E3 2018: Day Four

Arguable the star of this event every year, Sony’s conference is also an out-and-out celebration of their teams, not just their work. To this point, they started the show with a live performance of music from The Last of Us, thanks to the incredible Gustavo Santaolalla and his trusty banjo, before diving straight in to game play from TLOU: Part II. Cheekily, Sony modelled their first tent after the building we seen in the cutscene, with some sort of party going on. I’m sure there’ll be some screeching from the usual suspects and “the gay feeeeeeeeemales in muh vidya games!”, as Ellie’s sexuality is confirmed, but we move past the intimate moments quickly and get straight to the brutal, visceral combat that made the first game so unique.

Ellie sneaks, slices, and shoots her way through a group of enemies in a reforested Seattle, and my God does this game look stunning. I know, I know, E3 vertical slice and bullshots; honestly though, this is Naughty Dog. I trust that when their gameplay visuals look as good as the cutscene that they aren’t messing around.

The critically acclaimed Dad of Boy got a little bit of love too, with a new game + mode coming soon, and interestingly there was some Call of Duty news too. Not only will Black Ops IV get 4 remastered maps as a preorder bonus, but those maps are coming to Black Ops III. And then Sony went ahead and Black Ops III an extra PS Plus title for the month, so people can pick it up for free today – neat! We also got a little glimpse into Destiny 2: Forsaken’s story, with Cayde-6 not looking so hot, and a look at what I assume will be the main antagonist – an evil Awoken.

Sony are pretty big on their live music, as we get a wonderful flute solo before seeing Ghost of Tsushima for the first time. Set during the Mongol invasion of China, this stunning looking game is heavily inspired by Asian cinema and samurai films in terms of its environments and combat. It’s slick, stylish, and epic looking: the camera pans low and takes on a fighting game style viewpoint whilst the player character duels with an enemy, with falling leaves and fire arrows flitting past in the background.

Sucker Punch, 2018

Kingdom Hearts III popped up again, showing off the inclusion of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. It’s pretty jarring to see photorealistic characters next to Donald Duck and Final Fantasy characters, but it seems as though they are throwing as much of Disney’s library into this game as possible. There will also be a Kingdom Hearts special edition of the PS4 Pro released alongside the game in January, which will include the entire Kingdom Hearts collection.

The Horror genre got some love here too, with a game called Control debuting. Set in a possibly government run facility called the Oldest House, this super creepy game is the return of Remedy studios. A Resident Evil 2 remaster is also in the works at CapCom, coming in January.

Death Stranding and Norman Foetus was shown off again, and left everyone confused again. I have no idea what is going on in this game – Reedus’ character is a “delivery man” in some weird Iceland inspired wasteland, tormented by invisible creatures that come down from umbilical cords in the sky when it rains, and you can only see them by taping a baby to a flashlight – seriously, what is Kojima smoking?!

Kojima Productions, 2018

Finally, we got an in-depth look at Spider-Man. 4 of Spider-Man’s most noteworthy villains (Electro, Scorpion, Rhino, and Vulture) appear in the gameplay demo breaking out of prison, giving Spidey the run-around and really showing off the parkour like web slinging and how intuitive it is. The combat looks as polished, even more fluid, than the Batman: Arkham games. After the show, the devs showed off the open world and some of the activities you can do – from clearing out criminal hideouts to racing across rooftops and city blocks to disarm bombs. Cannot wait for this one.

Sony have also been showing off a ton of other games since their conference, too many to write up here, but some highlights are Days Gone, Spyro, Hitman 2, Resident Evil 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Insomniac, 2018

Briefly, I’ll talk about Nintendo, who did not have a great conference this time around. Many games we already know about were completely missing from the show, and Nintendo pulled a Sony by totally forgetting their handheld platform.

One item that was on everyone’s mind was, of course, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and it was one everyone’s mind because everyone is in it. Every fighter that has ever been in Smash is in this version of the game, all but Waluigi (WAH!). Alongside new characters, there are new stages and remasters of old ones coming too.

Nintendo have altered progression to make unlocking the characters simpler and quicker, although some maybe relegated to free updates rather than being available on launch day. Either way, I’m sure this will make Smash fans very happy. Multiple changes to characters moves and abilities have been made, along with some gameplay improvements.

Nintendo, 2018

Another part game announced was Super Mario Party, which is coming in October and will enable two Switch consoles linking together so 4 people can play together. In Pokemon news, Let’s Go Pikachu and Evee were unveiled. This variation on the core Pokemon experience blends the classic titles with the casual nature of Pokemon Go into a game that sees players battling other trainers and then capturing other Pokemon in the wild. To complete the experience, there will be a Poke Ball Plus available, which literally a Poke Ball with motion controls and the buttons required for capturing and releasing Pokemon. You can even hear the sound of the Pokemon inside it, guys.

We also got a look at Fortnite running on Switch, with voice coms available. It also came out today for free on the Switch store. A compilation ran through a bunch of other games available or coming to the Switch, including Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Crash Bandicoot, Dark Souls, Wolfenstein II, Megaman 11, and Mario Tennis Aces. Other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about at Nintendo’s conference.

But that is my coverage of E3 over, and I’ll be going back to my weekly waffling now. Hope you enjoyed this series, I certainly have! Thanks for reading!