Sony’s 2016 E3 show was a barely interrupted succession of game trailers. It started with an odd choral arrangement that evolved into an orchestral performance conducted by Bear McCreary. From there, the audience was pushed straight into a demo of God of War, featuring Kratos on a heartwarming jog with his son. Bonding time! Days Gone, a post-apocalyptic zombie game featuring bikers gave the viewers a thrill with a wave of undead chasing a man through a barn. Annual E3 favorite The Last Guardian was displayed, this time with an October 25th release date. Horizon Zero Dawn was back with more future primitive dino-mech hunting. Resident Evil Biohazard looked appropriately dark and jump-scary. Detroit Become Human looks like it takes the multiple-choice gameplay of Until Dawn or Heavy Rain and mixes it with robots.
A selection of PlayStation VR games were shown, including a Batman Arkham VR game from Rocksteady and Battlefront X-Wing VR Mission from EA. The PlayStation VR hardware will go on sale on October 13th for $399.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s space fighter, hull breaching, spaceship explosion gameplay was shown. See if you can guess how long it took the audience to realize it was a Call of Duty game. A Crash Bandicoot collection is being remastered for the PlayStation 4, along with Crash coming to Skylanders Imaginators.
Finally, Hideo Kojima was brought out to great fanfare to show off Norman Reedus’ butt in Death Stranding. It’s no Silent Hills, but naked Norman Reedus is a win.
Aisha Tyler, a Queen dance number, Matt Stone and Trey Parker cursing it up, LeVar Burton, Karl Urban, and Jeri Ryan controlling VR puppets on a computerized Star Trek bridge, Frank Marshall doing his darnedest to plug the Assassin’s Creed movie. This must be the 2016 Ubisoft E3 show!
Just Dance 2017 gave us an amazingly odd musical act to kick off the show. Ubisoft showed off some cooperative gameplay from Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands that made the infamous The Division scripted trailer look positively spontaneous. Check your six! South Park: The Fractured But Whole revealed new powers and improved tactical battles. The Survival expansion for Tom Clancy’s The Division was revealed with a trailer that made it seem like everyone’s efforts in New York have not resulted in a better tomorrow. There was a VR capture-the-flag match in Eagle Flight. The host of Reading Rainbow, Judge Dredd, and Ronnie from Boston Public donned VR helmets and played Star Trek: Bridge Crew. For Honor showed how vikings, knights, and samurai square off against one another. A Watch Dogs 2 gameplay sequence revealed just how Ubisoft could make a sidekick character even more annoying.
Finally, Ubisoft premiered a brand new franchise with Steep, an extreme snow sports game set in the Alps. Take one part The Crew, one part SSX, and one part GoPro commercial and you’ve got the idea.
Microsoft has two new Xbox consoles coming. The first, given about 30 seconds of show time, is the Xbox One S, (pictured above) a slimmer, slightly improved Xbox One. It will be available in August and costs $299. According to Microsoft, it’s 40% smaller than the current Xbox and has a better wireless controller. The second new console wasn’t even shown, but amidst all the rumors of Sony following a similar iterative strategy, Microsoft apparently wanted to get ahead of the competition. Project Scorpio was unveiled. It’s a 4K, VR-ready system coming in 2017. According to a video full of talking heads “no one gets left behind” and all Xbox One games will work on all three consoles.
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer announced the Play Anywhere program. Gamers can purchase upcoming Microsoft published games once and play them on Xbox One and their Windows 10 PCs. All five fans of Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform apps can celebrate.
Cooperative gameplay from Gears of War 4 was shown. Chainsaws, guns, and a gun that shoots saws. Speaking of Gears, General Raam from the original game is coming to Killer Instinct. Forza Horizon 3 is set in Australia. Heroes fought a giant arm in Final Fantasy XV. The Friendly Update for Minecraft went live today, which brings cross-platfrom play to the crafting game. Scalebound was on stage for the fourth E3 in a row. Frank West took some gruesome selfies in a cinematic trailer for Dead Rising 4. The standalone free-to-play Gwent game from CD Projekt Red was announced. Sea of Thieves gameplay consisting of YouTube celebrities yelling at one another debuted. State of Decay 2 involves recreating the car door scene from Zombieland. Finally, Halo Wars 2 from Creative Assembly and 343 Industries premiered and made everyone sad for what happened to Ensemble Studios.
Bethesda Softworks’s 2016 E3 show began with Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb back together again. Playing for time while the show started a little late, the hosts bantered and “speculated” about what we would see. Adam and Morgan took off once the show started, but threatened to come back for post-show events.
Bethesda’s Pete Hines announced Quake Champions, a multiplayer hero arena shooter. Elder Scrolls Legends, the strategy card game announced last year, was shown again. Todd Howard told the audience to expect more Fallout 4 content including new workshop stuff and a “Nuka World” amusement park setting. A Skyrim Special Edition bundle was revealed that brings graphical improvements and all DLC for Skyrim to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Arkane Studios finally admitted they’re working on Prey. Not Prey 2, but Prey, which looks to be a reboot. Doom is getting SnapMap updates including Hell-themed assets. The biggest Doom applause moment? An honest-to-gosh demo, that’s available now! What year is this? Elder Scrolls Online got some love with a look at The Dark Brotherhood expansion, and the notice that ZeniMax Online is working on “One Tamriel” an overhaul that brings dynamic level scaling to the whole game making character levels as meaningful as Cow Clicker. Finally, Bethesda gave us Dishonored 2 gameplay and dropped the November 11th release date.
Electronic Arts’ E3 2016 presentation began with thumping bass and exhortations for everyone to “PLAY TO FEEL” then ended with Jamie Foxx barely suppressing a yawn. Neither the novelty of Peter Moore presenting from London nor Andrew Wilson speaking from the main stage in Los Angeles could rescue the show from devolving into the traditional marketing jargon and sequel previews. Titanfall 2 was shown. This time, PlayStation 4 players will get to enjoy the giant robot suits and parkour shooting. Respawn promised a full offline single player campaign this time around. Of course, the next Madden and FIFA games had their spot in the show. FIFA 17 will boast The Journey, a campaign based around shepherding rising star Alex Hunter to the top of the league. A developer on Mass Effect Andromeda came up to say the game will be awesome, while a video of a starfield and rotating planet played behind him. Jade Raymond assured the audience that EA is getting their money’s worth out of the Star Wars license by promising more Star Wars gaming than anyone needs. Finally, DICE showed off some more Battlefield 1, ending their presentation with a peek at an obviously unenthusiastic Jamie Foxx and Zac Efron. Play to feel!
