The Xbox E3 2018 briefing by Microsoft Corp. started for audiences like many good things do: with thunder and rain.
To whet the appetites of viewers, Microsoft began by playing an extensive set of clips from different worlds, showing various scenes of animals, forests and deserts, finalizing in a Halo logo — oh, and, of course, a view of Master Chief and his iconic helmet.
Then, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer took the stage. “With Halo: Infinite, we will join Master Chief on his greatest adventure yet to save humanity.”
He welcomed everyone to E3 2018 by noting that he was speaking to the largest-ever live audience for a Microsoft briefing. He also mentioned that the event would be live-streamed on Mixer, as it was also on Twitch and YouTube at the same time.
Microsoft is announcing 50 new games, 18 exclusives to Xbox with 15 world premieres during this E3.
The first game to visit the screen is a puzzle jumper with a glowing protagonist who navigates a cartoony, dark world filled with savage monsters. The scenes are gorgeous and emotional, making a release for 2019 of Ori: Will of the Wisps.
The next world premiere is none other than an atmospheric Japanese RPG from Activision called Sekiro: The Shadows Die Twice. In it, the main character loses a limb, replaced by mechanical weapons and other tools, and fights against larger opponents.
Bethesda announced that Fallout 4 is coming to Xbox Pass and then presented the world premiere of Fallout 76. The game will be four times larger than any other Fallout game and is presented as a prequel to all of the other games. Set in the hills of West Virginia, players will emerge into a new an untamed wasteland.
“For when the bombs have dropped and the fallout has settled. You must rebuild. Not just roads, not just walls, but hearts — and America itself. In Vault 76 our future begins,” said the narrator of the trailer.
The next premier is an original trailer in the Life is Strange universe involving a young boy, with a powerful imagination. Chris is a storyteller who imagines spaceships and unexplored planets in the snow-covered winter of his small town. He changes his stuffed animals and snowmen into compatriots in his make-believe in the Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.
Next up is Crackdown 3 — a game that needs no introduction than Crackdown one and two. It seems to involve the same open world running and verticality that was present in the previous two games. Of course, the trailer for it is bombastic and over the top, showing off vehicles and feats of superhuman strength. Release expected February 2019.
Russia has been turned into a blasted, post-apocalyptic setting in a shooter that brings together the dead and mutants in an upcoming shooter called Metro: Exodus. Release Feb. 22, 2019.
For the first time ever on Xbox, Kingdom Hearts 3 will bring Frozen to this classic series (with predictable results). The trailer also showed Rapunzel, Wreck it Ralph, Elsa from Frozen, Hercules, toys from Toy Story and many others.
Sea of Thieves developer Rare made an announcement of two expansions and noting 91 million hours played in the game, during a chat with the skull collector in the game. A trailer revealed that Cursed Sales (this June) and Forsaken Shores (later this summer) DLC are coming to the game, filled with fire and ash and skeleton crews.
The Forza series is getting another addition to its car-racing franchize, with a trailer set in the idyllic countryside of European countries. The cars are still shiny, the roads long and winding — when the game is not going off road in Forza Horizon 4 releasing October 4. The game will introduce seasons affecting a shared open world, where players will interact with everyone from the entire community — meaning other players found on the roads will be actual people.
Seasons change everything in this new 60 frames per second — seasons, time of day and weather conditions are dynamic, but they are synchronized for every player, meaning the entire community will experience them together.
We Happy Few from Compulsion Games, a weird stealth role-playing game about a community subsumed by a drug that modifies human emotion, will be coming this August 10.
Winter 2018 is going to get interesting with changes coming to Player Unknown Battlegrounds, which is getting new game modes, new locations, and a lot of changes.
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will take place in Washington DC, no longer winter, but during the heat of summer. The game received a teaser trailer that talked about governments and corruption and then a beautiful gameplay trailer taken directly from the Snowdrop Engine. Players investigate an overgrown region with a derelict building — a fitting homage to The Division with Christmas decorations still in the building. Players find a camp of survivors and a mission. It looks very similar to the first game, just less snow. The players find a “control point” covered in enemy NPC units and it looks like there will be a bunch of new electronics (from drones to “hive” mines.) Release Mar. 15, 2019.
Square Enix wants to answer strange questions about Laura Croft with the upcoming release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider that sends the tomb raider into Mayan temples, unleashing an undefined horror. Coming Sep. 14, 2018.
Boards, trucks and wheels make their debut along with rap lyrics in Session, a skateboarding game that takes players into a myriad of concrete landscapes.
Pearl Abyss, the developer of the MMORPG Black Desert Online, put together a trailer for Illezra, the darkness born from the desert. It’s hard to tell exactly what this will bring to the MMORPG, but it appears to be new content, at least three new regions named in the video.
The creepy world of Dying Light 2 will involve players in a survival struggle against the infected across the city. Although the bleak and unforgiving reality of the city is a major part of the setting, players will have the ability to change the world around them. Player choice will have a real impact on the city and its inhabitants. In a demo, the Dying Light 2 developers show how a single decision by the player — to release water to a faction known as the Peacekeepers or put it on the black market. Both decisions come with social consequences, some good and some bad comes from any decision.
The Gears of War franchise is getting Gears 5. The game received a gameplay video featuring the protagonist, Kait, landing in a rescue mission to a remote village — but something goes horribly wrong. Kait claims to be getting visions, and she needs them figured out, so elements of the team decide to go with her to figure that out. The fear, that she’s being controlled by the enemy and this could open up a different understanding of the world and the invaders that made the Gears a necessity. Release in 2009.
Microsoft pushed Xbox Game Pass — it’s free game of the month service — at several points during the briefing and at the ending. Clearly, the company is looking to get people to buy into the service to try games and build the market around the number of players buying into Pass.
Spencer also mentioned Microsoft AI engineering to make game characters and environments more compelling. He also mentioned Microsoft Cloud, building connectivity for Xbox, PC and mobile devices for games. Microsoft Studios is also adding five new creative studios.
The very end of the conference had a beautiful, flashy introduction of a trailer from CD Projekt Red for Cyberpunk 2077. Instead of ending, Spencer got cut off, the arena flickered, and the E3 projectors seemed to crash — and then, a short 2077 trailer hit the screen. No details about the game, per se, but a beautiful, well-rendered video with narration about the city where the game will take place.
Welcome to E3 2018 everyone. It’s going to be an interesting year.
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