and tech is improving once again. So, it’s not a huge surprise to see you can call in a gyrocopter by dropping a smoke grenade / flare, then board it and ‘ride shotgun’ as it hoons around the wasteland. And of course there’s a minigun to shoot with, while you fly. Whether this is a regular ‘taxi’ style mechanic, or a freeform thing, or just an on-rails section… it looks damn cool. And yes, later in the gameplay footage, we see our hero shooting a gyrocopter down with the new rocket-launcher weapon. So I’m guessing not all that flies is friendly.
Yeah, you read that correctly. Looks like there’s a weapon in the game that lets you fling junk items at enemies. In the footage, it’s a teddy bear that our hero launches at his foe. He scores a critical hit and… in true Fallout fashion it totally disintegrates the bad guy’s head. Wondefully ludicrous. You’ll be able to launch all manner of junk items with this weapon, so they’ll actually become useful. In previous games, junk is stuff you pick up and sell if you’re really poor, or it’s crap that clogs up your inventory as you search for weapon / item blue-prints. Frankly, I can’t wait to wing a ghoul with a toy car.
This looks brilliant. If you though the coolest bit of Avatar was the mech-like armour suits (I know, it's like Aliens too, but that film was all cool, so it's hardly a standout moment), then you're in for a treat here. Looks like not only does the suit have its own HUD, extreme offensive capabilities and look damn awesome, it's even got a freakin' minigun. Granted, that probably comes under 'extreme offensive capabilities, but worth mentioning twice, I think.
Awww, doesn't it look lovely? This is what Fallout 4 looks like before the fallout. Look at those cars! It's like the future, only if the future had happened in the 1950s. It doesn't appear to be completely free to explore, but you do have movement around your gorgeous home...
I suppose you'd call this foreshadowing, but the 'Sugar Bombs' and 'Nuka Cola' are tempting fate a little, no? You also get to converse with your service robot, who it turns out survives the blast and meets back up with you two hundred years into the future. At which point he declares you are "two centuries late for dinner". Oh, the lols...
A Vault-Tec representative wants to know some more about you when he calls at your door, which is the game's way of getting you to choose your starting stats. That's pretty darn neat. All the stats screens appear to be accompanied by the familiar Vault-Tec mascot Vault Boy, who animates according to which option you're tweaking. The game has been in development for the past 4 years, and it really shows in all the little details like this.
And it will! It's like having your very own... well, dog. It's unconfirmed whether you need to carry little plastic bags with you and clean up after the damn thing, but I'm guessing that enforcing laws on dog fouling are low on the list of priorities for people living in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. It does have its uses, though, as it will pick up items and bring them to you. Why risk your own life when you have a faithful, trusting, good-natured animal to exploit? Exactly.
While many aspects of Fallout 4 seem more civilised than previous games, I’m guessing that sports like golf, basketball, and polo haven’t made a comeback quite yet. Instead, there seems to be some kind of fight-to-the-death arena in this game instead. Footage shows one fighter gloating over the ‘oh my god, he isn’t moving’ body of a competitor. Seems likely you’ll be able to watch, take part in, and maybe even bet on fights to the death. Cool.
A big cheer went up when the VATS system was shown in the demo, as it's one of Fallout's best-loved features. Granted, it was always going to be in the new game, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate it. In case you're unaware, it's a slow-motion weapons system where you can target individual areas of an enemy's body, then watch as your ultra-gory shot plays out in delicious, gloopy detail.
Look! It's a Pipboy version of Donkey Kong! There's also a Missile Command-style game too, fully playable. Apparently there are more. Even better, if you buy the Collectors' Edition version of Fallout 4, you'll get a real-life Pipboy that fits on your wrist and acts as a case for your smartphone, on which you can download an app that's just like the in-game Pipboy. Amazing.
Ah, sweet, sweet overkill. What could be better than carrying a shoulder-mounted nuclear rocket launcher and using it to blast but one foe into tiny little pieces? Carrying a shoulder-mounted, nuclear rocket launcher and using using it to blast but one for into tiny little pieces on new-gen, that's what. Kaboom! That's going to smart in the morning.
A conversation takes place between you and your wife/husband, depending on which sex you choose for your character. While this is happening, you can morph your appearance in real-time. A longer nose, a different ethnic origin... the game even goes so far as to make an amalgam of both characters' appearances and create a plausible baby from its parents.
You can play as a man or a woman in Fallout 4, but it would appear that clothes are not restricted by gender. You can wear everything from a diving bell-like helmet to a suit and teddy bear head combination. Frank West from Dead Rising would be so proud. Hey - at least this red one won't show up the blood, right?
Yep, the big bear-like Yao Guai beasties are back. These Fallout stalwarts are mega-aggressive, big and strong. Obviously not a great combination if they take exception to your presence. Know what it calls for? That's right - an even bigger gun. There's also a Deathclaw in the trailer, and a Murkmire Queen, so if you're a fan of the series, you'll feel right at home. Y'know, as you die horribly.
