Doublejump’s E3 2018 Digest: Day Two

Plenty of news to get through from the Xbox E3 Briefing, Bethesda E3 2018 Showcase and Devolver Digital E3 Press Conference!

The second day of E3 2018 played host to three press conferences, as Microsoft, Bethesda and indie publisher extraordinaire Devolver Digital hit the stage to announce a plethora of new games and content. There’s plenty to get through, so we’ll shut up and let you start getting through it!

News from the Xbox E3 Briefing:

Microsoft announces 15 new games:
In a refreshing change from EA Play the day before, the Xbox briefing was entirely focussed on games. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer introduced approximately 50 games (18 that are Xbox-exclusive and 15 that have never been shown before) and five studio acquisitions.

343 Industries confirms Halo Infinite:
343 Industries kicked off the event with a teaser video for its next Halo game — and it’s coming to PC! Unfortunately, the video below doesn’t appear to be much more than a demo reel for the game’s new Slipspace game engine.

Ori and the Will of the Wasps is a delightful new adventure:
Honestly, just look at this trailer!

From Software is headed to medieval Japan for its next action game:
The Dark Souls developer has partnered with Activision to bring its next project, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, to life; it’s due in 2019.

NieR: Automata is headed to Xbox One:
The BECOME AS GODS Edition includes the base game and previously released DLC and is due on June 26.

Kingdom Hearts III is coming to Xbox One:
The world of Disney is gracing an Xbox for the first time in the series’s history, with a new trailer revealing the characters of Frozen as new companions.

Forza Horizon 4 takes us back to Europe in a MacLaren and a hovercraft:
Playground Games’s Ralph Fulton introduced its latest open-world racing title, revealing that the game is set in Great Britain and will introduce dynamic seasons to the franchise. He also revealed that this will be the first Horizon title to run at 60 frames-per-second when played on Xbox One X come its October 2nd release.

Five developers have joined Microsoft Game Studios:
Phil Spencer announced that Microsoft has acquired four existing studios and set up one brand new one. Undead Labs (State of Decay), Ninja Theory (Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice), Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), and Playground Games (Forza Horizon) are officially Microsoft studios, while The Initiative is a new developer headed by former Crystal Dynamics head Darrell Gallagher based in Santa Monica.

The Division 2 takes place in the nation’s capital:
Set six months after the initial outbreak, Washington D.C. is the new battleground for Division agents. The game is due on January 15, 2019.

DEVIL MAY CRY 5 IS REAL:
Nero gets sold a hand as he takes on a new demon invasion alongside Dante and a freckle-faced engineer. (Abir: OMG MORE DMC… just not the reboot universe)

Tunic Is a gorgeous isometric action game:
Imagine Link as a fox trapped in a blocky world, and you’re on the right track.

BANDAI NAMCO’s anime worlds cross paths in JUMP FORCE:
Join Goku, Naruto, and Monkey as they join forces next year.

Dying Light 2 sees a world reborn:
Player-choice is paramount in Techland’s first-person parkour game, with former Obsidian Entertainment Designer Chris Avellone taking the lead on creating the game’s narrative.

Gears Tactics and Gears 5 are both on the way:
The Coalition’s Rod Fergusson also introduced two new full gears adventures: a tactical-strategy game and full-scale sequel respectively. Gears 5 sees Kate take on the leading role, as she searches to find answers about what’s happening inside her body.

Cyberpunk 2077 was the conference’s “one more thing”:
And, boy, is CD Projekt RED delivering on the cyberpunk premise set by the game’s title! The trailer was also full of hints, a secret message and a bunch of The Witcher III game codes (H/T IGN).

News from the Bethesda E3 2018 Showcase:

Andrew W.K. opens the show, introducing Rage 2:
In a performance literally nobody in the crowd was ready for, the party animal known as Andrew W.K. set the mood for Pete Hines to introduce the below Rage 2 gameplay feature (after a few playful jabs at the great secret-keepers at Walmart Canada). Rage 2 is set to be released next Autumn.

Jake: Is id Software director Tim Willits short, or is Avalanche Studios’ Magnus Nedfors just really fucking tall?

Starfield is Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years:
Rumoured to be in development ever since the publisher trademarked the name alongside that of Fallout 4 in 2013, Bethesda Studios Director Todd Howard finally announced the single-player sci-fi title by introducing a very brief teaser trailer. The trailer doesn’t give us much to go by, but given that it’s been announced now we’re sure to see more information about it at QuakeCon.

The Elder Scrolls VI is happening!
It’s official, and according to Howard “it’s the game that everyone has been asking for”… That’s all we know. It’s still something, though!

DOOM is back, in the form of DOOM Eternal:
id Software creative director Hugo Martin shared yet another teaser trailer, keeping the deck close to his chest but promising “twice as many demons” and “a ton of features” that the team plans to announce at QuakeCon.

