E3 2016 (June 12-16)

[Tuffty]

Another year another expo to show off anticipated games for this year and beyond. It's a tough act to follow, last year announced a lot of dream projects that have been desired for so long (Last Guardian, FFVII Remake, Shenmue 3) that it almost feels like there is very little left. That shouldn't stop people from getting excited however, 2016 has been a fantastic year for games so far and there is more to come. Let's go through the big publishers and find out when to expect press conferences and what games to look forward to.

What: The world's premier trade show for computer and video games.
When: June 14 - 16, 2016 (press conferences start June 12)
Where: Los Angeles Convention Center
How: Live streams or via attendance
Website: https://www.e3expo.com


EA (June 12 1:00 PM PDT or 9:00 PM GMT)

A lot earlier than usual, EA will be the first big publisher to deliver a press conference (just as well, they're usually the most boring). Expect the usual sports titles and mobile games, but in addition expect more footage and announcements on Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, Mass Effect Andromeda and possibly the single player Star Wars third person shooter they've been working on for a while now.

Bethesda (June 12 7:00 PM PDT or 3:00 AM GMT)

Definitely looking forward to seeing more of Dishonored 2, the first game is a fantastic stealth game with a unique setting so I'm absolutely excited to see where a current gen sequel can take us. Rumour has it that a remastered version of Skyrim will be announced as well. Other than that I'm honestly not sure what else is on their agenda so potentially there could be a number of nice surprises! Or they could be crap! Exciting!

Microsoft (June 13 9:30 AM PDT or 5:30 PM GMT)

It's been a rough period for Microsoft lately, Halo 5 and Quantum Break didn't impress as much as they had hoped, the Tomb Raider exclusive didn't really go over well and recent reports suggest sales for the Xbox One are lower than expected. It doesn't help when you have few exclusives the audience really cares about. If Halo 5 won't get people excited, what chances does Gears of War 4 have? One big announcement which could be on the agenda, is that they follow Sony's route and announce an upgraded console, one that can come close to high end PC capabilities. Sony have already confirmed their upgraded PS4 won't be showing at E3, so Microsoft could capitalise on any potential buyers early... But if you don't have the games worth playing, what's the point? Here's hoping they surprise us with new IP's. I am looking forward to seeing what Scalebound looks like now, looks like Platinum Games most ambitious title yet and Kamiya can do no wrong in my opinion. Cuphead will no doubt still look gorgeous. Expect Gears 4, Forza and Crackdown to also feature heavily.

Ubisoft (June 13 1:30 PM PDT or 9:30 PM GMT)

Typically Assassins Creed would draw my interest in Ubisoft's conferences, but after the confirmation that the series is taking a break, my interest level has gone down, particularly for the games they have already confirmed. Expect to see more on the recently announced Watch Dogs 2, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, For Honor and the South Park RPG. Ubisoft also usually save a surprise reveal at the end for a new game or two so I'll be curious to see what that will be, even though they haven't done themselves favors by using E3 demos to continually misrepresent how good their games will look before their retail release.

Sony (June 13 5:30 PM PDT or 1:30 AM GMT)

They continue to ride high on a wave created by the gaming community after making dreams come true in last year's press conference. Sony have a lot to live up to this year, there just aren't as many dream projects that would get the community at large excited in quite the same way as a FF7 Remake or Shenmue 3. It would be foolish to expect them to try and top it so expectations must be kept in check. I hope they're able to show off more of FF7 or Shenmue 3 but that's wishful thinking for now. I would definitely expect to see more of Last Guardian, No Man's Sky and Horizon : Zero Dawn. I wouldn't be surprised if they revealed God of War 4 either and potentially an announcement for The Last of Us 2. It's all Sony's to lose at this point, but of the big three I just think they could play it safe and still come out on top, especially when you have to consider.....

Nintendo (June 14 9:00 AM PDT or 5:00 PM GMT)

What a shame. Nintendo this year doesn't even have a Nintendo Direct, highlighting just how they've left the Wii U to suffer a slow demise. Instead they will be concentrating on livestream events for remaining Wii/3DS games to come out, most notably the new Zelda and absolutely one of my most anticipated games that I want to see at E3. But as they are working on their new console, the NX, it's disappointing that we won't get to see any of it right now. We'll make due with what we have and to that end, expect to see more on Zelda, Pokemon Sun/Moon, Fire Emblem x SMT and Paper Mario to name a few.

Square Enix

While there is no official press conference per say, it's worth mentioning Square Enix just for the number of anticipated games coming out which look fantastic. I was genuinely impressed last year with SE and that carries on through now, as we can expect to see and hear more on FFXV, FFVII, FFXII Remaster, Deus EX : Mankind Divided, Star Ocean, Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts 3... A lot of good looking games there worth looking out for.


