E3 2016 – Part 1

E3 2016 started off with a whimper, but then went out in a huge bang basically setting the stage for the second day of E3. Starting off the show on Sunday was the EA press conference, which was a first for EA who usually shows after the Microsoft show on Mondays. After that was a few more reveals that didn’t hit the main stage of E3, before Bethesda closed the night with their press conference. Here’s a recap of what’s happened so far.

Before the Show

Long before the EA press conference even started, Titanfall 2 was leaked online. Both the standard multiplayer trailer was revealed along with the brand new single player campaign trailer was revealed. It showed that the game had a release date of 10-28-2016 and would be available for all platforms. I wasn’t all that impressed with the multiplayer or the single player based on what I saw and to me it just seemed like a version of Transformers. I wasn’t really upset when the first one wasn’t released on the PS4, so I’ll go ahead and just pass on this one as well.

EA Press Conference

Kicking off the EA press conference was Titanfall 2. I guess this was supposed to have a big impact but because of the leak, it really failed. Watching both trailers a second time it just made me think that this was just another Call of Duty type game with robots. After seeing the trailers again, I knew I wasn’t going to be missing this one when I passed it up. Next up was the, wait for the surprise, new Madden 17 game! There was some talk of gaming events for those of us gamers who are non-professional before highlighting the eSports professional gamers. At this point in the press conference I was just desperate to see some games.

After all the Madden stuff came Mass Effect: Andromeda. Finally! What I had ben waiting for all week long. I wanted to see more after the trailer last year and was hoping that BioWare would deliver. What we got was information that you would be the so-called alien as you traveled to a new land that needed to be colonized for humans. This allows you to travel to a new galaxy and forget about that ultra-important main character from the last series. What was her name again…it started with an S…oh yeah Shepard. Forget about Shepard though because with ME:A you’ll have a whole new cast, new alien races, and new exploration all on the FrostByte engine. While there was some new gameplay footage it was far and in-between the shots of random people working on the game. There was a new Asari looking alien along with an unmasked human female waking up on a ship. Other than that it was said that more information would be released in the fall which meant no release date, no actual trailer, and really nothing. Total disappointment.

Up next was FIFA, or as I like to call it, another chance for a brief zone out time. This year though they’ve added a sort of RPG element to FIFA which I guess is supposed to make it more appealing to a larger audience. I’m still not interested in this game though or the amount of attention that it was given. Then came the new EA Originals section which was set up to help small developers make the games of their dreams due to the success of Unravel. With that announcement came what’s supposed to be the next Unravel, called Fe. While this seems to be a more open world type game where you’re supposed to explore this forest as a Cub and unlock different songs that are trying to be destroyed by the bad guys, I’m not sure this will have the same impact as Unravel did and I’m not really as interested in it as I was for Unravel.

Finally to start wrapping up the conference, EA touched base on all of the Star Wars type games and concepts all in the works with the soonest coming out in late 2017 and the furthest away coming out sometime in 2018. Along with this there was another trailer of people working. No one wants to see people working, people come to these things to see actual game play footage and trailers. Then there was the big Battlefield 1 segment to end the conference. Even though this game doesn’t interest me I think that basing it during World War I is a bold move that will pay off in the end for them. The game looks great and they know it.

That was it for the EA conference and I have to say that it was the most disappointing start to E3 that I’ve ever seen. If you’re going to start off E3 then you need to have some major announcements and you have to do something huge. EA did not deliver in anyway and I thought it put a little bit of a damper on the rest of the day.

The In-Between

Being the small company that they are, even though they like to tackle these huge projects that sometimes work out and sometimes don’t, Telltale decided to do a small reveal on their upcoming season of The Walking Dead. Tuning in early, I had been waiting for this. There was so many ways that Season 2 could have ended that I wanted to see where they were going. I was mostly disappointed when what was really talked about was the new Batman game coming out because of the screenshots that were released earlier in the day. The art style for the new Batman game is typical for Telltale and they promise that this is their own story where you’ll play as both Bruce and Batman and it’s not based on the comics or the movies. Troy Baker was announced to be the lead in this game, huge surprise as I roll my eyes, and that it wouldn’t run off of a not new engine, but an improved one. Apparently each episode will feel like a movie so you’ll be getting 5 movies, unless of course they think they can make more money and then they’ll be DLC. That’s how it works now right?

Finally the first look at The Walking Dead Season 3. An extremely small trailer is shown which at first makes you think that it’s nothing until the big reveal of a teenage Clementine. Telltale says that with this game they’re coming close to where the comic books are and the show is basically at. There’s a new super important sub character with Clementine and it takes place years after the events of Season 2. Even though I’ve been giving Telltale some major shade after the past couple of games, I’m really looking forward to season 3.

Bethesda Press Conference

To close the night was the Bethesda press conference which stated out with a bang, take notes EA because this is how you start your press conference. A huge new trailer for Quake Champions was shown and it looks like a bloody mess of gaming fun. I don’t like full on multiplayers most of the time, but I can see myself getting into this game. After that was a few highlights of the super successful Bethesda year that kicked off a year ago at E3 2015. There was a small focus on The Elder Scrolls Legends, which is a card game which I found similar to maybe Gwent, but it really held no interest for me even though it’s story based and has a single player and multiplayer campaign.

KUDOS: This goes out to the whole Bethesda team who wore LGBT ribbons following the events of what happened on Sunday morning. I didn’t see anyone else do this at their shows and they were the first. This meant a lot and I thank them.

Moving on was some Fallout 4 DLC news. There was the small announcement of Contraptions that looks overall goofy but nonetheless fun as it adds more building components into the game. Then there was another similar DLC called Vault-Tech. Now this is pretty damn cool because it allows you to build your own vault, make your settlers into dwellers and do research projects on them. Then came the next big story based DLC. It was a huge WTF moment for me as it was announced as an Amusement Park! Not all that much was shown but I’m super excited and I can’t wait. There was also talk of more updates to Fallout Shelter which I played briefly but became bored with. Right after that was the reveal of what I had been hoping for out of this press conference…The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Remaster! The game looks visually stunning and absolutely beautiful when it was compared to the last gen rendition of the game. This game will be available on 10-28-2016 and it’s a day one purchase for me and the countdown starts now. Isn’t there another game coming out on the same day…something Titanfall 2…I can’t even remember.

This was followed by the introduce of Prey a new sci-fi thriller that seems like it’s part Dead Space and part The Darkness. It comes out next year, but I’ll probably pass on it. Some information about Doom was up next including more information about Doom Snapmap which will be free along with some multiplayer DLC before the paid multiplayer DLC comes out. There was a brief section about The Elder Scrolls: Online and all the progress that has been made along with the new DLC that is coming out for this game. I know I kind of gave up on this game, but I might just have to get back into it eventually.

There was the surprise announcement of Bethesda VR as they join the rest of the world in the VR craze which I’m not sure is going to be a good move or not. Although I would like to play Fallout 4 VR style, I’m still not sure. To end the show was Dishonored 2. A new trailer was shown along with a bunch of new game play and a release date of 11-11-2016. I never got a chance to actually play the first one and the way this game looks, I want to try and play the first one before this one comes out because it looks awesome.

And that was day one of E3. Bethesda was the big winner of the day as they show off what people really want which is trailers and actual gameplay of their upcoming games. For a company that this is their second show they come off looking like pros while EA suffers a huge setback this year and I wouldn’t be all surprised if they’re called the losers of the show this year. Keep checking back for more E3 information as this huge week of gaming goes by!