Microsoft E3 2018: Finally Brought The Fire

     After having this entire console generation, be a game of catch up, it seems as though they are finally taking things seriously when it comes to their game lineup. Firstly, pertaining to the first party exclusives, there seems to be the usual suspects, however, even so a fair number of them look to be moving forward in interesting ways. The first shown was Halo: Infinite, which seems to be open world, and is created in the slipspace engine, not much else is known, other than it exists. Ori And The Will O The Wisps was given a gameplay trailer, it looks like an improvement on the first game. A new trailer of Crackdown 3 was shown, which looks good if that is your cup of tea, with a confirmed release of Feb 2019. Sea Of Thieves content was announced to be released in July and September, the Forsaken Shores, and Cursed Sails. Forza Horizon 4 was announced which will be taking place in Britain, it will have dynamic seasons, weather, and time of day.

     The open world is shared, with all players, and share all of the dynamic elements. Co-op play can be entered seamlessly, they also indicated there will be a 60 fps "mode", with a release date of 2nd October. There was also an announcement of Cuphead DLC, which brings 3 new playable characters. There was an announcement of three new games within the Gears Of War series. A mobile game with a Funko Pop theme, not much info currently. Gears Tactics, which is similar to X-com was announced which takes place 12 years before the first game, with a trailer shown for the next game in the main series, Gears 5, with a 2019 release window. Last but not least was the announcement of a new Battletoads game, which includes 3 player couch co-op, with no other information at the moment. Additionally, the majority of these games that have a confirmed release, will be a part of the Games Pass, also Fallout 4, The Division, and ESO are now a part of the service. 

     After following the really weird usual business talk, that is sadly a requirement of things like E3, the gamut of third party games, exclusive or otherwise was released. From Software, showed off a trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a game that looks like a cross between, Tenchu, and the Souls series, while having its own distinct flavor. After a short trailer showing Fallout 76, they showed a side story in the universe called Awsome Adventures Of Captain Spirit. No real details were given in the trailer as to when this takes place, but it will be free on 26 June. Nier Automata: Be As Gods Edition was shown, which will have all the DLC, and be enhanced, with a release of 26 June. Metro Exodus showed a trailer, with a release date of 22nd February, 2019. After this was the reveal of the Frozen World in Kingdom Hearts 3, with a release date of 29 January, 2019.

     After a disgustingly short trailer for Nordly's War Story, for Battlefield 5, a new We Happy Few story trailer was shown with a release date of August 10th. A few announcements were made for PUBG, mainly a few new maps, and the addition of War Mode, and something to do with a winter map, which will release in winter 2018. Division 2 was shown with a bit of gameplay, and will be taking place in Washington D.C. in the summer. Tales Of Vesperia Definitive Edition was announced which will have the content that was in the original PS3 version, that never made it to the west.

​     Jump Force was shown, which seems to be a bit more of what J-Stars was with a bit more craziness, but who knows truly, though that seems to be likely. With a trailer of Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, and Black Desert, a big surprise was a new skateboard game called session, which seems to be somewhat of a successor to the Skate series. Amazingly enough, Devil May Cry 5 is finally confirmed to be a real thing, and it seems to follow closely to the tone of the games before DMC: Devil May Cry, with Nero, Dante, and a mysterious character shown. Lastly we have Dying Light 2 and Just Cause 4, while there was no info on Dying Light 2 release window, Just Cause 4 has a date of 4th December 2018. 

     Interestingly enough Microsoft bought five separate studios, The Initiative, Undead Labs, Playgound games, Compulsion Games, and surprisingly Ninja Theory. That last one is a bit of a shock, but it seems with these acquisitions, MS seems like they are pulling out the stops in actually trying to compete for the first time since the beginning of this console generation. With a cheeky mention of the next console, the conference ended with them being "hacked" by CD Project Red, which ended with a showing of the new CyberPunk 2077 trailer, which looks amazing honestly.

      This MS conference, is a bit of a weird one, while on one hand the games shown were amazing, and some of the information given was interesting, they seem to still have a hard time to make sure that their conferences do not drag on needlessly. There were too many times where the tempo halted to the point of annoyance. With that said, it is a step in the right direction, and I hope that these games that were shown, especially the exclusives work to make them more competitive. However the biggest issue they can't seem to get away from, is that the majority of these games, (especially the exclusives) didn't even include a release window, they still seem to be to excitable with announcements and end up not having much to show for actual games in the same year. Here is hoping that is not the case next time.
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~Koyuuki°˖ ✧◝(○ ヮ ○)◜✧˖ °