E3 2018: Day Three

Today has been a long day at E3, with Ubisoft, Square Enix, and the PC Gaming Show all hosting conferences. Square Enix unfortunately spoiled their own party a little by largely just talking about things we’ve seen at some of the other conferences so far. They dived a little deeper into Tomb Raider and Kingdom Hearts, but complete forgot to mention several games they have previously revealed as being worked on.

Meanwhile, The PC Gaming show put on a lot of indie games and a lot of Battle fucking Royale. Sure, a couple, Mavericks (with 1000 players in a match) and Hunt: Showdown (set in post-civil war America battling both other players and horrifying critters), looked interesting, but overall these conferences were low key and not too noteworthy.

Ubisoft, however, went all in. Billed as being “more interesting than a keychain”, the show certainly start off that way. Just Dance 2019 made its debut in a spectacular dance and marching band routine. I say Just Dance, the panda bursting through the main doors into the auditorium throwing shapes made me initially think that Ubisoft was expanding into methamphetamine production.

We got a better look at Beyond Good and Evil 2 with a new cinematic trailer – the cockney monkey and company are off getting drunk in space when a returning character ambushes them. There was some pre-alpha gameplay too, which looked promising but we’ll have to wait a while before anything solid arrives.

Ubisoft, 2018

But the devs announced something very unexpected – the Space Monkey Programme, which will enable fans, through Joseph Gordon Levitt’s company HitRecord, contribute artwork to the game by completing challenges. According to the devs and Levitt himself, nothing like this has ever been attempted for a game; until now, crowdsourcing artwork has only been done for films and music. With the amount of talent out there, I can see this going down a storm and creating a visually diverse game.

The Division 2 got a lot more in depth details, all from creative director Justin Timberlake Julian Gerighty. A new cinematic trailer demonstrated the horror left in the wake of Black Friday Virus, with bodies rotting in the streets, walled communities isolated by the roving gangs of criminals in the Washington DC streets, and those groups who have grown powerful enough to attempt to become the new American nation.

The game has three new paths of progression for the endgame, something which has become an issue for the newly formed Looter genre. There will also be 8 player raids, and years of frequent content updates that will expand the story and playable area, with 3 confirmed DLCs in the game’s first year. What’s more, all of this content will be entirely free of charge.

Finally, after announcing the project a few years back, there is some flesh on Skull and Bones. The pirate game based on the renowned sailing and ship-to-ship combat from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is set in the Indian Ocean, and improves upon all the best parts of its spiritual predecessor. There’s ship and crew customisation, including disguise kits for your vessel in order to sneak past enemies. An intriguing new mechanic called Fortunes will alter the players experience through Weather, Conflict, or Cataclysm. Players will also be able to invite friends and strangers alike into their party when the going gets tough, just pray you have met some nice people on the internet. The game releases next year.

Ubisoft, 2018

In smaller news, Trials Rising is coming soon to PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch. The team has been working with some notable members of the community to create a more challenging, inclusive, and intuitive game.

We also saw more collaborations with Nintendo, with Donkey Kong joining Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Ubisoft’s new collectible based Starfighter game called Starlink will also include Starfox as an exclusive Switch playable character. In a really quite touching scene, Shigeru Miyamoto was presented with the very first prototype model of Starfox’s signature ship by Yves Guillemot.

Elijah Wood’s game Transference was also debuted tonight. It is a game about invading other people’s consciousness, with someone attempting to do that to Wood as he forgot his lines (“Noooo…!”). The game comes across as a really spooky number, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.

There was also news of the continued slow-burn of For Honor, which has become something truly great after a disaster of a launch. The game is having a free week on PC, and will be getting a new expansion called Marching Fire sometime soon, featuring a new playable faction, China, a castle siege game mode, and story content too. The Crew 2 also announce an open beta that starts up next week, and in more weirdness, Rainbow Six Siege is getting a documentary focused on its eSport’s players…?

Whatever, these are small fry compared to the main event of the evening – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. After the frankly embarrassing leak (open letter to Bethesda and Ubisoft: stop merchandising before you announce stuff), the ancient Greece setting has been confirmed. Odyssey takes place during the Pelopnnesian War, with the player taking the role of either a male or female Spartan warrior. The environments looked as stunning as ever, with the beautiful white sands of the Aegean islands, fantastical statues of Gods and Titans, and the azure waters of the Mediterranean providing a wonderful sense of place and wonder.

They will explore the Greek islands and underwater Minoan ruins, meet famous Greeks like Socrates (maybe Bill and Ted too), and even fight deadly creatures from Greek mythology. In the same vein, the player character is a descendent of Leonidas, and is given the dead king of Sparta’s spear as a tool for the game. The spear grants the player access to several specialisations; from kicking people off things very hard to stealthy ranged attacks.

The game also appears to be leaning more into the RPG elements that Assassin’s Creed has adopted over the years, with the inclusion of branching dialogue, a karma system, and what looks like different classes to play as – warrior or assassin. And for something really wonderful, we don’t have to wait very long for Odyssey­ ­– the game releases on the 5^th of October.

After fighting off a hostile takeover earlier this year, Ubisoft have been knocking it out of the park with their titles. They might be flawed and start out rough, but their games have a wonderful tendency to get it right in the end, and recently they’ve been great out of the box. Fully looking forward to a lot of what was shown today.