VIDEO GAME TRAILERS.

June 11, 2017 10:33 PM

2017 E3 Video Game Trailers.

• Serious Sam's Bogus Detour [YouTube]
• Ruiner [YouTube]
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus [YouTube]
• The Evil Within 2 [YouTube]
• Quake Champions [YouTube]
• Dishonored: Death of the Outsider [YouTube]
• Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on Nintendo Switch[YouTube]
• The Elder Scrolls: Legends – Heroes of Skyrim [YouTube]
• Creation Club for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition [YouTube]
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind[YouTube]
• Fallout 4 VR [YouTube]
• DOOM VFR [YouTube]
• Anthem [YouTube]
• Xbox One X [YouTube]
• Xbox One X Backward Compatibility [YouTube]
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps [YouTube]
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Orc Warlord Gameplay [YouTube]
• Life is Strange: Before the Storm [YouTube]
• Ashen [YouTube]
• Crackdown 3 [YouTube]
• Cuphead [YouTube]
• Super Lucky's Tale [YouTube]
• Tacoma [YouTube]
• Sea of Thieves [YouTube]
• Dragon Ball Fighter Z [YouTube]
• Code Vein [YouTube]
• The Artful Escape [YouTube]
• The Last Night [YouTube]
• Black Desert [YouTube]
• Minecraft 4K [YouTube]
• The Darwin Project [YouTube]
• State of Decay 2 [YouTube]
• Deep Rock Galactic [YouTube]
• PlayerUknown's Battlegrounds [YouTube]
• Assassin's Creed Origins [YouTube]
• Metro Exodus [YouTube]
• Forza Motorsport 7 [YouTube]
• Kingdom Hearts III Orchestra [YouTube]
• Star Wars Battlefront 2: Gameplay [YouTube]
• NBA Live 18 [YouTube]
• A New Way Out [YouTube]
• Need for Speed Payback [YouTube]
• FIFA 18 [YouTube]
• Battlefield 1 In the Name of the Tsar [YouTube]
• Madden 18 [YouTube]
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown [YouTube]
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night [YouTube]
• Ever Oasis [YouTube]
• Black the Fall[YouTube]
• MotoGP 17 [YouTube]
• Laser League [YouTube]
• Fortnite [YouTube]
• A Hat in Time [YouTube]
• Dauntless [YouTube]
• Vampyre [YouTube]
• Project Cars 2 [YouTube]

posted by Fizz (215 comments total)

That Wolfenstein II looks rly rly good. The antifa entertainment we deserve?

The Devolver Digital conference is going on now and it's, uh, bonkers.
posted by naju at 10:40 PM on June 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

So many amazing games coming out. And you're right, that Devolver Digital conference is fucking amazeballs! That fucking couch!
posted by Fizz at 10:42 PM on June 11, 2017

Watching internet Nazis getting angry that pop-culture is okay with them (and the Klan) as targets will never get old. (Actually, that they're feeling that bold is incredibly old, but I'll take what I can get)

A shame about The Last Night, it was looking so shiny, but the premise is so unbearable.

I wasn't sure Cuphead was ever going to see a release date, by this point!
posted by CrystalDave at 10:43 PM on June 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Minecraft 4k

The sun is round.

Goddammit microsoft.
posted by adept256 at 11:04 PM on June 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

That Minecraft trailer pisses me off. Not because the sun is round, but because the Java edition is getting none of this. No shaders, no improved lighting engine, no cross-platform play, nothing. This is all for the garbage C++ edition that has half the features. It's official--the MC Java edition is now just a test platform for the "real" Minecraft, which is a crappy scaled down version of the game.

Lovely.
posted by xyzzy at 11:41 PM on June 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Dishonored 2 expansion: yes please. Shoulda guessed who the protag is-- good choice.

Vampyr: spiritual successor to VTM Bloodlines?

Cuphead: wow, they're finally almost done?

Anthem: it certainly looks pretty. Though the only meka suit I like is D.Va's.
posted by zompist at 11:45 PM on June 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Goodness, I'm excited to see what Nintendo unveils in a day and a half.
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:48 PM on June 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Minecraft sun is whatever shape the texture or texture pack you've chosen says it is.
posted by straight at 11:49 PM on June 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Dragon Ball Fighter Z looks REALLY GOOD, especially because Arc System Works is literally the best choice available for an anime airdasher. Beautiful trailer. Hopefully it's not as taxing from a mechanical standpoint as Guilty Gear, in which case I might actually be able to try to play it. : P
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:54 PM on June 11, 2017

Wolfenstein II

So much for the tolerant left!
posted by Artw at 12:10 AM on June 12, 2017 [17 favorites]

Life is Strange prequel!! Can't wait to see how they make that work.
posted by Pendragon at 12:18 AM on June 12, 2017

And note, the Life is Strange prequel is not Life is Strange 2.

