E3 Day 2 2021 – Xbox, Bethesda, Square Enix, PC Gamer, Future Games

E3 Day 2 2021 – Xbox, Bethesda, Square Enix, PC Gamer, Future Games, and more!

Video Games

<<<E3 2021 Day 1  — E3 2021 Day 3>>>

There’s a lot to cover today. Everyone involved kept everything coming fast and furious. The whiff of participation awards and false modesty from Ubisoft still lingers, but hopefully, it’ll soon – oh, never mind; here comes Microsoft and Bethesda…

E3 2021 Day 2 (Sunday, June 13th)

If you’d like to watch the entire presentation, you can check it out here.

E3 Broadcast Pre-show

We join more fake people reading cue cards and teleprompters for a while before getting a trailer, then more hype from the talking heads.

Naraka: Blade Point exclusive look – A nice-looking melee battle royale in feudal Japan.

Microsoft’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase

• Starfield – Just a cutscene, really. Looked shiny, though.
  
• Stalker 2 – Again, it was like an extended trailer for a film with nice graphics.
  
• Back4Blood – Because we don’t have enough zombie games already.
  
• Contraband trailer.
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Sea of Thieves.
  
• Yakuza Like a Dragon – Looks fun and mental!
  
• Battlefield 2042 – Same old, different transaction.
• Twelve Minutes – Celebrity names were the selling point. What else happened?
  
• Psychonauts 2 – They’ve taken their time with this one; it should be good.
  
• Fallout ‘76: Steel Reign – More of the same.
  
• Elderscrolls Online – Bethesda’s savior re-re-re-made and remade again as an MMORPG.
  
• Party Animals – Looks different and rather fun.
  
• Hades trailer.
  
• Somerville – A slightly less depressing-looking Limbo.
  
• Halo: Infinite – Because Xbox needs their Mario.
  
• Diablo II: Resurrected.
  
• A Plague Tale: Requiem
  
• Far Cry 6 trailer.
  
• Slime Rancher 2 trailer – A colorful, non-violent FPS.
  
• Shredders – An attractive snowboarding number.
  
• Atomic Heart trailer.
  
• Replaced – Slick-looking pixel art style piece.
  
• Grounded: Shroom & Doom – Honey I Shrunk the MMORPG.
  
• Among Us.
  
• Eiyuden Chronicle – 505’s usual style.
  
• The Ascent.
  
• Age of Empires IV – Franchise bump.
  
• The Outworlds 2 – Broke the 4th wall, insulted customers, killed the business, and said the quiet part out loud.
  
• MS Flight Sim – Because there’s a new Top Gun film out soon.
  
• Forza Horizon 5 – Bump.
  
• Redfall – More vampires and bad jokes.

As I said yesterday, Hollywood is balls deep in most of this; take care.

Square Enix Presents

• Guardians of The Galaxy – I’m all fucking in for this!
  
• Final Fantasy 1-6 collection remastered.
  
• Legend of Mana remastered.
  
• Avengers: Black Panther Expansion
  
• Hitman Sniper: The Shadows.
  
• Nier Reincarnation
  
• Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Lions – Sequal to a cash grab. Such a shame, too, since it’s in the battle style of Final Fantasy Tactics.
  
• Final Fantasy Brave Exvius – The original cash grab in the BE series.
  
• FFVII: 1st Soldier – Go on, milk that franchise! #FF7ReMILK.
  
• Babylon’s Fall – Live service from the start. Good intentions.
  
• Life is Strange collection remastered.
  
• Life is Strange: True Colors – Having empathy isn’t a superpower. Psychic nosy cow.
  
• Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin – Honest revisit to an old title.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of Square/Squaresoft/Square Enix’s work over the years. I’m no fool, however, and I will continue to grumble at all the cash-grabs, remakes, and re-milks. Money’s obviously a great thing for business, but there’s always the risk of it getting in the way of making something fantastic. Balance, people, balance!

Warner Bros. Games’ Back4Blood

A look at Back 4 Blood. The creators of Left 4 Dead know their audience and release something that probably could have worked as an expansion rather than a stand-alone. It’d be one thing if it were something neither themselves nor every other game creator had covered already, but it’s not. We’re still shooting zombies.

PC Gaming Show

They have Saturday Night Live-type skits too. Nowhere near as good as what Devolved and Gearbox offered yesterday.

• Naraka: Blade Point.
  
• Dodgeball Academia – Fun little arcade dodgeball.
  
• Chivalry 2 – Medieval first-person slasher. Post-launch content is a good shout. “Double in size for free.”
  
• Rawmen.
  
• Dying Light 2: Stay Human – “Don’t call them zombies”… please. A coincidental pandemic? Or are people feeding into this?
  
• Humankind – SEGA makes Civilization.
  
• They Always Run – Cool little Anime styled side-scrolling beat ‘em up platformer.
  
