At E3 2019, Nintendo and Cyberpunk 2077 Stole the Show

Like Sony, I was not at E3 this year—a decision I regretted as soon as Sunday afternoon rolled around and internet hero Keanu Reeves strolled out on stage during Microsoft’s press event. (The man is indeed a national treasure.) I spent the show like many of you, listening to all the livestreams and watching it online, so I wanted to break down my personal highlights after several years attending live.

EA Piques Interest with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Electronic Arts

Starting off chronologically, EA had a lot to make up for going into this year’s E3. The company stumbled mightily with Star Wars Battlefront 2 mictotransactions, so it had a lot to prove, and it did just that by highlighting Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It definitely feels like EA’s future financial hopes rest in the destinies of Apex and this new Star Wars title; the callbacks to the franchise look to be pretty incredible, my personal favorite being the electrobinoculars showcased in the demo. I was pretty impressed by what I saw in the 14-minute gameplay demo during EA Play and ended up placing a preorder for this title.

My hope is that this doesn’t end up like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which I admittedly love but which the more logical non–Star Wars crazy side of my brain knows suffered from repetitive gameplay and an overpowered character. It does feel like EA repts had this critical feedback in mind as they explained that the new title will have a much more complex combat system that requires timing and precision to unlock most of the Jedi moves. I am optimistic that we’ll get a solid story out of this game similar to that of the Force Unleashed saga, but one wonders how many rogue Jedi made it past Order 66 and whether the fandom is sick of this story line. I also hope EA has truly have learned from Battlefront 2 and will indeed focus on delivering what fans deserve most: a good Star Wars video game. Something we haven’t been graced with since Knights of the Old Republic.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order hits on November 15, 2019.

Microsoft Reveals Project Scarlett Details and Kills It with Keanu

Keanu Reeves’s character in Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red

My second-favorite press conference of the entire event. We received some high-level details on Project Scarlett, Microsoft’s next generation of console, which seems to be powerful, as it already is touting 8K gaming capabilities. Microsoft spent a bit of time covering updates to Game Pass, which is now available to PC users, as well as unveiling a new Xbox Elite controller.

One highlights of the event was Gears of War 5, which will focus on Kait. I’m excited that the franchise is shifting to a female character—it’s a much-needed infusion of diversity into the gaming universe. This game, however, felt completely overshadowed by a game you may have heard of: Cyberpunk 2077. This game won E3. The graphics, the story line, the gameplay, and of course the internet’s favorite action star: Keanu Reeves. I’ve been worried about the hype machine behind this game for a while now because I feel like new franchises with this much ambition are usually doomed to fail. However, this game looks absolutely incredible and seems to deserve all the hype it is receiving. We finally got a release date and a playable demo at E3, and the deluxe edition, priced at $250, sold out completely within a day of being offered up for preorder.

Cyberpunk 2077 hits the street on April 16, 2020.

Ubisoft Introduces Us to Watchdogs 3

Ubisoft Entertainment

Ubisoft’s press conference felt a little off this year, but only because most of its titles had leaked out before the event, so there wasn’t a lot of surprise left. That said, Watch Dogs: Legion was the star of the presentation. The company highlighted some of the updates to the gameplay—most notably that in this game, you’ll recruit your own legion of Deadsec hackers and control them to accomplish your objectives. What was surprising to me was the lack of a major protagonist in this game and that the customization of your team and backstories seemingly could become endless. It feels like a risky take on the franchise, but the game could improve even further on what Ubisoft honed with Watch Dogs 2. This game could either be absolutely incredible or fall down with a repetitive gaming engine; we’ll have to wait and see on March 6, 2020. I’m definitely looking forward to playing the games game and seeing how it fares.

The company also mentioned a few DLCs coming for Divsion 2, announced a new title called Gods and Monsters, and highlighted a new story mode for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. This last is very intriguing, as you can create your own missions within the game and gain XP/execute them live. This opens up a whole new element to one of the best Assassin’s Creed games ever and absolutely makes me want to hop back in after being so focused on Division 2 as of late.

Square Enix Finally Releases the Date for Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII Square Enix Co. Ltd.

