4 July 2017
This year's E3 was the first where members of the public could buy tickets to attend the gaming industry's biggest show. 15,000 tickets were available at a steep price of $249 ($149 for the first 1,000) but eventually all tickets did sell out. This meant the usually media/press only event was busier than ever. With some people there working and others effectively on a dream holiday trip, the organisers should probably separate the week of E3 with press only and public only days. It'll be interesting to see how price and ticket numbers change in years to come.
As for the press conferences themselves, it was a mixed bag. Two publishers put on stellar surprising shows and two didn't really need to hold a staged conference at all. Regardless I fully enjoyed the week as always.
Thankfully EA was first. The conference where most people know all the games to be revealed except for maybe one surprising indie title. A Way out was that game, and Anthem was a cool, new, triple-A IP reveal, but the teaser trailer didn't really show anything. Fans remember the Microsoft show for Anthem. Star Wars Battlefront II was clearly the big showpiece from EA, and despite not seeing any single player campaign gameplay, Janina Gavankar was brilliant on stage. I think most people were unimpressed by the eSports-style casting of the live multiplayer demo, because no one knew what was going on. But it was former Call of Duty caster GoldenboyFTW so I enjoyed it.
The other bigger candidate for not a putting on an E3 conference this year was Bethesda. I said last year that I thought they might benefit from staging a show every two years instead, to allow it to fill with more content. The Wolfenstein II trailer was great and super quirky, but it took up a quarter of their mere 38 minute show. There also weren't really any surprises apart from Link's gear being available in Skyrim on Switch.
Microsoft and Sony were good but neither had a standout surprise that shocked everyone. The former had a great lineup of games, and added another library to their backwards compatibility program. But it's the Xbox One X that is the real talking point. To their credit they've packed so much tech into a beautiful small box, but there are two key factors why I believe this console will desperately struggle for sales.
So who is this 'premium console' for? I don't see where the market is that Microsoft are aiming for. There isn't a definitive reason to own an Xbox One X.
Therefore Sony and PlayStation fans have nothing to worry about in terms of the highest selling gaming console in this extended generation. Which probably explains why their E3 this year was a little lacklustre, especially compared to their amazing show last year.
Days Gone has had way too much stage time at this point. This being its second lengthy gameplay demo from two E3 Sony stages, and still no release date. The longer it waits, the more comparisons will be drawn with The Last of Us. However after seeing a 'behind closed doors' alternate path demo - the same gameplay but with it snowing - this game has a much bigger scale than I thought. It's a huge dynamic open world where you almost never feel safe, and with a motorbike to keep topped up with fuel, the structure of the game is far different to The Last of Us.
Moving on to a game we should've seen is GT Sport. No mention of it at all during Sony's main show. It still remains as one of their biggest first party games, but they're potentially leaving it to die at the moment, with no new information and still no release date, even though they repeatedly say 2017. Plus with serious competition from Forza 7 and Project CARS 2 (both due out in September) they need to market this game and show racing fans why it's better. Ever since Project CARS 2 was announced, I've seriously started to question GT Sport. It's now driving me crazy as a long time GT fan, and I wish Sony had given this game its final push at this year's E3. Check what I said about GT Sport almost exactly a year ago as it's quite hilarious.
One game I am convinced has been cancelled by Sony is Dreams. This weird creation tool game by the same team behind the LittleBigPlanet series, has not been mentioned on stage by Sony since E3 2015. A beta was planned for 2016, but nothing ever happened. Nobody knows what you actually do in this game, besides create weird stuff you can 'dream' of. Due to this complete lack of direction, I'm convinced Sony will cancel this in the near future.
Ubisoft very nearly stole the show and almost won E3 in my opinion, with another great lineup of games, and a superstar on stage with Miyamoto. The highlight though has to be the Beyond Good and Evil 2 reveal, it was similar in reaction to The Last Guardian from Sony back in 2015. Although with this only being a CGI trailer, it seemed like this is still 2 or 3 years away from its release.
However, little did we know what Ubisoft would subsequently reveal 11 days after their conference. An amazing gameplay walkthrough by the game's Creative Director Michel Ancel. It turns out that BGE2 contains a multiple-planets-sized world, very much like No Man's Sky. If this game is supposed to have detail like that shown in the E3 CGI trailer, this becomes one of the most ambitious games ever.
It was very weird to reveal a demo like this after E3. It was almost as if Ubisoft couldn't decide, and after hearing so many people say this game is years away from completion, they wanted to prove people wrong. However with this video going public it could bite back at the BGE2 team, because everyone will think back to this footage if the final game doesn't deliver - similar to No Man's Sky again. Could they not have saved this gameplay demo to next year's E3? Like Spider-Man at Sony. CGI reveal trailer at one E3, full gameplay demo at the next. I think everyone, BGE fans included, would've been happy with this.
And lastly Nintendo. They absolutely nailed it with the games shown off. Not one but two new Metroid games revealed. Delighting so many fans of the series around the world. The one slight negative for Nintendo was that everything wasn't wrapped up in the pre-recorded Spotlight film. Reggie Fils-Aime announced Metroid: Samus Returns long after it finished. Meaning I'm sure some Nintendo fans missed this reveal live. But it was great to have extended live gameplay demos of Super Mario Odyssey and Metroid: Samus Returns regardless.
So to bring up the usual question... Who won E3? It has to be Nintendo, with Ubisoft in a close second.
As for my game of E3? There were three standout titles in: Super Mario Odyssey, Spider-Man and Anthem. And after some consideration they do rank in that order. I loved the Spider-man gameplay being just like the movies, but it's the joy of Mario. I'm still amazed at how Nintendo manage to add brilliant new mechanics to a simple character that has been in video games for over 30 years. They are creative geniuses.
I think the following paraphrased up-voted YouTube comment (because I can no longer find it) almost sums up this E3, and why this game was most people's favourite...
Microsoft: "Here is the most powerful console in history with 6 teraflops, blah, blah, blah..."
Nintendo: "Mario can throw his hat to become a frog" - crowd goes wild.