I intend to update the topic as we go on, felt like the above is a decent starting point. What games are you looking forward to seeing more of? What surprises would you like to see?

[frblckstr1]

I preordered Deus EX, liked the previous instalment am preparing to play the DC version a bit to get used to the playstyle again.
(To much Destiny playing still, mucked up my initial style for 'The Division' so trying to not make that mistake again for DX)

The trailer for Watch Dogs 2 was not positive, didn't like the first installment either so unless they show some more it will not be it.
Waiting on Titanfall 2, liked the first (bought it with the XBone) so hope it lives up to it.
And still waiting on the new Mass Effect.

Halo 5 was disappointing because of no single player campaign and most of it not as Master Chief.
Might do the new Gears of War, played the others so w'll see.

No games yet that warrant a buy of a PS4 also (and my PS3 is still mainly a BluRay player).

[shirenuファクトリー]

Whoa thanks for starting the topic, I had no idea this was happening so soon, hee. I actually don't want to even know what's coming because it's less boring for me that way (LOL)

I feel like freaking Bethesda always has their press thing when I'm sleeping, but I could always wake up for it like a fucking geek. Isn't 3am gmt 5am to me? That'd be kinda doable.

EDIT: nvm we are GMT+3 at the moment - that's even better

[pikapikapika]

I'm actually concerned about it being really boring this year D: the new PS4 and NX won't be shown, and a lot of the big games shown last year still aren't even out yet, all I'm really expecting is new trailers for them and maybe a small handful of new ones that also won't be out before the next show 

[Tuffty]

I think it's disappointing that new consoles probably won't be shown, for whatever reason, but I am looking forward to see more footage for games that we don't know much about like the new Mass Effect, Dishonored 2, Zelda. While a lot of the most anticipated games are next year or beyond, there's still good stuff on the horizon this year to look forward to like Deus Ex, No Mans Sky, Nioh, I Am Setsuna, FFXV, Pokemon, Nier Automata, The Last Guardian.

Some titles I hope to see more of:

Shenmue 3 - It's been roughly a year since the record breaking Kickstarter project was announced at Sony's press conference. I never ever thought we would see the sequel to one of my favourite games of all time so I've fingers crossed that some footage will be shown to show people how it's going. It has only been a year though so I'm not expecting much! Here's some footage a few months ago to show the team has a good handle of the game engine so far.



Deus Ex : Mankind Divided - The original Deus Ex is a classic, offering open ended gameplay against a cool sci fi setting. The later sequel Human Revolution acted as a prequel with a new protagonist and continued on the series staples of offering branching quest lines and allowing the player to determine how to approach a situation through all out combat, stealth, hacking etc. I'm more than ready to see what a current gen version of this game could be. I've felt the game has told some great stories too and am interested to see how they approach this 'mechanical apartheid' setting. Here's a recent demo of what to expect



Persona 5 - It's going to be a hard task to come close to Persona 3 and 4, two of the best JRPG's in recent memory. Fortunately, everything seen so far suggests the game retains it's very sexy stylish menus and presentation, something in itself makes the game so unique and fantastic. More footage is promised during E3 so I'm hoping to see more gameplay.



Zelda - Surely the most anticipated title for a lot of people, purely because we've seen so little thus far. The descriptions of the game make it very exciting, an open ended Zelda game with the freedom to approach dungeons as you see fit.



Resident Evil 7/RE 2 Remake - This one is more on my wish list than expecting anything concrete at E3. Capcom have confirmed both projects are in work, promising a return to survival horror roots for the former and a full remake of the latter. The latter is perhaps more interesting, do they make it like RE1 Remake, with updated graphics and sticking with tank controls? Or will it be a RE4 style game, third person and allowing to see Raccoon City from another angle.

Devil May Cry 5 - Another on the wishlist for me, while not confirmed, recent activity suggests a sequel to the action game is in the works. Most notably, the suggestions are that it is for DMC5, not DmC2 the god awful reboot some years ago. DMC is one of my favourite game series and I have reason to believe a DMC5 game could work as the DMC4 HD Remaster version of the game last year included new characters in Vergil, Lady and Trish to play as and they added to the game so much, they played differently and were so much fun to play as, so there's a team there at Capcom that knows what they are doing. If they can create a similar game with old school Dante and the series tendency to go crazy, then it will be a treat!

There's plenty of others I have a passing interest in, but those are the ones that leap out at me right now. Keep in mind, EA and Bethesda are on today. Looking forward to see if there's actual gameplay of Mass Effect Andromeda to show.

