It's that time of year again! E3 is here again and this year Bethesda are hosting their very first conference to kick us off. I'll be here to cover the conference (yea it really is starting at 3am!) and give you as up to date news as I can. There are things that we know are appearing - Fallout 4 and the new Doom game, and maybe some surprises - Dishonored 2 anyone? There will be a rundown of what is happening in this article, which will be getting constantly updated throughout the conference, and I'll the link off to more specific articles as we go. Hope you enjoy E3 as much as we're expecting to, and if you'd like to talk about it, head over to our FORUMS
Running a few minutes late at the moment but it should be starting momentarily.....
Here we go, and a little Fallout tease before meeting members of different developers teams, on why they make games, and why they enjoy what they are doing - and now it's time to see what they've been making. Let's do this! Montage to start, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dishonored, Doom and more appearing. Didn't catch the name of the guy presenting the conference, but we're starting with a quick welcome, and a humble thank you to everyone joining/watching.
First game is.....Doom. One of the forefathers of FPS, id Software are back with a new iteration, presented Marty Stratton (Executive Producer at id Software). Introducing 'bad ass demons, big effing guns', you're on Mars, tasked with killing demons. Got to say the opening of this looks graphically fantastic. very fast paced, and lots of gore. We've seen a punch go through a chest and a head get taken off within the first minute. There's been demonstration of explosion effects, and a cheer from the crowd at the double barrel shotgun that is blowing enemies to bits. I've not every played a Doom game, but this already looks like something I'll be picking up. So now the main character has just ripped someone's arm off to use on a hand scanning pad, and we've just picked up a chainsaw which is slicing through enemies leaving nothing to the imagination. I think it's fair to say that this will be an 18+ game, and it's not even pretending to be anything but, very impressive stuff. And we've now finished off with a death scene with the protagonist's limbs being pulled off.
Now onto a look at multiplayer. It'll have arena style combat with modes such as -domination, freeze tag and clan arena and game play with vertical movement, power ups. It looks as though the fast paced gorey gameplay will transfer over to the multiplayer mode. And they have just announced Doom Snapmap - an in game creating tool to create modes, maps and gameplay. And these can all be shared with friends and the rest of the world. This is a great start, Doom has just made a serious statement.
Before finishing we go back to the single player, and we are in the demon's home - Hell. We're shown a bit of the vertical traversal with the controllable character being able to survive huge drops - followed by more chainsawing and a curbstomp for good measure. After a whole host of other enemies, the set piece ends with a tease of a massive gun and a HUGE enemy. Launching Spring 2016. Have a look at a trailer HERE
Slow down a bit now, and a look at Bethesda.net and how the company are very keen to support and encourage user made mods.
Now onto Battlecry, a game I don't know much about. Lucas Davies from Battlecry Studios has let us know it is an online action game with team based combat that is now accepting sign ups for the Beta. It's a third person class based game by the looks of it, with some cartoony graphics. Not much to see from the trailer, but it hasn't impressed me much, especially after Doom made such a good start. You can check out the trailer HERE
Arkane Studios!! Is it Dishonored 2?? We're having a talk about they type of games the studio like to make. They thank the fans for everyone who played Dishonored......And what comes next? It looks like another Dishonored to me....I hope so, I absolutely loved the first one, and the mask sinking into the water all but confirms it. We're looking at a city from a first person view, with a voiceover, while traversing the environment. Emily Caldwin has just attempted an assassination on an unknown person but has been thwarted by some robot looking dudes. Demonstrations of special abilities lead into the title of the game....Dishonored 2! Of course it is. A quick tease on some details of the game that we'll cover in another article, but expect more of what you loved, and being able to go through the game without killing a thing. A trailer can be found HERE. AND AND AND....Dishonored Definitive Edition has been announced, all of the first game, for the new generation of consoles, to be released this fall
Elder Scrolls Online have a segment via video to have a lok at what new things can be expected for the game this year. Looks like they will be expanding on their PVP section and introducing a new Orc based area to the game. Check out the trailer HERE I'm currently reviewing the game on console, so it is difficult to say what effect this will have on the game before getting a bigger impression of it. Quickly following up on that is Elder Scrolls Legends - a strategy card game which will be on PC and tablets.
