So E3 2018 is done, games have been shown, interviews have been done, articles have been written, so much info out there for coming games many look forward to and so little time to pay attention to everything. As I'm not paid to do just that I will just share my thoughts on the stuff that stood out to me and that which I care about. I will cover as much as I can but don't expect this to be a full review for everything.
EA started off E3 with their conference, and what can I really say about it. Not much to be honest, it's one of the few conferences I didn't watch live, in fact I didn't watch much of it at all. I skipped over the boring parts so I think I ended up watching maybe 5-10 minutes of it. I saw some Battlefield V, not a lot of footage but the Nordic looking map that was shown off was thrilling as I like seeing environments that remind me of where I actually live. Same reason I liked Alan Wake as the forests reminded me of the forests back home when I didn't live in an urban environment. It's oddly satisfying to me. As far as Anthem goes, the gameplay that was shown didn't do much for me, looks like another sci-fi shooter revolving around multiplayer and I just can't be bothered with that.
After EA Microsoft was up, and oh boy, I'm no MS fan, in fact I've never owned an Xbox and likely never will, but this was the best conference of E3 to me. It was entertaining, had a good flow, and most importantly, they showed off both Dying Light 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Now I didn't get too excited for Cyberpunk 2077 since it was once again just a trailer showing off the world, sure it was nice looking but that's about it. Still want to see actual gameplay but everyone who has seen it has had their mind blown so it does sound interesting. Dying Light 2 was the real highlight for me as it has Chris Avellone behind it and that's all I need to know. I loved the gameplay in the first game, if that gets improved and gets a high quality story with impactful decisions then you can count me in.
Bethesda was next with their showing, now they probably had the cringiest conference during E3 and to be honest, I wasn't particularly wowed. Rage 2 looks fine if not a bit stale, not sure about it yet but I liked the first game (believe it or not) so I'm keeping an eye on it. There were a bunch of announcements I don't really care much about, I mean there were vague teasers for Doom Eternal and I think a Wolfenstein expansion but I don't have any particular opinions on them except "okay". The big thing was Fallout 76, an always online game with no NPC's centered around.. Something. I don't get what that game is about, is it about combat and crafting? I mean who asked for this game? Who have ever said that their favorite part of the Bethesda Fallout games were shooting and crafting? Sure, I get that many people wanted to play Fallout with a friend, but do they even want this? Is it really a Fallout game without a well told story, heavy decisions and a world populated with interesting intrigue? I don't know, because Bethesda have been frustratingly vague when describing it. Todd Howard and Pete Hines are annoyingly good at giving non-answers. Though enough of that, they also announced Starfield as a next gen game and Elder Scrolls VI, interesting they would do that when they're so far off but I agree with the people who have been saying they did it to soothe over the worries that they're going online focused with Fallout 76.
Then I watched Devolver Digital and Square Enix back to back. Now to be honest I didn't watch the Devolver conference for the games but for the crazy show they put on. I just loved how they made fun of casual gamers who spend crazy money on silly microtransactions. Just a lovely show with a few games that honestly do look kinda fun. Don't remember any of their names though. As far as Square Enix goes I liked the Shadow of the Tomb Raider gameplay, looks really interesting but after that my attention went elsewhere and I missed most of it. I didn't even look away for long it was just that their showing was really short. Oh well.
Moving on to Ubisoft next, their conference was decent but out of all the things they showed what stood out most to me was the games they didn't show. I was hoping to see a new Splinter Cell game and Watch Dogs 3 but they were nowhere to be seen. Suppose Assassin's Creed: Odyssey looked fine and all but I am yet to play Origins so I have some catching up to do on that front. Still miss Aisha Tyler, she was a real highlight of Ubisoft's past conferences but it seems like she's not returning. Which makes me sad.
What about the PC Gaming show then? Well, I didn't watch it. Don't care.
Now the final conference I watched was Sony, no I didn't watch Nintendo, their style of games just don't appeal to me so I'll only be talking about Sony from here on. Their conference or show, whatever they wanna call it, was poorly structured and boring, but man were the games they showed off impressive. We finally saw gameplay for several of their titles for the first time, The Last of Us: Part II being the first on the line. Truly impressive stuff, the animation was top notch, so much so that a Tomb Raider lead called it fake, but the gameplay was improved upon as well. I really look forward to playing this bad boy in whatever distant year they please to release it. Of course, there was some controversy about the kiss between Ellie and Dina. As far as silly controversies go this is a silly one, not only should people have expected it as Ellie and Riley kissed in the Left Behind DLC but ND, and Druckmann specifically, have openly said that Ellie is indeed gay. The only thing I could think about when watching it, seeing Ellie so warm and happy, is that Dina is super dead. Like she has to die, and I can't wait to see the Youtube reactions when they play that part. It's gonna be spicy stuff, my dudes and dudettes.
I believe Ghost of Tsushima was up next, now this game looked absolutely stunning. The visuals are to die for. Not only that, the gameplay looked really nice, I'm not a fan of over the top hack and slash games so seeing a more slower paced and grounded combat system was pure joy for me. One thing that kinda put me off was the very American sounding female ally that shows up during the demo so I'm glad to see there will be the option for Japanese voice overs. Overall, I liked everything I saw from it. There were other games shown off as well, but I wasn't really impressed, not really into Spider Man and as far as Kingdom Hearts go both the more realistic graphics for the Pirates of the Caribbean characters go and the weird choice to mute all sound but the voices in the trailers to highlight the music was jarring to me. Death Stranding looked neat though, gave off some walking simulator vibes but I don't care, I want this game and I want it ASAP. It looks delightfully weird and I'm very much into it.
Final words, I wasn't blown away by E3 this year but one or two games did make me squeal from delight which is really all you can hope for. I think this year's event was really... Safe in some regards. It upheld the status quo of EA being disappointing, Bethesda getting all sorts of attention, Ubisoft being Ubisoft with all the cringe that goes with it, Devolver being memes incarnate, Sony making weird decisions but ultimately leaving people satisfied, Microsoft flexing their wallet, PC Gaming and Square making little noise. Not the best E3 but certainly not the worst.
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