The best part of E3 for Square was the Final Fantasy VII remake, which finally got a release date of March 2, 2020. It looks great. I candidly have not been a huge fan of the Final Fantasy franchise since VII first came out; I’ve tended to gravitate toward its sister franchise, Kingdom Hearts, mainly because the core Final Fantasy games have suffered from overcomplicated controls and complex storytelling. VII looks amazing, though. Just as the original title was packed into three discs for the original PlayStation, the remake will feature two Blu-ray discs of episodically released content. I was impressed with the combat system and the updates the studio has made to keep it relevant toward the RPG moving away from turn-based combat and toward real-time action-based controls requiring precise timing. I remember first seeing this announcement at Sony’s press conference live a few years ago and hearing the screams of excitement from the audience as Cloud Strife came back onto the screen complete in high-res glory. It’s been years in the making, but it now finally feels like the game is coming out, as we’ve now seen actual gameplay footage. Until it’s here, I’ll be playing the original on Nintendo Switch just waiting for the rerelease to drop.

Avengers looks like a phenomenal game as well. It’s coming May 15, 2020, which feels like it’s a ways away. The game looked and felt like a Marvel movie, which is a good thing. The title unfortunately has received a bit of backlash online due to the character models, and I tend to agree; they look blocky and like the rendering of the characters was rushed. I hope  this doesn’t denote a rushed game that’s broken and full of bugs, because I am looking forward my next foray into the Marvel universe after being wowed by Sony’s Spider-Man game last year.

Nintendo Fires on All Cylinders

Nintendo fans at E3 2019. Nintendo

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Nintendo by far won E3. There wasn’t much to their prerecorded press conference that was a huge surprise to fans, but the exception was one major, major announcement trailer. That’s right, folks: a sequel to Breath of the Wild! I just hope that this game doesn’t take four years to come out because the first one is the reason I invested in a Nintendo Switch, and it’s the greatest game I’ve played in years. On top of this surprise announcement, there is so much other good content coming to the youngest of the major console players. I found myself really excited for many of the titles in this press conference, including a ported version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. This will definitely sell even with some of the recent news that it will run at 540p on mobile and 720p when docked.

The Switch also got a slew of dates and announcements for titles that most people had known about being in the works, including Luigi’s Mansion 3, Animal Crossing launching for Switch on March 20, 2019, and a Link’s Awakening remaster coming on September 20, 2019. All games look to be faithful sequels to their franchises, and I can’t wait to play all of them.

Bethesda Focuses on Doom and Intrigues with Ghostwire: Tokyo

Bethesda

Doom Eternal! That’s all that needs to be said about this press conference. For me, Doom was one of the surprise hits of 2016, and the gameplay on the sequel seems to be even more rapid than the twitchy predecessor. The amazing hard-rock soundtrack is back, and the game is launching with a new multiplayer mode that seems unique, a two-on-one approach in which two players control demons on the map and attempt to destroy one slayer. On top of this new multiplayer, the invasion game mode will allow you to enter other players’ single-player games to control demons (similar to Dark Souls), and a new mechanic called the meat hook has been introduced to make you fly throughout the map.

Ghostwire: Tokyo also caught my interest, as it comes from the makers of The Evil Within. This game set in Tokyo starts as people vanish mysteriously, and you will need to fight paranormal enemies to help set right what’s occurring throughout the massive metropolis. There’s not a lot of detail on this game yet, but I’m looking forward to hearing more about it, as I really enjoyed the trailer and the mood that it set.

Parting Thoughts

Overall the event felt pretty solid for what I’d expected to be a less exciting year. I expect a lot of major announcements to come this summer from both Sony and Microsoft as they start to unveil the details of their new consoles. I do feel a little bit like the announcements were lighter just because Sony decided to skip the press conference this year. My guess is the company will create its own moment in culture this summer with a huge PlayStation 5 unveil followed closely by more details from Microsoft’s Project Scarlett.

Finally, I feel like this E3 recap can’t be complete without a nod to Alex Stadnik’s 12 E3 predictions made before the show. He nailed a lot of the announcements, so check out his Nostradamus-like predictions here.