Crowd is being teased that it is the end of the show, but of course it's not as a chant of Fallout comes from the crowd. Game Director at Bethesda Game Studios Todd Howard takes to the stage. So Fallout 4 has been being worked on for 4 years! Crazy that nothing has leaked on it before a few weeks ago. I've not ever been able to get into Fallout as much as The Elder Scrolls in the past for some reason, but I'm still looking forward to this look at the game. We've been promised to see a lot tonight. We're getting a look at some of the concept art for the game, and there are some great setpieces to look at, along with environments and character models.
Fallout 4 start BEFORE the nuclear bombs fell, a chance to see some colour in a Fallout game. We're straight into the character creation, with no sliders. A new take on character creation, you're 'moulding' the face as you go, and get to create the male and female characters. Apparently the baby will be based on the characteristics of the parents. It's strange seeing Fallout with this level of graphical fidelity, after being so used to seeing Fallout 3 and Oblivion/Skyrim. I'm loving this character creating thing, it's really fresh, you get to assign attributes/skills when a salesman comes to the door. Now we're on to the bomb drops, and the characters head to the vault. I'm pretty sure he just said we're emerging 200 years later from Vault 111, might have heard that wrong though. I might have used this word too many times already, but this open world is very impressive. Grass is moving around, but everything seems so.....still, it's quite an atmosphere the game is creating. And we've met up with the house robot we saw in the opening scenes, there's a bit of comedy in this presentation of the game aswell to lighten the mood. Now we've met the dog from the initial trailer to a big cheer from the crowd, and it's good to see the popular V.A.T.S system making a return. Of course the pipboy had to make an appearance before the end, there's a quick look at how it has been updated. But it is what's next that got the fanboys' seats wet, they've created a Pipboy edition with a real pipboy that you can put your smartphone in, download the app, and have your very own pipboy screen. Very nice touch, and as special editions go, pretty cool.
Before ending, there's another Fallout game announced - Fallout Shelter, a mobile game where you are the overseer of a vault, which has you creating your very own vault, focussing on resource management, and looking after your dwellers. A bounus? This is a free game, and the only thing you can pay for (if you want) are their version of loot chests - lunchboxes. And it's out some point in the next few hours!
Back to Fallout 4 again. And now building and crafting. It is introducing a way for the player to build, and decorate their own stuff. You can rip down and reuse resources. You can build a whole settlement, which will attract new dwellers, ad NPC's such as traders. The settlements will get attached by raider to you will also need to build defences, turrets etc. Looks like a game within a game from what they are showing. Massive amount of options to customise your settlement with. And a nice touch with the lights you can use showing the games trademark character up on a wall. Within this customisation system, you can play with your weapons. There are around 50 base weapons, each with over 700 customisations! Insane. I can already see people spending hours on their work benches rather than playing the game (a bit like Gwent on Witcher 3). There are even modifications to your power armour. This is all going down very well with the audience. Really nice montage which made me LOL at the start with the different clothing options, and dog reactions. It's also demonstrating that it's not just Doom that can do gore and explosions. This was a special presentation, well done Bethesda Game Studios. Even better, its coming out November 2015, wasn't expecting that.
Fallout 4 has quite clearly been the stand out performer of this conference, especially for me being a massive RPG fan. It has even made me want to go back and give Fallout 3 another chance, and then Fallout New Vegas. Doom though, has been a massive surprise for me, and is now firmly on my radar. Great way to start off E3. This has been a reaction as it happens article, so it may seem a bit messy in parts. I'll be looking to make individual articles for specific games shortly and will link them in this thread