[turtledude001]

EA presser was pretty disappointing since I went in mainly for Bioware and just got another BTS look at Mass Effect with minimal game clips. So I've learned that 1) the game is set in Andromeda, 2) it has aliens, 3) you have guns. Aka, didn't learn anything at all!

[Tuffty]

So the EA conference came and went. Overall fairly disappointing. Much of the time was spent on the sports games and they gave little time to some of the most anticipated games like Battlefield 1 or Mass Effect. We'll take what we can get in the meantime. Most impressive to me was the multiplayer trailer for Titanfall 2 which looks so smooth, the action looks big dumb fun and it's fast



Some preview footage of Mass Effect. The Mako is confirmed which I'm happy with and it looks great. Whether it's all pre rendered or not we don't know. Was disappointed as it's been 2-3 years since it was announced and there has been no gameplay yet.



Battlefield 1 looks absolutely incredible visually. Typically DICE single player campaigns are nothing but set piece events leading into one another and that looks to be the same here. But with this and Titanfall 2, then COD doesn't really stand much of a chance this year.

[shirenuファクトリー]

Yeah I wanted to see more of Mass Effect, and I feel like there was almost nothing about the Star Wars games? Oh well.

Fallout 4 DLC must be fun for builders, but damn, I can't even be arsed with a basic settlement. So not for me. I also feel like something like building an underground Vault of my own is way too unrealistic LOL YES IT'S A GAME WITH TELEPORTATION AND I'M COMPLAINING ABOUT SOMETHING BEING "UNREALISTIC" - it's just that... when it comes to wanting to leave my own mark in the game world, building things isn't really my #1 concern... I'd rather see uh social consequences or uh NPCs starting to act differently once I become a well-known figure... Do you know what I mean xD

Still, Bethesda's press was a lot more interesting than EA's!

[Tuffty]

^ Same here, I don't really possess a creative bone in my body so when it comes to a game with any world building, especially when it's the main crux of the game, then I just ignore it.

Missed 4 conferences so quite a few announcements of games to go through. We'll start with the most recent, the new trailer for Zelda came out today along with a whole string of gameplay footage. What an amazing looking game, almost sells the NX by itself.



That's all Nintendo has to show however. In terms of quantity and quality, I doubt many will argue that Sony has had the best conference this year. They opened with God of War, one of the best show cases of a new game I've seen in a long time. Full of exciting action, great quiet moments of characterisation that show Kratos in a more sympathetic light as an actual character to get behind and a live backing orchestra to showcase how this new God of War is a different game from it's predecessors.



They showed off more of Horizon : Zero Dawn afterwards and that is also impressive in that it shows just what the moment to moment gameplay will be. Plus it looks absolutely gorgeous.



They actually announced Resident Evil 7! Albeit it looks drastically different from what I was expecting. A first person game wandering a house with the promise of VR support. I have more questions about it than answers. They released a demo after the conference to download and play and it plays just like P.T. Makes you wonder if the whole game is going to be like it. Intriguing, I hope to see more before it's Jan 2017 release



They announced an exclusive Spiderman game, made by Insomniac Games, makers of the Ratchet and Clank series. It looks like a fantastic game and I'm excited to see what happens once you pour a AAA budget on a Spiderman game.



Finally for now and worthy of note, Hideo Kojima made an appearance showing off supposedly real time footage from his upcoming title, Death Stranded, reuniting him and Norman Reedus from the cancelled P.T. project. Kojima is no stranger to making fantastic trailers and that shows here. We don't know what kind of game it will be, but the visuals with the music create something very strange and haunting that makes it one of the best trailers to come out of E3 so far and makes the upcoming project so exciting....whenever it will come out.



That's all for now but there are certainly other games worth mentioning in the days ahead. What games have you seen that you are most excited by?

[turtledude001]

The LoZ: Breath of the Wild being shown is on Wii U, by the way. There is no NX reveal so far. It may very well be a prettier on NX. It looks fabulous and I'll pick it up on NX unless there is something exclusive that sells me on the NX. A SM3DW sequel on NX would sell it for me We'll see.

My impressions of the conferences I watched.

Microsoft: I was quite happy. The turn to games being Xbox One & Windows 10 exclusives wasn't a surprise. It's all one family from now on. Doesn't really matter too much from MS's perspective. Buying a game either way is profit for them. I'm firmly in the Win 10 camp. I don't need another console! I have my eyes on Gears of War 4. ReCore looks like it could be cool. Scalebound may rekindle some DMC memories. On the downside, I don't think they really announced anything new. Those I mentioned were known prior, even shown during last E3. Also, does this mark the shift to yearly Xbox upgrades a la other electronics like cell phones? Slim this year. 4K gaming next. Is it going to be like iOS and OS X (or macOS I think it is called now) where older hardware support drops after some number of iterations?

