E3 2018: Day Two

Here we are on the second day of Passover-the Controller, or E3 as everyone else calls it, with Microsoft and Bethesda both hosting their own press conferences today if you are in LA or North America in general. I’m not, I’m stuck here in the UK where one is today and the other is at 2:30 tomorrow morning, but nevertheless we’re lumping the two shows together!

Let’s start with Microsoft, who have really outdone themselves this year by revealing 50 games, 18 of which are exclusive to Xbox and Windows – that’s quite something considering how much their competitor, Sony, have been producing for a long time before this. Phil Spencer reveals that this far larger effort is due to Microsoft acquiring 5 new studios to boost their first party selection: a new studio called The Initiative; Undead Labs, the creators of State of Decay; Forza devs Playground Games; the sensational Ninja Theory; and finally Compulsion games, the team soon to be releasing We Happy Few.

This is, as Spencer says, Microsoft’s biggest investment in first party development for some time, and it is most certainly borne out of a desire to claw back some of the distance made by the PS4 and its exclusives. I honestly hope this move pays off for Microsoft, as Xbox gamers have been crying out for new and exciting exclusives for several years now.

Of course, there are the usual suspects among the new faces: Master Chief returns again once and for all to save the universe in Halo: Infinite, billed as running on a new SlipSpace engine. What this is, we don’t really know, but who cares? There’s more Halo.

There’s also more Gears of War than you can shake a bloodied chainsaw at. It started off with Gears of War... Funko Pop Vinyls. But then there was Gears of War…Tactics, a squad based turn based RPG akin to XCOM. As the audience was audibly giving up hope, Gears of War 5 snuck its way onto the screen!

Continuing the story from Gears 4, it sees the protagonists skipping neck day at the gym in favour of searching out the site of the initial Locust invasion. Marcus Fenix returns, and strangely Bono of U2 makes an appearance in the squad.

Sea of Thieves was also present, providing a trailer for two new expansions called Cursed Sails and Forsaken Shores, teasing such new elements like skeleton crews and a new playable space filled with fire, ash, and all the gold you can eat.

Rounding out the exclusives was the Terry Crews simulator Crackdown 3, which was full of crazy, explosive, Terry Crews-ness, and carries a February release date. Forza Horizon 4 was revealed to the world with an entirely UK based setting, utilising my home country’s geography, landmarks such as the Uffington White Horse, wild weather, and unpredictable seasons to change the way players drive and provide more challenging gameplay. What’s more, with the game world being online and shared, the changes in weather and season are shared server side, keeping an even playing field. FH4 releases in October to both buy and as part of the Xbox Game Pass.

Playground Games, 2018

Speaking of Game Pass, this service is due to receive some new features over the next year. The wizards over at Xbox have utilised machine learning in order to improve load times…for certain titles. This seems to be a new feature for studios that can afford to pay for software Microsoft have developed to do this. All Microsoft first party games will also launch on Game Pass at the same time they launch to purchase, including some partner games too like We Happy Few, which is finally coming out in August after years of waiting.

With the Microsoft exclusive stuff out of the way, let’s look at some of the interesting games revealed tonight. From Software’s new project, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, is a Japanese inspired brawler coming out next year. Staying in Japan, there was also a lot of buzz for Kingdom Hearts III in the audience, demonstrating the new Disney and Pixar characters.

Just as a warning: if you have grown to hate Frozen, Kingdom Hearts III might not be your jam. I’m so sorry.

Dontnod made my night by showing off yet more Life is Strange – well, not exactly. The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is set in the LiS universe, but is a separate story about a young boys adventures in his imagination. Looks to be another tear jerker because damnit if these people have nothing better to do than make me cry. Even better, the game is being released for free on June 26^th.

There was plenty of post-apocalyptic action, with Metro: Exodus showing of 4A Games incredible visuals, a new weapon customisation system and new monsters to use said weapons on. Ubisoft’s the Division 2 came to the party as well, confirming the rumours of a Washington DC setting. With a civil war ready to commence and the city devastated by the virus of the first game, the Division 2 looks incredible thanks to the Snowdrop engine, along with a more fluid-looking movement system and retaining that slick UI from the first title. Finally, we saw Dying Light 2, with its tense first person parkour and the player’s new ability to make the world safer but more oppressive, or grant themselves more freedom but far more vulnerable.