Blazkowicz returns in Wolfenstein: Youngblood… But it’s not B.J.:
Set in 1980, 19 years after Papa Badasskowicz kick-started the second American Revolution in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, the co-op title will focus on B.J.’s twin daughters, Jess and Soph: players will step into their shoes as they “embrace the suffering” and search for their missing dad in an alternate, Nazi-occupied version of Paris.

We learned a whole hell of a lot about Fallout 76:
The latest Fallout game brings the series’s open-world RPG gameplay to the online arena, with a new adventure set in West Virginia less than three decades after the missile attacks that decimated the US mainland. Vault 76 was the first one to be opened following the attacks and comprised primarily of Vault-Tec employees who — as player-controlled characters — are now working to regroup and rebuild.

“You’ll be able to join your friends whenever you want and all of your progression goes with you,” Bethesda Game Studios CEO Todd Howard said. “When we think about games, we think about worlds and the choices that you can make.”

In the Xbox briefing earlier in the day, Howard revealed that players will explore a version of West Virginia that is “four times the size of Fallout 4”. Fallout 76 is slated for a December 14 release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Bethesda confirmed that an open beta is due in the coming months.

As for Fallout 4, Howard noted that the game is now available as part of the Xbox Game Pass.

News from the (very short, very funny) Devolver Digital E3 Press Conference:

SCUM is a snuff film in video game form:
The first of Devolver’s real announcements during its 20-minute conference was presented as what you’d get if Death Race and The Hunger Games had a video game baby and broadcast its entire life on the Dark Web. Developed by Gamepires and Proteam, the open-world “prison riot survival game” is set to enter Steam Early Access in August.

Fruit kills in My Friend Pedro:
Described as “a violent ballet about friendship, imagination and one man’s struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient banana” and coming to Nintendo Switch and Windows PC early next year, My Friend Pedro will allow players to pull off some crazy stunts while killing everything that moves. Sounds like fun!

Metal Wolf Chaos is finally on its way to the West:
Released way back in 2004, the title — which was only released in Japan — sees the President of the United States of America don a mech suit to fight off an evil, similarly-suited Vice-President.

Metal Wolf Chaos XD will include graphical enhancements, and is set to be released later this year on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.

In other E3 2018 News:

Microsoft:

• A new Life Is Strange adventure: Later this week, we’ll get to return to the Life Is Strange universe in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.
• Crackdown 3 is still coming: A new trailer is all that we got, and it featured a virtual version of Terry Crews with less muscles than the real man!
• Sea of Thieves is alive and breathing: Cursed Sails and Forsaken Shore are the next content packs, due in July and September respectively.
• A quick look at Battlefield V’s single-player: A little bit of German is all that we got.
• PUBG’s new Sanhok map is is coming to Xbox One: The smaller, tropical map will launch long after its PC counterpart this Summer.
• Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is real: Experience the popular JRPG’s Western debut in a newly-updated version later this year.
• Microsoft is bolstering Xbox Game Pass: Ashley Speicher (Head of Engineering) took to the stage to unveil Fast-Start, which is powered by “machine learning” and will allow select titles to start-up twice as fast as before. Furthermore, Tom Clancy’s The Division and The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited are all available now through the subscription service.
• The Lara Croft vs. Trinity fight continues in Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Eidos Montreal debuted a new story trailer for the game that really showed off its larger scope and lush Mayan setting.
• SESSION looks like the SKATE 4 that we’ve always wanted: Microsoft showcased a brief trailer for a new skateboarding title that’s exclusive to Xbox One.
• Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course is an exclusive expansion: But it’s not due until next year. :(
• A new Battletoads game is in the works: Zitz, Pimple, and Rash are entering yet another sticky situation in 2019.
• Rico Rodriguez is a tired mercenary in Just Cause 4: The man with no cause of his own is taking part in a new struggle for freedom, but this time, he’ll also struggle tornadoes.
• Gears Pop! is a mobile crossover: Pop! Vinyls come alive in an unlikely take on Gears of War.
• Game streaming is coming to Xbox: We’ll soon be able to stream games from our Xboxes and Windows 10 PCs to mobile devices.

Bethesda:

• Rage 2 has a crazy collector’s edition, complete with a talking Ruckus the Crusher voiced by the game’s apparent real-world mascot, Andrew W.K.
• Having launched on Android and iOS in 2015, Windows PC in 2016 and Xbox One in 2017, Fallout Shelter has arrived on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, where it’s available now.
• With The Elder Scrolls VI still a while away, the series will have a presence this year… on mobile. The Elder Scrolls Blades is a single-player RPG that promises “console-quality graphics, but with a uniquely mobile experience.” It launches this Spring and is available for pre-order on the App Store and Google Play now.
• It’s not a joke… Skyrim: Very Special Edition is a real thing, an audio version of the game that can be played on any device that can use Amazon’s Alexa assistant. It’s like Zork, but it’s Skyrim.
• Prey is still kicking, with a new downloadable expansion called Mooncrash adding a Story Mode, New Game Plus and Survival Mode. Unsurprisingly, it takes place on the moon, and introduces a new mechanic called “infinite replayability”; quite simple, everything is different on each new loop, making the game more unpredictable.

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