E3 in Review: Bethesda

E3 in Review: Bethesda

Not necessarily a review, as I can't exactly say I'm qualified to give that weight to words. However, I wanted to write my thoughts down so that I can maybe open up a discussion about the conference overall. This includes services, not just games.

Bethesda have kind of crept up on the industry at large, truly becoming a publishing powerhouse in recent years. With their in-house mega franchises of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, they can garner enough attention in their own right. You combine that with the studios that are now under their umbrella and you have a publisher that is gamer focused and severely cuts out the corporate talk. This year was no different, even if the conference as a whole was relatively weak. 

Kicking off the show was an awkward performance by Andrew WK, who I can assume is being integrated in the marketing campaign. I love his music, it's upilifting and hard rock, but when the screen is displaying just the Rage 2 logo it very much loses it's luster. Even the shots to the crowd just sat there with stone faces reinforces my point. In future, if there's going to be a performance, please cut a trailer to the music.

Getting to the gameplay itself, it immediately looks better than it's predecessor. The original had a very troubled development, with id Software going through various iterations of it and rushing the game out of the door. This time around it seems to really have embraced that Mad Max post apocalypse vibe and I like it. Most of the games made in this setting take the super serious, rebuild humanity approach and to see Rage 2 lean into a more punk style is cool. It all oozes style. Mixing id's first-person shooting heritage (they created the entire genre) with Avalanche Studio's open world specialisation makes for a sequel that will probably best it's earlier effort by a considerable amount. However, this game doesn't really interest me that much so I'll probably give this a miss when it launches early 2019.

Next up was a look at the updates coming to some of Bethesda's live services. First up was The Elder Scroll Legends, their digital card game. After giving it a go last year, I wasn't overly impressed and have no intention of returning. It was announced a few weeks ago that the original dev studio had been removed from the project and it was being given a graphical overhaul. This was just more of a confirmation of that. To those that enjoy it and the cross-platform progression, fantastic. I'm happy to see that they aren't giving up on it after the digital card game genre, popularised by Hearthstone, has taken a downturn in popularity.

Their other Elder Scrolls service, ESO, was shown off with content from its latest expansion. Summerset was just recently released and this more of a thankyou to fans than anything. There was no real substance to their presence on stage but Bethesda is all about showcasing all of their titles, so for it to be missing would've been jarring. 

A hard cut to the next trailer and we got a CGI trailer for Doom Eternal. Hell has come to earth and it's up to the Doom Slayer to takes out the demon hordes. Quakecon will have the bulk of the reveal but we learnt that there will be twice as many demons as their reboot and even more ludicrous ways to destroy them all. The directors of the game, Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton, felt a little too awkward on stage. They reiterated it was a sequel three times and had nothing else of consequence. Again, it felt to me like there wasn't much point in getting them onstage. Maybe just the teaser trailer was enough with a still of "Learn more at Quakecon 2018."

Speaking of Quake, Commuinity Manager Joshua Boyle took to the stage to announce that their free-to-play version of Quake Champions is available for download for this week and that you can continue to play it even when this trial ends. It's a nice touch for game that hasn't exactly taken off since it's initial reveal at E3 2016, so to get some more people in the door and maybe spread the word of the original hardcore multiplayer shooter may be the boost it needs. 

Leading on from Quake; Arkane Studios reveals some extra DLC that they've been working on for their latest title. Mooncrash is new mode that'll be released for Prey and is a procedurally generated escape run and got shadow dropped. The mimic placements are changed every time as you start from the same room and try to escape from the moon. Typhon Hunter is coming in the summer and it's essentially a glorified prop hunt mode. It's a genuinely cool idea and shows the commitment to titles that whilst didn't set the world alight commercially, certainly has its fans.

Machine Games were next up, showcasing a new title in the Wolfenstein universe. Young Blood is a new story set in the 1980's, follow BJ Blazkowicz's twin daughters as they lead the fight back against the Nazi's in Paris. Naturally, as there are two daughters, this game is slated as a co-op experience. A first for the series, if I'm correct. I've never been a huge fan of the Wolfenstein series but I have been tempted by the rebooted series and Young Blood also piques my interests. I may have to check it out.

Pete Hines returns to stage, announcing two new VR titles. Prey's Typhon Hunter expansion will have VR support for it's multiplayer mode aswell as a new single player experience, solving puzzles on the ship that the core campaign is set on. Ontop of this, Wolfenstein Cyber Pilot was talked about, taking control of a Nazi Robot Wolf to take them out from the inside. It sounds like nausea is the order of the day when that launches, but a cool different take nonetheless. 

