There i s a lot of stuff to cover, so I decided to split this into four entries, one or each day of the show.
Firstly though, I'm going to talk about Summer Game Fest, which happened in the day prior to the main show which was once again hosted by Geoff Keighley. Although it wasn't the most exiciting thing in the world, it still had several interesting announcements, Most notably, though...
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
Now this got me hyped for realzies. I used to be a real big fan of Bordlerlands franchise and Tiny Tina's one of the best characters in that verse - and with added strong high fantasy flavour it's definitely the best announcement of the show, at least for me. It was leaked a couple days ago, though, but thanks to my p olicy of going practically offline each year before E3, I had no ida it existed until Summer Game Fest.
From what we know, the story of the game will be basically a D'n'D session , with Tiny Tina as a Dungeon Master (or rather, "Bunker Master") and our playable characters as the players. The goal? Defeat "Dragon Lord". In my opinion, this idea fits perfectly into Tiny Tina's character, as somebody who would actually play paper roleplaying games in the wicked world of Borderlands. The game's scheduled for early 2022 release, and I can't wait. Right after that, it was time for...
Metal Slug Tactics
Metal Slug is SNK's beloved 2D shooter series, From what we've seen this time though, Metal Slug Tactics isn't what we would call the next entry in the mainline series, but rather a spin-off, which takes the franchise in a rather interesting direction. This time it mixes up well known combat of Metal Slug with light XCOM elements, alongside some rougelike style random content generation. I must say I'm not a big Metal Slug fan, never really played any game for extended periods of time (not counting an arcade on a fantasy convention a couple years back) so don't really have much experience, but nonetheless, the trailer that was presented at Summer Game Fest looked interesting. In past few years, XCOM formula proved itself to be universal, getting adapted to inreasing amount of different franchises - like Gears of War, or Mario + Rabbids, and there's even a Marvel game in development taking the same idea into the superhero setting. Anyway, I'll keep my eyes on this game. Meanwhile....
Death Stranding's Director's Cut
I never was a big fan of Hideo Kojima, mostly because I didn't have Playstation when Metal Gear Solid was in the hayday. So, I can't say much about Death Stranding, aside from repeating what I heard at the show. Essentially, Kojima teased his new title, which as the rumor has it, may or may not come to the Xbox platform. In the meantime though, Kojima announced a Director's Cut remaster of Death Stranding, exclusively for Playstation 5 with a trailer that obviously parodied MGS. Wheter or not will I give this franchise a chance, I don't know, we'll see. Not my kind of gameplay though.
Jurassic World: Evolution 2
As a kid, I quite enjoyed tycoon games such as Railroad Tycoon, or Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise. In the years gone by though, RPGs and racing games tooked their place as my go-to gaming genres. I have to be honest, I completely missed out on the first Evolution, busy with playing and doing other stuff. Whenever the first Evolution goes on sale, I think I will fix that - and when that happens, expect an extended entry on my thoughts about the game. For now though, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Jurassic World movie, and I will await more info on Evolution 2 since aside of the trailer (with voice over by Jeff Goldblum), and a 2021 release window, we didn't get much. I'll share with you my thoughts, once we learned more about the title.
Lost Ark
I always like to challenge new free-to-play games if only just to see how far can I get without spending a dime on them. I am somewhat Scrooge McDuck about it. Anyway, Lost Ark which is a F2P action MMORPG until now exclusive to South Korea, gets released in the West, courtesy of Amazon Games, and apparently the game is crazily popular in Asia. From what I learned about it, it offers seven large continents to explore and MMO your way through, and customizing your hero with whopping 15 character classes. The game utilizes something called Tripod Skill system for raising your character's abilities with each power having it's own three tiers of customization. The game comes to Steam this autumn, and I'll try to fit more info about it in one of future entries.
Call of Duty: Warzone & Black Ops Cold War
There are three things you can be certain about in life. Death, taxes, and new Call of Duty news. Yeah, I'm not a big Call of Duty fan. The last entry in the series I really liked was the original Modern Warfare - to be honest, I'm not really much into FPS games, and truthfully, maybe I just didn't give newer titles a chance. And maybe I will. At the time of writing this entry though, Season Four for both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War is in full effect, and it brings several important changes... like freaking nuking the entire map of Call of Duty Warzone, it seems. I'm not going to elaborate here on the story of the game I haven't ever played, though, as there is a lot to unpack here. If I get to play this game, you can expect me writing about it a lot.
Among Us
A lot of people love this game as it exploded in popularity in the last year, so obviously I'm gonna talk about what's new. And there is a lot, as we learned at Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest presentation. Among the things that are coming to the game are the achievement system, new skins and colors for the characters, and even a whole new game mode Hide'n'Seek which involves... well, hiding and seeking. Didn't see that one coming :) Oh, and there's also a new map. The development team at the InnerSloth, creators of the game, is fairly small so new content updates aren't gonna be as frequent as some would like, but even what we get looks cool in my opinion.