The open world looks absolutely massive, and we are promised that the remains of downtown Boston will be available to explore. This is exciting. So exciting in fact, it's worth reiterating that this Fallout 4 will be released this November on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Yes, it does sound too good to be true. Let's not mention the dreaded 'D' word. Have faith. What's the worst that could happen...?
For the first time, Bethesda is putting on its own E3 press conference. With all of the buildup of having a making an appearance, Bethesda really set out to build anticipation for its presentation and make a huge impression. Now that the show is over, it's time to review what we just saw. With that, welcome to our recap.
If you missed out on the announcements, worry not. We watched the entire thing, wrote a bunch of news articles about it, and summed up everything in one place. All you need to do to catch up is scroll through this gallery. So go ahead, get all of the most important information from the Bethesda press conference on the following slides.
Doom has never looked this fast or fluid before. An extended gameplay demo showed off what looks to be some kind of space base or factory over-run with hellspawn. The biggest thing to take away is the fluidity - it almost turns into a ballet of blood and bullets as the layer deftly maneuvers around the the corridors, clambering onto platforms, and exploding enemies into so many ludicrous gibs. And the game never seems to skip a beat, maintaining an almost hyper-realistic level of smoothness - even when time slows down when you select a gun from the weapon wheel. There's also incredible levels of detail, whether you're looking at a high-res monitor or the etchings on a new shotgun. Classic weapons return, like the plasma rifle, and the chainsaw - and yeah, it's as gory as you think it is, with demons splitting in half like a knife through butter. And you've even got finishing moves that let you rip an enemy's face apart.
It's Doom, so it's gonna get multiplayer, but you're also not limited to what multiplayer modes and maps that Id has cooked up. Doom Snapmap lets you create own competitive and co-operative multiplayer game types, and it looks like there's going to be a ridiculous amount of variety for you to dig into. You can start from predefined modes or make full custom games by editing the map layouts, the item placement, and even the game logic to make your own game-within-a-game.
It'll be hitting Xbox One, PS4, and PC some time early next year, and it's bringing back the classic weapons and shooting you love, with a few modern twists. We're talking, of course, about the giant green plasma shots of the unmistakable BFG.
Looks like Bethesda's making its own online system along the lines of Blizzard's Battle.net. You'll be able to access account details, games, statistics, and more. And the first game that will be offered on the service will be the upcoming Battlecry.
Bethesda's free-to-play online shooter/MOBA type thing will be hitting this fall, but if you're interested in a sneak peek, you can sign up for beta access now at battlecrythegame.com. Sign up before June 18th for priority access.
What a twist! In Dishonored 2, you'll be playing as Emily Kaldwin - fans will recognize her as the Queen's daughter from the first game. A CGI trailer shows a city in turmoil, as soldiers line up civilians and massacre them. Plague appears to be spreading through the town. And Emily traipses across a steampunk city with tentacles that shoot out of her arm and pull her around like a grappling hook. Nothing else was shown outside of this trailer, but it'll be coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC… some time.
Only a brief sizzle reel was shown, so not much else is known. But it'll be a free-to-play game coming to mobile and PC.
On the Media's is a frank, concise set of guidelines to remember whenever you're trying to parse developing events from the modern diaspora of information sources. Of course, confusing, conflicting sources aren't nearly as common in video games, where much of the story proceeds in an orderly fashion based on whatever information game companies decide to dole out.
But that doesn't mean you should take everything you see at face value. Inspired by OTM, I’ve decided to offer some tips to help you rise above the hype cycle, starting with its dubstep-throbbing heart: trailers. By the time you're done with this guide, you'll be ready to enjoy E3 - which is like Christmas, New Year's Eve, and a stock market opening ceremony rolled into one for hype - with high hopes and pragmatic expectations.
Pre-rendered trailers have been a fixture of video game marketing for decades, but up until recent years they've been more of a proof-of-concept than a potential source of confusion. Unfortunately, as gaming visuals creep closer and closer toward photo-realism, it's become easier to mix them up with actual scenes of gameplay, or at least to conclude that they're real parts of the game with an extra layer of post-production polish.
That's not a safe assumption, and trying to draw any conclusions about a game beyond basic stuff like "this is what the protagonist looks like" and "she fights with a gun / sword" from a trailer produced by people otherwise uninvolved with the game is a bad idea. Watch this to get a better feel for what state-of-the-art CGI trailers can look like.
Even if you're certain that you're seeing a game in motion, don't assume it's the game you'll actually get to play. Much can change between an impressive reveal video and release, as was infamously demonstrated by Watch Dogs: the actual game, which released in May 2014, was notably than the live demonstration Ubisoft gave two years earlier.
It's unlikely that Ubisoft was actually trying to deceive anyone with that first gameplay demonstration. But the subtle elements that make those kinds of visuals so impressive, like soft, ambient lighting, are also the first to fall when developers need to wring more performance out of uncooperative hardware (Watch Dogs' gameplay debuted before new-gen hardware was even locked down). Those little touches can make a big difference to your gut reaction, but try to focus on the bigger concepts for a more accurate - and less potentially disappointing - impression of the final product.