• Orcs Must Die 3 – Tower defense installment.
  
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong.
  
• Gigabash – Modern-day King of the Monsters.
  
• Lemnis Gate – More space shooters. Turn-based FPS.
  
• Next Space Rebels – Build your own washing-up liquid bottle space ship.
  
• Wartales – Medieval grid-based RPG.
  
• Ixion – Beautiful trailer; didn’t show me anything that looked like a game, though.
  
• Far: Changing Tides.
  
• Lakeburg Legacies – Theme Match Maker fairy tale book look.
  
• Killing Floor 2.
  
• Mech Warrior 5: Mercenaries – An interview and detailed look at the game and all the mechs used.
• Silt – Underwater Limbo.
• Hello Neighbor 2
• Jurassic World: Evolution 2 – Jeff Goldblum shows us (once again) what’ll happen if anyone tries to bring back dinosaurs. I don’t think anyone’s taking the advice, Jeff.
• New Blood Games video package.
• Steam Next Fest advert.
• Soulstice.
• A feature on some cool new gaming tech set up to fleece the trendy gits with more money than sense.
• Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate Demon Hunters.
• Pioneer – Yet another horror FPS.
• Eve Online.
• Lumberhill.
• Arboria.
• Tinykin – An odd little platform puzzler.
• Chernobylite.
• SacriFire – Looks good. A nice little Zelda-style game.
• Icarus.
• Mecha Jammer.
• The Wandering Village.
• Death Trash.
• Songs of Conquest.
• Citizen Sleeper.
• Project Warlock 2 – 90s FPS Looking.

One presenter mentioned the number of space shooters and how “it’s getting crowded up there.” At least one of them is becoming self-aware. There’s definitely STILL a theme here.

Future Games Show

Two self-indulgent professional pretenders chat via webcam and host the thing, making many references to roles they’ve played and how great they/each other are.

• Instinction.
  
• Grow: Song of The Evertree – This has a bit of an Okami feel.
• Jurassic World: Evolution 2.
• A Tale of Paper.
• Get Packed: Fully Loaded.
• Gatewalkers.
• Gamedec.
• Backbone.
• Beacon Pines.
• Trifox.
• Timberborn.
• Rift Breaker.
• ESports Boxing Club.
• Hell Let Loose – Another WWII shooter.
• Red Solstice 2: Survivors – Mooooooooore space shooters.
• Lake – Set in the 80s, a woman leaves the city to deliver mail and live a normal life in her home town.
• Eldest Souls.
• Enlisted – A World War II shooter. At least they have a keen interest in historical accuracy.
• Severed Steel.
• Dice Legacy.
• Gestalt: Steam and Cinder
• Iron Corbo: Kung Fu Janitor.
• Definitely Not Fried Chicken inc.
• Ranch Sim.
• Schim.
• Silt.
• Dome-King Cabbage
• Sonic Colors Ultimate.
• Starmancer – Space set SNES-looking colony manager.
• Key We – You assist two kiwis that work in the post office.
• Death Run TV – It has a modern-day The Running Man feel to it.
• Chernobylite.
• Super Magbot.
• Hokko Life.
• Honey, I Joined a Cult.
• King of Seas.
• Greak Memories of Azur.
• Sheltered 2.
• Overcooked: All You Can Eat.
• Harold Halibut – A hand-made stop-motion animation adventure. It certainly stands out. I like how they’re setting their own deadline; “coming soonish” is better than rushing it because you made promises you can’t keep.
• Happy Game – For lovers of Limbo with bright colors. Looks messed up for the sake of being messed up.
• Minute of Islands – Looks lovely; might have to check that one out.
• Dying Light 2.
• Olli Olli World – A stylish animated skateboard game.
• Tails of Iron.
• Lust From Beyond.
• Fire Commander.
• Winter Survival Simulator.
• Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed.
• Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle.
• Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town.
• Rune Factory 4 Special.
• Rune Factory 5.
• Batora: Lost Haven.
• Two Point Campus – Theme University, basically.
• Project Ferocious.
• Warcry: Challenges.
• Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View.
• Immortality.

How anyone has time for any more first-person zombie/demon shooters is beyond me!

I feel like I’m back in my youth, that playing video games isn’t the cool thing to do yet, and there are still some people that don’t understand Manga is a medium and not a genre. It’s the same again, but this time with games. Do people not realize that “video games” can actually reach far beyond that one genre? More can be done with them than just shooting monsters! Ah well, their loss. It just makes it easier for other games to stand out.

Harold Halibut has me the most intrigued due to its style and the effort gone into telling that particular story in that particular way. Also, I can’t wait until October to check out the Guardians of the Galaxy game; that looks fantastic!

See you again tomorrow for day 3!

I also cover PRO-WRESTLING on Geeks+Gamers, with #ThatsNotWrestling every Thursday and #AnotherWeekOfWrestling on a Monday.

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