E3 2018: Bethesda Conference - Keen and Graev's Video Game Blog

Whew... this was a trip. The Bethesda Conference could have gone anywhere, and boy did it go places. Fallout franchise is being redefined. Elder Scrolls had no one, not two, not three, but FOUR appearances.

If you're interested in our thoughts on each game shown, read on.

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Rage 2 - They intro'd this with a horribly loud headbanging concert that was so bad they had to pipe in the audience cheers. They were then standing there awkwardly while waiting for their teleprompter to come up. Thankfully, after 12 minutes, they showed some footage/trailer. Yet another "the world has gone to crap" theme. They spent 20 minutes on this and it's coming out Spring 2019. Ugh. Skipping this.
Elder Scrolls Legends - Game is relaunching with overhauled visuals and on Switch. Problem is .... it's just an "okay" card game. Skipping.
The Elder Scrolls Online - Every time Graev and I see this at E3 we're convinced to try it again, then we get bored really fast. TESO but be doing well enough to keep going, though. Has to be right? Otherwise we would have heard something about a new Elder Scrolls core RPG.
Doom Eternal - I just haven't liked any of the Doom games since the original. Too much gratuitous slaughter and mayhem. Skip for me.
Quake Champions - It doesn't look good. 🙁 It just looks like a generic arena shooter.
Prey: Survival Mode, NG+, DLC - Bethesda bought Prey and instead of making a sequel they just used the name and made something different. Original game was about a native american dude abducted and kicking butt with shaman powers and they turned it into a generic sci-fi shooter. Bleh.
Wolfenstein Youngblood - Co-op shooter, but I wasn't a fan of the Wolfenstein series. Skipping.
Wolfenstein and Prey VR ~~Games~~ Experiences - Please note he said "experiences."
Skyrim for Alexa - Graev says, "I'd play this." This was definitely the best thing shown so far. We both wish the audio text Skyrim game was real.
Fallout 76 - Big announcement here is that the game will be "entirely online" but can be played solo if you want. Every character in the world is a real person. Graev says multiplayer will kill the series. Probably. Choices being dumbed down, etc. I think it's what the series probably needs to grow, albeit a dangerous road.

Sounds like they're building a quasi-MMO-PvP experience. You take your progress to each server you play on, albeit there are no servers. The base-building survival elements are interesting.

I don't quite understand how it'll all come together into a cohesive game. There's the idea of it being all online, but single-player with questing too, with base building and nukes on the map to fight over.

Gut reaction: This is a PvP game. You'll jump in, jump out, and have micro-experiences in a big map.
Fallout Shelter - WOOOOOO! Best part of the entire conference so far! Fallout Shelter on Nintendo Switch for FREE! TONIGHT!
The Elder Scrolls Blades - Massive first-person RPG with console quality graphics built entirely for mobile devices.... and it looks like Infinity Blade and Legends of Grimrock. This should have been an Elder Scrolls game like Fallout Shelter. Probably a swing and miss, but I'll try it because of the different modes. A Rogue-like might be cool.
Starfield - Nothing but a tease. It'll be a single-player space RPG. I think I like the idea of a new Bethesda franchise. This has me excited purely on potential.
Elder Scrolls 6 - YEESSSSSS! I'm not even mad it was a graphic and some music. Yes, we knew they were obviously making ES6. Yes, they're probably even making ES7 and ES8. That's okay! Because with everything else above, I needed this.

Graev's Reaction to a T

Concluding Thoughts

Fallout 76 looks a little bit like a disaster, and I'm not at all interested in any of the games they showed prior. I'm intrigued by Starfield as an idea of where Bethesda could possibly take a future new IP. I'm putting all my eggs into one Elder Scrolls 6 Basket, knowing full-well I won't have that game to play until 2021 at the earliest.

Overall Score: "Meh, let me know when you have more to say on Starfield and ES6. In the meantime I'll be playing Fallout Shelter on the Switch."

Yeah I am totally NOT on board with this direction for Fallout. Fallout has always been a classic single player rpg for me and slowly they have been chipping away at the rpg aspects of the game. I am not really sure what is going to be left when this game launches. I do not want to play with ‘friends’. Hell, if I had a lot of friends I would not have 250+ hours in Fallout 3 and 110+ hours in Fallout 4! I want stories and unique experiences, what I do not want is 33asspounder247 to be constantly getting between me and the vault door I am trying to open.

All my hopes rest on cyberpunk2077 at this point for a solid single player rpg!

I love the fallout series, but I love them for good story. Sadly I already have an MMO that I’m killing rats in, I don’t think I can handle another one. I never heard if this would be a subscription based game or if it would have in app purchases, but that should be a big talking point they seemed to have glossed over. As for game play, it looks similar to the Division, but with “base building.” The “raids” I mean Nukes are an interesting concept but they wouldn’t be much different than strikes in Destiny.

The game just doesn’t look like it has any heart. They say it isn’t a theme park, but that is what it sounds like to me.

I appreciate that Bethesda has managed to consolidate all the types of games I hate under one publisher (bullet sponge arcade-y FPS games and open world meandering first person RPGs). I just with they quit defiling the corpse of Fallout in the process.

I have to admit I’m really worried about the direction of this new Fallout. It should remain a strong single player RPG, not some kind of multiplayer console nonsense.

I think people are reading too much into Fallout 76 and what it means for the franchise. It’s clearly not a “new direction” but a side project that got pushed to the forefront because of the high profile brand, recent leaks that went viral, and the fact that Bethesda really doesn’t have much else to show this year.

As a fan of the series and Bethesda in general, I think F76 is a mistake but I’m more worried about the long drought coming after this game. We’re clearly not getting a proper singleplayer Fallout game within the next 5 years and may not even see TES6 in that timeframe either.

Last night was pretty awesome to watch their live stream. 🙂 I’ll be rewatching that teaser for ES6 for sooo many days now till it finally sinks in they finally revealed SOMETHING! Sad that we won’t get it till the next generations of consoles. =(