… 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.

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.

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.