Next few games are games published by Primal Matter, Koch Media's new publishing company, which holds the rights to Payday, Painkiller and Mount and Blade franchises. So let's go over them, shall we?
Payday 3
The production of this game was painful as heck, and still doesn't seem very soon to completion, given announced release date of 2023. First announced in 2016 the game went through a bumpy road, including engine change from Valhalla to Unreal Engine 4 and complete restart of development in 2020. Now scheduled for the release under Prime Matter publishing company, it's finally likely to come out. Eventually. In meantime, game's developer continues to support Payday 2 with new content. Yay?
Crossfire: Legion
It seems just this E3 I learned of the existence of one of the most popular games in the world. Funny how that works, when you live (at least nearly) in the West. Oh, and the fact it's a mobile FPS. Thankfully, due to the efforts the publisher Prime Matter, we're going to see what this game is all about... well, sort of. What we're getting is an Xbox-exclusive title CrossfireX (creativity well must have gone dry at Microsoft with this one) with the story campaing developed by Alan Wake's Remedy, AND an RTS spinoff of the game, developed by Blacbird Interactive, who some people may know as the studio that brought back Homeworld franchise. Apparently, that isn't even all that we're gonna see from Crossfire franchise in the upcoming years. For me personally, mobile and FPS don't mix very good, but that RTS might be a completely different story. No pun intended.
New Painkiller game
It's been long overdue, really. This franchise, originally developed by Polish People Can Fly studio (who you might know from such titles like Bulletstorm, or Gears of War: Judgement) was one of the best oldschool First Person Shooters out there. It was one hell of fun game (again, no pun intended :) ), and since then the franchise shifted publishers and developers so frequently, it would take an another full blog entry to sum up As for my opinion, I'm gonna wait and see, exactly beacause the game isn't developed by the original creators anymore, and we don't even actually know WHO is going to develop it, much less when it's gonna come out, or even it's title.
Rocket League x Fast 9
Not gonna elaborate much over this - another Rocket Leauge DLC, this time adding some content related to Fast & Furious franchise. Haven't really played Rocket League, despite the fact it's technically a car game. I guess I'm really not a football kinda guy. Next.
Vampire The Masquerade's Bloodhunt
Yes, another Vampire The Masquerade, I'm pumped! But no... wait... Comes out it's a free-to-play battle royale. Because we really are in the dire need of more of those, right? Well, no. Anyway, if you don't know what Vampire The Masquerade is, it's essentially a role playing (both digital and tabletop) game franchise where you played the role of vampires in modern-day setting. The Masquerade is a rule, according to which no vampire is allowed to reveal their nature to mortal humans. In the universe, there are vampire sects battling over control of the cities. I guess I don't have to elaborate over how battle royale gameplay works, so I'll just say that players will posses various vampiric abiliites that can aid them in well... battle. I think you can figure out what some of these abilities are. :) Closed alpha begins on July 2, and - if you still crave for more battle royale games - the game is scheduled for a full release later this year.
Overwatch 2 skin reveals
Not really a big reveal or anything. We know Overwatch 2 is coming, and during the SGF show we got to see polished up models of Sombra and Baptiste who will come back as the playable characters in the game. I didn't really play Overwatch when it was hype, but I really liked characters' designs. I might give this new game a shot (again, no pun intended :) ). That is, if I'll be able to afford it.
Far Cry 6 Giancalro Esposito interview
I think I'll elaborate about Far Cry 6 more when I'll start talking about Ubisoft Forward presentation, so for now: this guy really gets into his role. Almost disturbingly so. Esposito is known for his parts in Mandalorian and Breaking Bad, so we're having an actor who made quite a name for himself. The game is coming out October 7 for pretty much all active platforms, save for the Switch and Stadia, so we'll see how he stacks up against the rest of Far Cry villains.
Evil Dead: The Game
Evil Dead franchise is one of the staples of horror stories, so it's all the more exciting for it's fans to hear Bruce Campbell voicing the trailer of new game that was revealed at Summer Game Fest. From what we heard, we'll be able to play not only as Ash, and the rest of "good guys", but also as Kandarian Demon who tries to plunge the world into darkness. The game is supposed to launch later this year. So strap up, make sure your chainsaw has enough fuel and go hunt these monsters.
Elden Ring
Arguably, a game of the show for many players (the third for me though, after Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and a new Painkiller game), a new title developed by From Software - a new soulslike, if you will - will take the proven formula and spice it up a bit - for instance, with horseback riding. Oh, and did I mention the lore of the game is being crafted by Game of Throne's George R. R. Maritin? No? Oopsie. Anyways, the game comes out on January 22, 2022.
So that about wraps up this post. Thanks if you really sat and read all of this - from one side I wanted to bring you some details about all the upcoming games, but from the other I didn't want to pretend I play and know all, which I don't. Anyway, as we dealt with SGF, now I think we are ready to jump in the show proper. Next up: Ubisoft Forward Presentation. See you in the next entry, then. ;)
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