On Kotaku: "Note that this prequel is not being developed by Dontnod, who are actually working on a Life is Strange sequel."
posted by Pendragon at 12:21 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

A LiS prequel *not* developed by DontNod? That seems...weird. And likely to be a mess. Anyone know who the writers are?
posted by pharm at 1:09 AM on June 12, 2017

Looks like Microsoft are going to suck the life out of Minecraft too. Oh well.
posted by pharm at 1:13 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

OK. So Ashley Burch is on the writing team, but not voicing Chloe (voice actor strike ongoing apparently?).
posted by pharm at 1:20 AM on June 12, 2017

Give me Animal Crossing on the Switch or 2017 in games is a skippable year.
posted by Wordshore at 2:03 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Looks like Microsoft are going to suck the life out of Minecraft too. Oh well.

Minecraft in 2012.

Minecraft in 2015.

Goddammit microsoft.
posted by adept256 at 2:20 AM on June 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Keeping everything you can out of Notch's hands is a Good, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by kmz at 2:55 AM on June 12, 2017 [17 favorites]

Meanwhile, don't miss the surprise return of Griffin's Amiibo Corner.
posted by kmz at 2:56 AM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

At a glance, the dudes in the promo images for A Way Out look so much like Nate and Sam Drake that I thought I'd stumbled onto surprise new Uncharted content.
posted by heatvision at 3:22 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ah. I was trying to figure out what the heck was the East AR (alternate reality?) Wars, but it was just EAStarWars.
posted by straight at 3:32 AM on June 12, 2017

EVERY E3:

SONY: But can games be... art? (pause for gasps)

MICROSOFT: Gamez 4 MEN!! DONT TELL UR PARENTZ!!

NINTENDO: Cartoon duck RTS

posted by DoctorFedora at 4:15 AM on June 12, 2017 [25 favorites]

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with people trashing Microsoft on the issue of games unless it's specific to Games for Windows Live. I just can't think of Microsoft as a games developer, except for things like Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Ski Free. Can we just go back to a simpler time, when we all agreed that trash-talking EA was the appropriate outlet for games-company hate?
posted by mystyk at 5:01 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Can we just go back to a simpler time, when we all agreed that trash-talking EA was the appropriate outlet for games-company hate?

Don't forget to include some room to hate on Ubisoft making another repetitive Assassin's Creed climb a tower fetch quest game.
posted by Fizz at 5:03 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Dishonored 2 expansion, yesssss. Can we add the song to the list of haunting covers of happy songs? Only this one is perfect, because if you needed two words to sum up the aestehtic of the grimdark residents of Dunwall, it would be "drunken whaler."
posted by Mayor West at 5:06 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm concerned that I may have reached 'that' age where all of these are just the same game as last time. Which one of these is actually worth clicking on to give a different experience than what we've seen in prior years? I can't tell, and I don't want to be disappointed.

VR on an old game is the equivalent of 3DTVs and curved screens - it isn't a must have that makes me want to add on to or replace my rig.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:26 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

We still haven't had press conferences from Sony and Nintendo. Maybe this post is a day early?
posted by thecjm at 5:30 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Nah, Sony's will just be 'Look at our new 3d rendering engine for blood!' and Nintendo's will be 'hey remember those same 16 characters we've been occasionally dusting off for the past 40 years? This year we've created the most believable blinking system for Mario ever!'
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:35 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Dishonored 2 expansion, yesssss. Can we add the song to the list of haunting covers of happy songs?

Giant Bomb was keeping a tally of these during the livestreams, which is when you know something is fatally overdone.

I need more Dishonored 2 in my life. Badly. That said, it's unfortunate that the PC version still doesn't run quite right. Making it standalone is the right call... I'm hoping with some discounting later they can use it to lure people to the series and maybe in five years we'll get another. If they can greenlight another Evil Within, they can certainly give Arkane another chance.

Everything in The New Colossus trailer looked fantastic but the trailer's editing was so incredibly odd. It was like they were trying to fit every funny moment in the game into one trailer.