Marketers love to frontload trailers with scene-setting material: expository voiceovers, extreme close-ups on impressively rendered woodland creatures, slow panning shots of the hero's new and improved equipment. That's all fine if you're already invested in the game and are eager to see every little detail, but for everybody else, it means a lot of sitting around and hoping the interesting part will start soon.
Don't just wait for it to come to you! Instead, take hold of the scrub bar and skip to the last minute - that's where the actual game is likely to be hiding. At that point most trailers have gotten all their stylistic exposition out of their systems and are getting to what's actually going to be in the box. The last minute is also where you'll find pertinent details like a release date or console exclusivity (or pre-order bonuses).
It might feel like every big game of this generation has missed its release date by at least a month, but that isn't the case. Series like Call of Duty, Madden, and Assassin's Creed have a strict yearly schedule to adhere to, and while they might shift a few weeks from time to time, you can usually count on them to release like clockwork - relatively speaking. But if the game in question isn't part of an annualized franchise, then, well, don't go planning important life events around its release date.
Many factors dictate whether a game will be delayed and how long it may be pushed back. But a delay of six months is a good, cautious estimate to keep in mind: it's long enough for the developer to apply plenty of polish, and for games that were meant to hit the holiday rush to ship in the increasingly competitive spring months, or vice versa. If no date is mentioned at all, don't anticipate a release within the year.
Trailers will often throw out a few dozen quotes with positive-sounding phrases like 'breathtaking' or 'a must-play' in rapid succession, trying to give you the impression that the game has received unanimous praise from critics. But it's a good idea to apply some skepticism to whatever marketers tell you about their product, even when they quote a publication or person you trust to make their point.
Thankfully, you can still learn a lot from the 'acclaim', even if it's not quite what the marketers intended. Are the quotes mostly one or two words, or do they use a lot of ellipses? If so, the source of that quotation probably doesn't sound quite as congratulatory when read in full. On the other hand, if you don't recognize any of the sources - or perhaps you do, but not for their game coverage - you can conclude that the people cutting the trailer had to widen their search a bit to find positive snippets.
Rather than setting up important characters or events, some trailers are intended more to establish a certain tone. Dead Island's famed did little more than tell you that this is a game on an island with zombies in it, but its shocking imagery and reverse-spliced chronology did a phenomenal job portraying a bleak, hopeless atmosphere. Unfortunately, Dead Island's zombie-slaying loot-em-up action did little to follow through on that tone. That's an extreme example, but many other games have had their thematic ambition (or lack thereof) shown up by their own trailers.
On the other hand, if you find the video's tone immediately off-putting, you can go ahead and take it as a red flag. For instance, this , which (when it's not awkwardly cackling) talks about mixing hot sauce and testicles, was fairly faithful to the feel of the game itself. That is to say, pointlessly vulgar and lewd.
remains one of the most surprisingly impactful trailers ever made. It's attracted plenty of imitators since it first aired in 2006, many of whom took cues from how it introduced Marcus Fenix as both vulnerable and an ass-kicker, and the world of Sera as a place of broken beauty. Unfortunately, not every unlikely game-and-music pairing works equally well.
The good news is that, if a trailer's doesn't suit your musical tastes, you can pretty safely hit the mute button. Music video-styled trailers almost never include significant dialogue or sound effects, and when they do, it's easy to tell from the on-screen action, giving you plenty of time to unmute it.
You can only watch so many gun-wielding characters wage a desperate war against a seemingly insurmountable enemy before they all start to blend together. No matter how well-made they are, trailers released in and around E3 all have a difficult task in holding on to your attention. Rather than distinguishing their games solely through unique gameplay snippets or impressive visuals, some companies choose to add a little something extra around the edges of their presentations.
That's why EA prefaced its introduction of NBA Live 14 with a , a US government study that explored if and how society would break down in the event of a biological weapon attack. These attention-grabbing stunts are usually only tangentially related to the game itself, so feel free to grab a snack or check Twitter while you wait for the relevant part to begin.
By their nature, work on big, fancy trailers has to begin many months before their planned debut. But since huge changes often come about in the span of weeks in game development, that means promotional materials may end up not being completely accurate to the current state of production. Unfortunately, you can't push back the release of an E3 trailer the same way you can push back the actual game (or else it wouldn't be much of an E3 trailer).
Thus, placeholder assets or other outdated material will frequently appear in promotional videos.
That was likely at least part of the reason why Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Black Hand of Sauron was depicted as a tall, bald guy with a pointy face and a vaguely English accent in . But when the game launched in September, just a few months later, his nose and chin had receded a few inches, and he'd traded the orc-ney accent for the familiar voice of Nathan Drake, Desmond Miles, and The Penguin - Nolan North.
