The PC gaming E3 show launched in early access

Consider the first-ever PC gaming E3 press conference a beta product. Hosted by Sean “Day9” Plott, sponsored by PC Gamer and AMD, it featured every cliche you’ve heard about PC gamers. The early access release included awkward public speaking, technical glitches, a clumsy late-night show interview format, and droning hardware talk. The venue appeared to be a spruced-up cafeteria or perhaps a mid-sized business lobby. Developers may be working on a patch to fix these issues.

Tripwire Interactive talked about Killing Floor 2, and announced Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. Chris Roberts sent in a video to gloat about Star Citizen crowd-funding more money than many small countries’ gross domestic product. AMD reminded everyone what PC gaming is about by showing off expensive graphics cards and challenging the audience to stay awake during a tech discussion. Twice. The developers of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided then showed AMD what boring really meant by talking about their game engine. Creative Assembly and SCS Software couldn’t be assed to show up, so they sent in videos. Xbox head Phil Spencer appeared to reassure everyone that Microsoft was really super-serious about PC gaming. This time.

In probably the most engaging segment, Dean Hall, creator of DayZ, tried to talk about the new game he’s working on, but Sean Plott insisted on asking him questions about his departure from DayZ. Awkward!

CCP gave the VR fans a glimpse of Eve Valkyrie. Pixel Titans had a live demo of their retro shooter Strafe, which ended up looking more interesting than the Doom reboot by id Software and Bethesda. David Braben of Frontier Development, announced Planet Coaster, a decidedly theme park tycoon style departure from spaceships. ArenaNet premiered player-owned guild halls in the Heart of Thorns expansion for Guild Wars 2. Bohemia Interactive unveiled their Pacific Island terrain expansion for Arma 3 called Tanoa. Indie studio tiger & squid previewed Beyond Eyes. Splash Damage thanked everyone for making the Dirty Bomb launch a success. The Fullbright Company called their upcoming Tacoma a “walking simulator” despite it taking place in a zero-gravity space station. Frictional Games continued the alone-in-an-isolated-station theme but in a horror setting with Soma. Cliff Bleszinski talked about his free-to-play shooter BlueStreak. Enter the Gungeon by Dodge Roll got some live play on stage and made Binding of Isaac feel bad.

900-pound gorilla Blizzard sauntered in and promoted their Diablo-themed update for Heroes of the Storm, The Eternal Conflict which will launch on June 30th. They also discussed the possibility of StarCraft 2’s storyline finally ending with Legacy of the Void. Finally, Hello Games confirmed that No Man’s Sky will be coming to PC at the same time as the PlayStation 4 version launches.

Twitch chat remained a singular treat throughout the show.