My stomach really sank for the Assassin's Creed stuff and also Anthem. The former looks way too much like the prior iterations given the scuttlebutt that it was a total reboot, and the latter just had some moments (like the quirkily named gun) where it felt like EA execs just told Bioware to make a 3rd person Destiny clone out of whatever they had been working on.
posted by selfnoise at 5:39 AM on June 12, 2017

Amiibos in Skyrims proves it's (probably) not vaporware but other than that...IDK I guess I'm just not that excited to play Skyrim again. Having already sunk --*checks Steam stats* -- 400 hours into it, unless there's some new content beyond Link's armor and some incongruous master sword malarkey I'm not sure I'll be picking that one up on launch day.
posted by Doleful Creature at 5:40 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

That Minecraft trailer pisses me off. Not because the sun is round, but because the Java edition is getting none of this. No shaders, no improved lighting engine, no cross-platform play, nothing. This is all for the garbage C++ edition that has half the features. It's official--the MC Java edition is now just a test platform for the "real" Minecraft, which is a crappy scaled down version of the game.

Does anybody actually PLAY the C++ version? Everybody I know who plays Minecraft plays the Java version, because that's the one that all the mods work with.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:44 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Can we just go back to a simpler time, when we all agreed that trash-talking EA was the appropriate outlet for games-company hate?

The Anthem trailer says YES.

What should we have Bioware working on as a totally new project? An RPG, maybe? One with a compelling cast of companions to build a party from? One where choices echo across several connected games? A deep single-player experience?

Or, fuck it, more Call of Battlefield's Destiny, Because the "Venue for boys to call each other homophobic slurs" game segment isn't saturated.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:45 AM on June 12, 2017 [13 favorites]

IDK I guess I'm just not that excited to play Skyrim again.

Just think of it as Skyrim: Pocket Edition!

I agree, though. I don't have quite that many hours logged, but Skyrim -- despite continuing to be fantastic (especially considering it came out in 2011) -- doesn't strike me as something I want to buy again just so my kids can get a Master Sword and Hylian Shield as they play on the Switch. In fact, after their having played Breath of the Wild, Skyrim may just seem like a step back in some ways.
posted by mystyk at 5:46 AM on June 12, 2017

A shame about The Last Night, it was looking so shiny, but the premise is so unbearable.

Yeah, it turns out the lead dev is a GGer from way back - "The Gamergate people are for journalistic integrity, honest debate, transparency, inclusiveness, & egalitarianism." and "My game takes place in a future where 'progressivism' has spiraled out of control." (which he's now desperately trying to walk back while deleting his old GG-related tweets).
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:48 AM on June 12, 2017 [15 favorites]

I was bummed out to see Anthem is a Destiny-like. I like my multiplayer in small doses (like Overwatch) and prefer to single-play anything with a plot.

That Wolfenstein trailer is enough to make me go back and check out the previous games from the series. If they're smart they'd put it on a Steam sale right now.

Middle-Earth Shadow of War looks good. Adds on the interesting mechanics from the first game. Sounds like the strongholds are the sort of thing that was in the original announcement of Dragon Age Inquisition and got cut.

That's about it for things that have caught my eye so far. I'm get the new Assassin's Creed the first time it goes on sale.
posted by thecjm at 5:50 AM on June 12, 2017

Keeping everything you can out of Notch's hands is a Good, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, he spent a couple hours harassing Zoe Quinn yesterday, too. I don't know why he hasn't been kicked off Twitter yet.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:55 AM on June 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

The Destiny single player experience was "meh" up until The Taken King. PvP felt very tacked on and definitely wasnt required for story progression. Anthem could deliver a solid single and multiplayer PvE experience out of the box. It could also be another The Division.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:15 AM on June 12, 2017

That Wolfenstein trailer is enough to make me go back and check out the previous games from the series. If they're smart they'd put it on a Steam sale right now.

You really should. That was a beautifully polished game and I think it's what paved the way for the reboot of Doom that we got a few years later.
posted by Fizz at 6:21 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

(which he's now desperately trying to walk back while deleting his old GG-related tweets).

Glad to see involvement with that shit show becoming the career ruining stain it should.
posted by Artw at 6:26 AM on June 12, 2017 [22 favorites]

I need more Dishonored 2 in my life. Badly. That said, it's unfortunate that the PC version still doesn't run quite right. Making it standalone is the right call... I'm hoping with some discounting later they can use it to lure people to the series and maybe in five years we'll get another. If they can greenlight another Evil Within, they can certainly give Arkane another chance.