Sony: I loved how they mostly just showed trailer and demos back-to-back. Fantastic pace. I'm not really sure how I feel about a more intimate God of War. It gave me The Last of Us feels. Nevertheless, the reveal was awesome. It remains to be seen if I'll bite. Horizon is my fav out of Sony. I have fears that it'll turn into a gathering/crafting grind fest, but otherwise it looks solid. The biggest wow moment was seeing Kojima. Totally unexpected. His teaser is awesome as always but who knows what that game is about. I tuned out during the VR segment since that market isn't for me. Though RE7 going for atmospheric sort of horror was a surprise.

Nintendo: Pokemon and Zelda. I like JRPGs but not Pokemon. They spent almost an hour on Pokemon so I was bored to tears. Then over an hour, maybe even 2 on Zelda. Honestly, they could've done shorter. It got repetitive watching at some point. I'm sure it'll be a different story when I actually play it. My #1 concern is that you're picking up loot like weapons constantly. I feel like this compromises the tight streamlined game design the series is known for. But I'm willing to give it a shot. I especially like how you start adventuring almost immediately unlike modern Zeldas that bog things down where like an hour or two of story before you get a weapon and leave the village. Refreshingly it is now like the first entries.

[shirenuファクトリー]

It seems I missed the most entertaining conference, the Sony one, since I was sleeping. lol A live orchestra or something? I need to watch the whole thing at some point (with some selective skipping)

The first trailer of Zelda was hitting some feels even if I've never been a big Zelda player, but I had no interest in watching the actual gameplay segment. Especially after I tried to watch the gameplay segment for Pokemon for a bit and it was zzzz like yes we can see that the camera is moving around during a battle, can you now please start the fight?? So I thought the gameplay segment might be equally frustrating for Zelda. Anyway, I don't own Wii U so maybe it's no use for me to get excited anyway, I do like the idea of a "survival" game that isn't combined with zombies or super difficult and might still be combined with adventure while survival games get kinda repetitive once you figure out your resources? I dunno, maybe someone who actually watched the gameplay parts can reflect on that more. Anyway you can ride a horse on Zelda so fuck yeah.

[Tuffty]

^ I didn't see the full 5-6 hour stream either so I could be talking out of my ass, but I think 'survival' is a very loose term for what you'll expect in the game. It still has to be accessible as Zelda is a huge series, so it's probably more like collecting resources so you can have health items or maybe items to repair your weapon, to that end it will be no different from something like The Witcher or Skyrim or Dark Souls, series which this game seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from (Dark Souls particularly, I think). If you have played a 3D Zelda title already then there shouldn't be too much of an issue with staying alive and managing combat.

Microsoft's console(s) announcement was pretty weird. A smaller console without sacrificing power is nice, don't get me wrong, but that announcement was pretty much forgotten about with the updated console they're working on, Project Scorpio. Again, VR compatible, 4k gaming etc, that's all well and good...but there were no specifics and you're not releasing it until next year anyway so....whatever? To me their message was "Well we have this smaller Xbox One to replace the original Xbox One, but we'll have a better Xbox One next year for you and it's not a problem because we're making it so you can play all the console exclusive games on PC anyway."

I thought the most interesting game out of Microsoft's conference was We Happy Few. It shows a creepy, Orwellian setting that had me more invested than most other games they showed. Not sure what game it will end up being in the end, but I think the display here would be enough to keep me entertained throughout.



Scalebound too looked nice. There are aspects to the game that sound like it will be Platinum Games most ambitious title yet and that stuff interests me more than what they showed here, because I know the combat is going to be solid. At least here is a glimpse of how co-op will work.



From Bethesda's conference, they showed Prey, another interesting sci-fi concept that has me interested.



Dishonored 2 looks just like a sequel to Dishonored which I am perfectly cool with. It's cool that you can play as Emily or Corvo this time. The first game offered such a wide variety of ways to complete a level, particularly around making use of the verticality of the large structures and how you can use your abilities to navigate through it or against the enemies and I'm glad that's still the case here.



From Ubisoft, there's really only For Honor that I care about. A Dynasty Warriors esque game crossed with a careful deliberate method of combat, like in Dark Souls. You can play 3 campaigns as either a Knight, a Viking or a Samurai, assumedly each with different styles of combat. The multiplayer aspect sounds cool as you can run into another player during these large battles and it becomes a different game of having to square off against each other and predict which side they'll attack you from and how to counter it. You see a little bit of that in this single player demo.

[vlinorman]

Looks like a whole lot of meh, except for maybe Dishonored 2.