It was the moment most of the people watching were waiting for. Todd Howard, Director of Bethesda Game Studios, takes to the stage and talks about their core franchises. The first trailer that he showed was a fantastic joke trailer for Skyrim on Amazon Alexa. The voice controlled hub acts almost like a Dungoen Master, giving you options to use before playing them and continuing your story. It's a fun poke at the "Skyrim released on everything" meme. While yes this actually got released, don't expect the Skyim: Very Special Edition on those Samsung Smart Fridges any time soon! 

Jokes aside, Todd then took us into a deep dive on their latest title, Fallout 76. Announced a few weeks prior to E3 in an effort to control the message, Todd was able to clarify a few things that had been buzzing about on the internet. Fallout 76 is indeed a multiplayer centric title, a first for the series. He was very quick to announce that the entirety of Fallout 76 can be played solo, too. 

West Virginia is four times larger than the map of Fallout 4's Boston. There is more of an emphasis on survival mechanics in this title, adding starvation and thirst on top of the RADS system that was already in place. The building system that was started in Fallout 4 makes a return, reworked and enhanced for community building. Photo mode, PVP and endgame content was all shown off. The real kicker here was one of the real game changing elements; nukes. There are four sites on the map with have nuclear warheads and if you and your friends can manage to find the launch codes for one of them, you can send it into orbit and watch the mushroom grow over a part of the map. This drastically alters the zone that got nuked, mutating the species that live there and in turn making better loot.

I'm so excited for Fallout 76. I love the idea that they're realising here and really hope it pulls through. Taking out ghouls and mutant frogs, aswell as taking on the new monsters that were shown off, with friends and creating our own little faction on a dedicated server will make for some fantastic stories that we can create ourselves. I hope that the launch date of November 14th 2018 doesn't get delayed and I'll definitely be trying to get into the beta. Colour me excited. Before moving on, it was announced that Fallout Shelter is coming to Nintendo Switch and PS4, completing the transition to all modern consoles. The mobile game was a great time sink but it is a little sad to see no integration towards Fallout 76. It would've been a great move to get bonus' in the new title by completing certain challenges in Shelter. The fact that this came before their big E3 game aswell kind of messes up the pace of the conference.  

It seemed like odd pacing was the name of the game as Todd moves on from their premier title this year to talk about a new mobile title from the creators of Fallout Shelter. The Elder Scrolls Blades is being marketed as a "full Elder Scrolls experience," and one game that Bethesda Game Studios have wanted to make for a while. From the gameplay demo, it seems like the entire game can be controlled with one hand and is trying to retain all of the features you expect from a core title. That means dungeon exploration, combat and open-ended questing. There is also town building mechanics and an arena, which I can imagine is PVP. If anyone is familiar with BGS, you'll know that the Arena is a feature they love to employ in every ES title but always has to be scaled back in lieu of other features. Oh, yeah, the entire game can be played in portrait mode. For mobile-centric players I can see this being a boon, but for everyone else I guess it is a nice addition. 

I'm glad that the conference didn't end on that odd, and rather mediocre, note. Bethesda has got into a great habit with announcing games within 3-6 month windows of their launch and Fallout 76 is no different. However, this year Todd wasn't content with leaving it at that. We got a very short tease of their new Sci-Fi IP, Starfield. It's been an idea they've been floating about for a long time and now they feel the time is right to acknowledge it's existance. Do not expect it anytime soon, though.

Finally we got confirmation of another title that people have been clamouring for. The Elder Scrolls VI. No subtitle, just a short CGI shot of the expanse that we'll be traversing after Starfield has been completed and launched. Both titles are said to be in development for "the next generation," possibly in reference to the PS5 and what Microsoft has revealed to be "Project Scarlett."

Overall, this conference was a mixed bag. A very awkward start that set a poor tone for me as a viewer. The conference picked up halfway through with some very cool announcements but, again, the pacing got weird towards the end. I would've much preferred for the Fallout 76 to be the closer. Maybe not even mention TES VI at all, as it kind of takes away the pop from the release that's right aroudn the corner. I'm in two minds about it overall. Alot of the people that took to the stage were lacking in substance for the titles they were talking about and for some of their premier franchises there were small additions. I can't make the argument that Rage should be in that upper echelon, we'll have to wait and see how Rage 2 fares. There was an awful lot of fluff overall, but I that fluff was there for the fans and I can understand their excitement for new experiences in titles like Prey and Wolfenstein. 

Bethesda love their games, love their fans and this presentation showed. Not all of their IP's are for me but the crux of the conference, Fallout 76 specifically, definitely is.