We are 15 minutes away from the big one. Microsoft's E3 conference this year has a lot of pressure on it, promises have been made about it being huge, so much so, that big games such as Quantum Break, Scalebound and Crackdown are sitting out completely as there just isn't enough room for them. Halo, Forza and Gears are all making an appearance, aswell as the timed exclusive new Tomb Raider. But will Microsoft have any surprises up their sleave? Here's hoping. Not long to wait. Make sure to check this article after the conference for all the reactions.
So slightly different to yesterday's Bethesda Conference article where I wrote as the conference happened. This time I've watched the whole conference, written a plethora of notes, and will give a reaction on what I saw. Before I start though I will say that Microsoft had a fantastic conference, though it was surprising where the high notes came, and what maybe didn't live up to expectation.
Microsoft started with one of its sure fire hits - Halo 5: Guardians. I am a huge Halo fan, so this should have got me excited from the get go, but it didn't. I don't know why, maybe I'm Halo'd out, maybe Bethesda set the bar really high yesterday. Whatever the reason, this didn't give me a 'wow' moment I wanted from the first new Halo game on Xbox One. We saw some of the campaign mode in action, but no Master Chief. We looked at the Sparan Locke angle, and the teamplay mechanics the game is using. There was a demo of the co-op, and it showed what looked to be a command system to issue instructions to the squad. The traversal of the environment was also shown - sprinting and clambering. But the rest was just, well it was just Halo. That isn't a bad thing I guess, but it hasn't really made me look forward to the game anymore that I already was, it might have even knocked it down my 'want' list, despite the reveal of the new Warzone multiplayer mode - massive maps, 24 players and AI advesaries. Release date: 27/10/2015
Next is more along the lines of what I wanted from E3 - a new IP, called Recore, from the creators of Metroid Prime. Can't make out much of what sort of game it's going to be - we're treated to a desert with a female character walking with her robot dog(?). Things quickly turn into a shootout and poor doggy sacrifices himself. But the 'orb' he leaves behind is put into a bigger robot, that seemingly continues with the conscious of the dog. Difficult to gain an impression of the game so far, but some sort of action/shooter game looking likely. Whatever it is, it's NEW, which is refreshing in itself.
Phil Spencer took to the stage next talking to us how this is the 'greatest line up in Xbox history', as we have heard in the build up to the conference. It's what he said next though that blew mine, and the audiences mind. With what was arguably the biggest announcement, especially in terms of surprise. Backwards compatibility it coming to Xbox One! It'll start with around 100 games, and if you've already owned them you won't need to pay again. Of course Xbox One features will be available - screenshots, DVR etc. but the big point - multiplayer is cross platform. And who knows, maybe this will be the start of bucking the trend of remakes? Following this, we had the announcement of a brand new Elite Xbox controller, which is being targetted a people looked to do competitive gaming, and looks like it has interchangeable parts, along with the expected stuff such as better accuracy.
Fallout 4 made an appearance next, footage wise, it didn't show a huge amount more than we saw yesterday, a few extra guns but that's about it. I was concerned that this was starting to be a bit filler before they dropped THE bombshell. PC mods for Fallout 4 will be made available for Xbox One. That was a 'boom!' moment right there for Microsoft. PC gamers for years have been telling us console lot how mods make games better, now we get to experience that on the Xbox One, fantastic. And if that's not enough, Fallout 3 is being bundled in with Fallout 4 on Xbox One aswell.
Peter Moore came out for a small EA segment on EA Access. It's free this week for all Gold members, and Titanfall and Dragon Age: Inquisition are being added. There was also an announcement and world premier for Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2. Nothing much to write home about really, but more games added to the vault are always welcome for access members.
It seemed as though the next load of games came thick and fast:
Forza 6: A Ford GT was lowered onto the stage to usher in the Forza 6 segment. If I'm honest I paid very little attention to this, it looked like another game where shiny cars go round tracks, so yea....Forza 6 is a thing and will be released on September 15th.
Dark Souls 3: World premier time. While the announcement wasn't surprising, I was surprised that it used Microsoft's conference to do it, what with Bloodbourne being a Playstation exclusive and all. Nice coup for Microsoft to get a big time game like that at it's show.
The Division: Following Dark Souls it was time for The Division to take the floor, not many more details than we already knew, but Xbox One are having an exclusive beta in December. Something to definitely look forward to methinks.
Rainbow Six Siege: Release date is October 13th. And on Xbox One it will come with both Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2 through the power of backward compatibility - both completely free of course. All these little things are adding up in Microsoft's points column
It's ID@Xbox up next, and it's time for the indie scene to flaunt its stuff. Opening with a montage, that included far too many things to keep on top of we focussed on 4 games after it - Tacoma, from the guys who made Gone Home (available first on X1 and PC), Ashen from Aurora44 (Xbox console exclusive), Beyond Eyes, an interesting look at a blind girl being able to 'see' by using other senses (first on X1 and PC) and Cuphead, a unique 30's style cartoon come platform game (Xbox console exclusive). If that's not enough for you, Microsoft is treating us to the Xbox Game Preview programme, which seems very akin to the Steam Early Access It lets you play a trial version of alpha/beta versions of games, before putting money down to 'buy in' to their development. The first 4 games for this are - Long Dark, Shelter, Elite Dangerous and DayZ. DayZ's creator then took to the stage to announce his new game 'Ion'.
Rise of the Tomb Raider put us back on the blockbuster trail with what seemed to be a fairly linear section of the game which featured plenty of near death moments for Lara along a snowy cliff featuring ice climbing. Couldn't pick much up from this really, graphically it looks fantastic, and hopefully it looks that good when it is released on November 10th. Another montage at the end of this showed us some other environments in the game before finishing off in a large tomb.
Rare then took to the stage which got the murmurs going in the crowd. Rare, for a long while now, have seemingly been making kinect games and doing whatever Microsoft wants them to do, much to the disappointment of their fans. And they were there to announce.....a collection of 30 Rare games that will be available on August 4th on Xbox One. Well that was disappointing. BUT, there's another announcement! They are releasing a brand new, shared world adventure game - Sea of Thieves, which judging on the trailer features exploring, looting, cartoony graphics, big ships and PIRATES! Lets hope Rare manage to turn this into gold.
Before they finished the conference they looked at the free to play Fable Legends which is a Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusive, and had a look at VR and Hololens - both of which I'm sure will go the way of Kinect. Though it would be nice to have a brand new way of enjoying games at some point. And of course the Gears of War remake was referenced to.
They finished on a bit of a surprise - Gears 4. Like Halo, I am a big Gears fan, but like Halo 5 this really didn't do it for me. Visually it looks great of course, but there seemed to be plenty of things just ported straight over from old Gears games - weapon selection animations, kicking down gates, shooting, use the chainsaw, it even looked like some of it was the exact same animations. I have high hopes for it, but I'm hoping the things about, however small they are, get changed. It was a solid end to a very good conference, but left me thinking that maybe Gears should have finished on the 360.