A few days ago, friend of mine, who could be defined as a casual gamer, asked me in a group chat, “What is E3 2016?”
I was shocked and appalled. I am exaggerating, but it reminded me that even some gamers are unaware of what takes place during one of the biggest weeks of the year for our beloved pasttime. Throughout the week I have watched the conferences, the presentations, the demonstrations, and played a few of the games. Instead of expecting everyone to consume all of that material. I’m going to summarize the highs and lows of this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Electronic Arts (EA)
Highs:
- Titanfall 2 –EA and Respawn showed off the single-player mode, which looks good and seems to have an interesting story about a pilot and his relationship with a near-sentient robot. But, man, the multiplayer mode looks far better. Titanfall 2 will release on Xbox One, PS4, and Windows on October 28, 2016.
- Battlefield 1 – There have been a ton of Battlefield games, but because this one is based in World War 1, it has to have a similar name. Silly name aside, the game looks great! This shooter is scheduled for an October 21, 2016 on PS4, Xbox One, and Windows.
- FIFA 17 – Very similar to NBA2K’s My Career mode, the new FIFA has its own story mode called “The Journey”. FIFA 17 will be released on September 27th for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, and Windows.
Lows:
- For weeks they hyped up their catalog of Star Wars games, but all they presented was a developer’s diary showing the people working on the games.
Bethesda
Highs:
- Everyone’s favorite RPG, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is being remastered for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
- Prey is getting a sequel/reboot with an Asian protagonist, Morgan Yu, and the game looks solid.
Lows:
- They showed us a card game?! But it wasn’t Gwent from The Witcher. It was something based on Elder Scrolls.
Microsoft
Highs:
- The new console the Xbox One S looks sleek and powerful. Project Scorpio, their other new Xbox One, will likely be the most powerful video console ever.
- The cross-play feature will allow Xbox One owners to play their games seamlessly on a Windows 10 PC.
- Sea of Thieves –It’s a pirate game with online multiplayer game. Players will create a pirate and team up with friends and manage everything from steering the ship to controlling the sails, to shooting cannons at other players. The cartoony art style is what we should expect from its developer Rare. The game will be released on Xbox One and Windows 10 in ‘Early 2017’
- A nice group of upcoming games: We Happy Few, ReCore, and Scalebound all look good from what we have seen thus far.
Lows:
- Crackdown 3 will not be released until 2017
Ubisoft
Highs:
- Ubisoft was incredibly impressive. Watch Dogs 2 and For Honor are two games that have been shown before, but they look even more worthy of our attention when they release on November 15, 2016 and Valentine’s Day 2017 respectively.
- The New South Park RPG ‘he Fractured but Whole will be released sooner than expected on December 6, 2016
- Steep is an open-world snowboarding and skiing game that looks amazing.
- Star Trek Bridge Crew actually lets players use Virtual Reality and simulate being the Captain or Crew on a Star Trek Ship.
Lows:
- Ubisoft really should stop showing their Just Dance titles at these conferences, everyone knows they are coming out, and the weird dance sequence with clowns could have stayed on the idea board.
Sony
Highs:
- God of War is back, Kratos has a son and it looks like he will have to protect him from the Norse Gods. This is arguably the best looking game at E3 this year.
- We thought we would never see The Last Guardian, but it’s coming out October 25, 2016.
- PlayStation’s Virtual Reality device “PlayStation VR” is being released on October 13, 2016. One of the launch titles is a Batman VR game which lets you become the caped crusader.
- PlayStation has so many games to look forward to including a new Spider-man title, Death Standing with Norman Reedus, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Quantic Dream
- Crash Bandicoot’s games are getting remastered.
Lows:
- There was no more information about No Man’s Sky, which is slated for release this year.
- Most of the games presented do not have release dates.
Nintendo
Highs:
- The new Zelda title Breath of the Wild is open-world. It’s like Zelda meets Skyrim.
Lows:
- Nintendo really didn’t have much to show us.
E3 definitely gave players a good idea of what they can expect for the next year out of their favorite video game companies. Most importantly, Microsoft and Sony did what they needed to do this year. Microsoft showed their hardware improvements so that they can compete with the Playstation. Sony focused on showing off the games they have in development. All the gaming devices can trust that third party companies like Ubisoft will continue to provide content that console owners will love. If you are wondering who had the best E3 showing, it was definitely Sony. But more importantly, with such a diverse array of games on all the devices, every gamer was able to see at least one game they could be excited about.
