E3 Round-Up
THIS year’s E3 has wrapped in Los Angeles, where the big players revealed their wares for the coming year. Here’s a look at what made the biggest waves.
Undoubtedly the star of the show was Microsoft’s Xbox One X, a convolutedly named but supercharged version of their ailing current-gen hardware and self-professed “world's most powerful console ever”. It’s also the smallest Xbox, and launches worldwide on November 7. Current games will look better and load faster, with the likes of Halo Wars 2, Minecraft and Resident Evil 7 enjoying 4K updates.
Rival Sony, however, already boasts a massive advantage in terms of sales and exclusives, and if Microsoft needed a mic drop moment, the eye-watering price point of £449 wasn’t it.
As for games, the Terry Crews-starring Crackdown 3 returns fans to the Agency for some open-world mayhem on the November 7. So popular is Forza that Porsche debuted its new 911 at E3, where it was announced the seventh in the petrolhead series will run at 4K and a locked 60fps when released on October 3rd.
The uber-stylish Ori and the Blind Forest is getting a sequel, Will of the Wisps, while cult favourite Metro becomes a trilogy with Exodus, an open-world (open-sewer?) take on blasting mutants in Russia’s underground network.
The ancient Egypt-set Assassin’s Creed returns on October 27 while Bioware’s Anthem will have players exploring a deadly planet next autumn in a patchwork of Destiny and Titanfall – it’s multiplatform but on Xbox One X looks stunning.
Thanks to the nagging of Star Wars actor John Boyega, EA’s Battlefront 2 will have a proper single-player mode and ditches any season pass palaver. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus returns BJ Blazkowicz to an alternative 1961 on October 27, horror sequel The Evil Within 2 is set for October 13 while Dishonored 2 expansion Death of the Outsider releases on September 15.
Sony’s PS4 has been particularly fecund of late and the games just keep coming, including a full HD remake of stone-cold PS2 classic Shadow of the Colossus in 2018. God of War is a soft reboot of the slasher series on PS4, moving the setting to Norse mythology and introducing Kratos’ son Atreus while Until Dawn gets its second VR spin-off called The Inpatient, set 60 years before the events of the original in – what else – a creepy sanatorium.
PS4 exclusive Spider-Man closed out Sony’s conference with a mix of acrobatic combat and open world web-slinging set to release in 2018. Nintendo revealed more details about Super Mario Odyssey, which launches worldwide on Switch on October 27 and where our hero is joined by a self-aware hat that can possess enemies.
Nintendo also confirmed a full-fat Pokémon RPG for Switch, but by far the biggest announcement came in the form of a Metroid logo.
No details were teased, but Metroid Prime 4 is in development for Switch, 10 years on from the third instalment. It wasn’t the only Metroid game announced – the 3DS is getting some love on September 15 with Metroid: Samus Returns, a "modern reimagining" of 1991 Game Boy classic Metroid II.
Yet for all the hardware and big budget announcements from the big three, it was Ubisoft's conference that stole the show like a dirty French tea-leaf. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle mixes is a tactical multiplayer out on August 29 and stars classic Mario characters played by Rabbids in cosplay.
Surprise of the show went to Beyond Good and Evil 2, a long-yearned-for sequel to the 2003 classic which boasts co-op play in a 24th century solar system. This and Metroid Prime notwithstanding, the next year is clogged with steaming helpings of tired sequels, remakes and a ridiculously named console to ogle.
Not a classic E3 by any stretch.