Yeah, I'm still very hesitant to pull the trigger on Dishonored 2 and hit purchase. Every PC gaming person I talk to has a different nightmarish story about how difficult it is to get that game optimized. It's just a bad port all together. And a shame as the first Dishonored was such a strong game.

I never played the first Evil Within and the trailer for 2 makes me want to go back.
posted by Fizz at 6:32 AM on June 12, 2017

VR on an old game is the equivalent of 3DTVs and curved screens - it isn't a must have that makes me want to add on to or replace my rig.

I'm honestly shocked that they've made a VR edition for Doom. I've played Quake 1 in VR and had to stop after 15-20 minutes because I was feeling dizzy and deeply nauseous. The nausea lasted the rest of the day IIRC. Unless I'm missing something, I just don't think VR technology is at a point where super-fast 1st person games are playable. And the new Doom is ten times as fast as the old games. Presumably they did extensive playtesting that didn't involve lots of puke?
posted by naju at 6:42 AM on June 12, 2017

It'd be a shame to become nauseous while chainsawing floating demon eyes.
posted by adept256 at 6:46 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm no gamer so I just picked the first title that I recognised, and holy cow, the opening live action sequence in the Castle Wolfenstein trailer is just... There's nothing quite like nailing vintage TV colour grading, shabby acting and scratchy sound with a flamethrowing CGI MechaLassie. More of that please!

[As for the game itself well... you're punching Nazis left, right and center. This has gotta be good!]
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 6:48 AM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

[As for the game itself well... you're punching Nazis left, right and center. This has gotta be good!]

This is why I enjoyed the first one so much. It's unabashedly about just this, punching and murdering Nazis with all kinds of weapons. It's so enjoyable.
posted by Fizz at 6:49 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

What should we have Bioware working on as a totally new project? An RPG, maybe? One with a compelling cast of companions to build a party from? One where choices echo across several connected games? A deep single-player experience?

Dang, someone beat me to the #stillbitteraboutandromeda comment. Pursuant to my comment in this thread, there are a bunch of Mass Effect fans (yes, there are still more than two of us) who are not super-happy that BioWare raided their talent pool to make what some people (I just started watching the clip) are calling just another loot shooter. (I suppose, if we're lucky, it might turn out to be a loot shooter with heart.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:53 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm worried about the movement in Fallout 4 VR -- as naju ponts out, fast twitch FPS in VR is not a great match, and most of the decent Vive games have relatively slow paced teleportation movement. My experience is that moving yourself around the room-scale VR space is fine and teleporting to a new location is ok, but the moment the space starts moving it becomes disorienting.

(My favorite mechanic is in Budget Cuts, where you get a preview of your new field of view through a portal before teleporting to the new location)
posted by autopilot at 6:54 AM on June 12, 2017

In fact, after their having played Breath of the Wild, Skyrim may just seem like a step back in some ways.

Exactly my problem. BotW has spoiled me for - well, every single game pretty much, aside from the potential for a Bloodborne 2 or Switch Animal Crossing.

I would still consider Skyrim for Switch, I guess, because I've only put in about 40 hours into the game, so a new playthrough is doable. But I first bought it then neglected it for Dark Souls (which came out the same day, wow). Then I bought it again for PS4 and was disappointed that the mod system was so crippled, and then neglected it for Breath of the Wild. And now I need to figure out whether I'd buy it a THIRD time for portability. Plus, given the Switch's limited storage capacity, can we pretty much assume that mods will either be nonexistent, crippled, or paid DLC? They haven't mentioned mods yet so we have reason to be worried.
posted by naju at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

The first *Dishonored* was the first game I ever finished and then immediately restarted to play in a different style.

With *Dishonored 2*, I ended up doing that like 3 or 4 times. First as Corvo on a murder spree, then as Emily on a mostly-stealth run, and then using the "new game plus" feature to do two runs as absolutely ridiculously overpowered characters, which was fun in its own right.

(For the record, I play on an XBox, so config issues weren't a problem for me.)

I have the last Wolfenstein, but I kinda bounced off it what with all the unskippable bullshit and somewhat hackneyed and unsubtle game mechanics. I quite early, with the escape from the hospital and the arrival of attack drones. Does it get better? Should I revisit?
posted by uberchet at 7:05 AM on June 12, 2017

I feel like anyone that wants to play Skyrim already has. Except Nintendo purists.
posted by adept256 at 7:06 AM on June 12, 2017

Glad to see involvement with that shit show becoming the career ruining stain it should.

