Bethesda E32016 Showcase

Bethesda had a decent showing in their E3 showcase this evening. They focused a lot on actual games, and brought a good number of actual gameplay trailers. Here’s the breakdown.

Quake – Looks (conceptually) pretty dang good. When they announced the name, I almost died laughing expecting it to be a MOBA (which would enrage the fans) but it looks to be a FPS again. Pretty sure we can expect to see an Overwatch-style game. I’m bummed to not see any gameplay. Meh.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends – No one cares. Why should people care? Hearthstone has superiority in this arena now, and there’s little to no market share for them to scrape. They should stick to making mobile games like Fallout Shelter. There’s a reason it did so well: It was different enough. I’d like to see a Skyrim-like farmville or Elder Scrolls city builder for iOS.

Fallout Shelter – PC version. That’s pretty cool. I’ll play it.

Fallout 4  – Lots of DLC. Meh, not really interested.

Skyrim Special Edition – Coming in October. Looks really pretty. Sure, Skyrim on PC looks prettier when you use mods. I’m interested, but hoping it’s more than a graphical update. I’m hoping for additional features or content or some reason to get us to rebuy the game.

Prey - I heard rumors about a Prety reboot. Totally not my thing at all.

Doom – Lots of DLC. Also not my thing. Too much gore.

The Elder Scrolls Online – Every time I see the trailers and DLC and continued talks of ESO I feel this twinge of “ugh, this looks so fun why wasn’t this in at launch?” Then I have to come to grips with reality and realize it’s simply not this way. It’s not that good. Dark Brotherhood DLC… ugh. And this idea of playing any part of the game at any level? I like that. Do I go back once again and try? Every time I do, I last one month. It SHOULD be fun, it’s just… not

Dishonored 2 – I enjoyed the first, and will likely enjoy the second. I was worried we wouldn’t see any more than NPC pathing, fly-throughs, and story narrative. They finally showed some actual gameplay. The scenery is really pretty but the animations look rough. The time piece feature looks amazing. A definite buy for me

Overall, way better than EA but surprisingly lackluster and by the end I was a little sleepy. There was too much focus on old titles and DLC. I was hoping for an Elder Scrolls 6 announcement from Todd Howard and another huge reveal that there’s a new iOS game available immediately… but it never came. They glossed over the biggest draws for me and emphasized in a BIG way Dishonored 2—not a bad thing, but not where Bethesda makes their money, mark on the industry, or builds their community. I would not have ended with Dishonored 2.

Okay, so moving forward we have Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Sony tomorrow. Whew. Let’s hope there’s something worth talking about. So far, I give E3 a solid C-.

  • Both EA and Bethesda had weak sauce showings. Your right, the emphasis on old rereleases is old hat, you know it wont have anything new. PLus all this stuff can be had on PC with mods.

    Why would I spend another 60 bucks for something I already have, makes no sense and I feel like its just a cash grab. Squeenix is notorious for doing the same thing with Kingdom Hearts ultra super duper hd omega alpha beta gamma remix 2.9x.3.6 version 5 to the power of 10 rehash.

  • ESO <3
    Best mmo released since wow imo, I'm enjoying it a lot but I'm playing a really slow game (not hit level cap yet).
    It's exactly what I wish Skyrim would've been when I tried to play that.

  • As someone with the Elder Scrolls Legends Alpha, I can totally agree that you are right. This game’s economy system(ways to get gold, how much you get, packs, arena, card rarity, card crafting, etc) is litterally Hearthstone. The gameplay is also very similar except that it’s a little more close to MTG than HS is due to how some ability works and how you deckbuild using ”colors” instead of ”classes”.

    This game will fail in it’s current state, which is sad as the thing they added are quite nice.

  • The F4 DLC is kinda big news IMO, especially the big piece in Aug. Depending on how it works though, the Vault DLC might be amazingly fun as well. Plus with the Aug piece being the last DLC, I expect Bethesda to turn things over fully to modders, which again is going to be some great stuff down the line for the game.

    I haven’t played Shelter in ages, so being able to do so on the PC ‘soon’, with all of the updates it has had, should be fun.

  • SynCaine, wow I’m shocked they aren’t developing more for Fallout 4. Being “done” with development after a year is sad. I was hoping for 3 big DLCs like we saw in New Vegas, but I guess its on to better things. I think that Bethesda VR is something they are focusing heavily on, as well as engine development. It is a huge gamble but the market is mostly empty for the AAA titles.

    If Bethesda plays its cards right it could be on the edge of a true VR revolution. I expect our next gen consoles to be VR by 2020.

  • I don’t see VR as the future like some. I see it as a better version of the “3D TV” movement that has already died off.

    As for supporting Fallout 4 with their last DLC being later this year, I’m hoping that’s because they’re moving on to something more. Fallout 4 was good—I still need to finish the main story quest—but they dropped a lot of RPG elements in favor of some pretty mediocre features. I’m betting the modders will handle things nicely, if not better, anyway.

  • Won’t have to rebuy Skyrim for PC if you already own it and all DLC content (Legendary Edition).
    Modern consoles don’t have the game, so that will be first release for them.

    This years entire E3 will be “meh”. It’s the death knell of E3.

  • @Alexandre Boisvert: Sounds interesting to me, I might be 1 in a million but I just keep thinking how dumbed down HS feels compared to MTG and how I’m wasting my time playing it whenever I try it, so perhaps the Legends game can keep me busy for a lil while.

    @Keen: Have you even tried VR before you make such statements? VR is on a completely different level to 3D TVs, 3D TVs are looking at an image with some resemblance of depth, VR is BEING there.
    VR is here bigtime, and while it’s in a hypestage now where we’ll see a ton of games be pushed out the door that really doesn’t work all that well in VR there’ll be some genres that just fit the medium smack on, and in time devs will start to figure out what works in VR and what doesn’t.
    I’ve run racing simulators using the Rift DK2, the immersion is bleeping fantastic! There is no going back to racing on a flat monitor, or even a curved one, or even three huge monitors after experiencing racing in VR.
    Niche genre for sure, but there’s plenty of other genres that will work well once devs figure out how to adopt it to the technology.

  • @Proximo: Yeah I’ve tried it. I just don’t think it has the widespread potential to become the next big thing for everyone.

  • At least Runescape went its way to offer a completely different card game experience. I’m not sure the lane aspect of ESL is enough for it to stand out.