And these are just the highlights – Microsoft outdid themselves tonight and I can’t do their presentation justice. You can watch the full thing here. The one last thing I will talk about is something we’ve all be waiting for, for a long, long time.

That’s right, Battletoads I mean Cyberpunk 2077, which had the greatest trailer setup ever. Red coding? An error playing a CD? Har, har, CDPR.

From the teaser we got, I’m instantly intrigued. Having recently binged Altered Carbon I have been craving something like this for a while. I just wish we’d been able to see some gameplay of it.

On to Bethesda now, who have gone all in with the post-apocalyptic and/or dystopian genre tonight. We saw more of Rage 2 after a quick live performance from Andrew W K and the song from the trailer. Tim Willits from ID and Magnus Nedfors from Avalanche studios joined the stage afterwards to show off the insanity of Rage 2's world, from DOOM style gunplay, vehicular combat, and dropping freakin' space stations from the sky.

And if you enjoy something that's like DOOM, why not just more DOOM? That's right, DOOM Eternal is being worked on as a sequel to the stupendous 2016 entry. Featuring a somehow more powerful DOOM Marine, players will get to rip and tear across the Earth, with more info at QuakeCon in August.

ID Software/Avalanche Studios, 2018

In less otherworldly violence, Wolfenstein got some love too. The New Colossus is coming to the Switch, and a new entry to the franchise is coming next year, entitled Youngblood. It sees B J Blazkowicz's twin daughters take on the Nazis in 1980s Paris, and has a distinctly Cyberpunk feel to it. There will also be a VR experience tied to this called Cyberpilot, which as Pete Hines said demonstrates Bethesda's commitments to "bringing our message of 'Fuck Nazis' to every platform possible."

We also got small updates for some other Bethesda titles, firstly for ESO - it's tie-in card game Legends is releasing across all platforms, and the main game will be getting a werewolf and lizard people themed expansions. We also got a first look at an Edler Scrolls mobile game called Blades, which is a proper first person game with dungeons and open worlds to explore. It will be cross platform too, eventually launching on console and PC. This one is a free to play game and will be available in the autumn.

Then there was Quake Champions, which is running a free to play week. Prey is also getting some free new content: a story mode, a new game +, and a survival mode, catering for all types of players. There will also be a new DLC called MoonCrash, which is an escape challenge, along with Typhon Hunt, which is a multiplayer mode akin to prop-hunt. Both of these are going to be VR ready too, which is neat.

Bethesda Softworks, 2018

But the main news tonight was, of course, Fallout 76. Todd Howard took to the stage to reveal a game 4 times bigger than Fallout 4; one that had an improved engine, lighting, and rendering to produce 16 times the level of detail as the previous title. One particularly neat thing was that players will see the weather in other locations of in the distance. The game is set in West Virginia, and is a prequel to all the other games, taking place just 25 years after the war. Players will encounter all kinds of new critters inspired by West Virginian folklore (the Mothman being the most obviously teased one), and also each other.

That's right, Kotaku were right - Fallout 76 is a multiplayer game. Players won't be separated into PVE and PVP servers, and will occupy and interact in the same places. Friends can team up to complete quests, build settlements anywhere now, and even go hunting for the most prized possession of any wastelander - nuclear freakin' weapons.

Players can now, if they've had a falling out with the neighbours, can go off in search of fragment of nuclear launch codes, select their targets, and wipe said targets off the map. By visiting the location soon after, players will be able to collect high level loot but will face high level threats in response.

This all sounds amazing, and the game is set to have a Beta test soon. It also releases in November of this year - hopefully, this Bethesda game "just works."

After all this exciting information, we also got confirmation that Elder Scrolls VI actually exists, and so does Bethesda's first new IP in 25 years - something called Starfield. Not sure what it is right now, other than a sci-fi "next gen" (oh no, there's those words again) game.

But that is everything from the second day of E3. Later tonight I'll be checking out the Ubisoft and Square Enix conferences. Thanks for reading!