One of the only good things I saw come out of that entire mess yesterday was the emergence of this excellent seal of quality.

I have a serious question -- my kids got super into Minecraft before I discovered Notch was actually a gigantic bag of dicks masquerading as a game developer. What's a moral gaming dad to do?
posted by range at 7:11 AM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I just never talk about him. Which is my opposite of my usual approach with creators of works but really what can you do?

I worry a lot about the content of all the Minecraft videos my kids are addicted to on YouTube, but so far no dodgy content has shown up.
posted by Artw at 7:18 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Notch only recently became a gigantic bag of dicks, as far as I can tell. There wasn't much of a problem when he was making Minecraft, and he was just as willing to say things unguardedly on Twitter. He left the project, and it was finished by a friend of his, and then he sold the company out from under them, moved to America, and broods in his mansion with his billions. The horrifying misogyny came a couple of years ago.
posted by Merus at 7:19 AM on June 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

More Dishonored? Please to be putting this in my face immediately if not sooner.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:20 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

"NINTENDO: Cartoon duck RTS"

Clicked through to find the name of this game, disappointed that it's just a joke.
posted by RobotHero at 7:26 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I can't believe his investment in awful toxic gaming culture isn't making him miserable in turn, so it's sad all around.
posted by Artw at 7:26 AM on June 12, 2017

Notch is (sadly) the physical embodiment of the phrase “money can’t buy happiness”. I honestly think he was far happier when he was puttering around building the original Minecraft. Having it turn into a money-making behemoth that steam-rollered everything before it was more than he could cope with.
posted by pharm at 7:31 AM on June 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

The first Wolfenstein trailer made me want to play the game. I had a lot of fun punching Nazis :-)
posted by Pendragon at 7:35 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

just another loot shooter. (I suppose, if we're lucky, it might turn out to be a loot shooter with heart.)

I don't mind Just Another Loot Shooter -- I could imagine Bioware doing a good job of a Borderlands style game. I mind games like Destiny where the options are restricted unless you do online multiplayer. They get some of it right -- wandering around, you can help other people that can't talk to you at all -- but still, I'd much rather never have to deal with even seeing xXxGanjaNinja2004xXx and his 38 billion friends.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:39 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Please, Baby Jesus, let Borderlands 3 be announced.
posted by Beholder at 7:43 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yeah, it turns out the lead dev is a GGer from way back - "The Gamergate people are for journalistic integrity, honest debate, transparency, inclusiveness, & egalitarianism." and "My game takes place in a future where 'progressivism' has spiraled out of control." (which he's now desperately trying to walk back while deleting his old GG-related tweets).

He missed a few of his tweets in French.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:59 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Bob Dylan of gaming is Destiny meets Evolve. K.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:04 AM on June 12, 2017

The Fallout VR locomotion is apparently teleport based. If they're clever, they could reuse the VATS gimmick from the normal game to temporarily stop time while you relocate yourself and/or shoot things. That said, I'm less sure how fun it's going to be travelling long distances one hop at time.

Doom VFR (Vomit For Realsies) is apparently also teleport based, but much faster and with telefrags and such.

Honestly, I don't mind games being 'ported' to VR so much as long as they're playable. There a lot of games on VR at last, but they tend to be short forgettable things. Big name games arriving on the scene with large amounts of content, even if it's not an excellent fit for VR, might push the market forward.
posted by Eleven at 8:19 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

The fact that VR is sold entirely on "immersion" and yet the only reliable way anybody to move people around in VR without puking is to have them teleport everywhere is a pretty damning conviction of the whole enterprise.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:29 AM on June 12, 2017 [9 favorites]

I have been super disappointed this year. Bioware and Bethesda were my great hopes, and to have both of them turn out to be absolutely nothing worthwhile... what the hell has happened to RPGs lately? I thought with Skyrim that we were going to head into this great golden age, and all I got was a bunch of screenshots of people's enormous collections of cabbages on 72 different platforms.
posted by Sequence at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who is excited for Ruiner?!
posted by Krulth at 8:39 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm also disappointed that there's no big cool open world game from Bethesda. There were rumors flying around of an Elder Scrolls/Fallout-style game in space, and that would be amazing. Alas!
posted by zeusianfog at 8:39 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

We should make this our new flag.
posted by Artw at 8:43 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Was this big XCOM announcement that's been dangled an outside-of-show thing?
posted by Artw at 8:44 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

So far, no announcement, just a Twitter teaser.

Actually announcement is coming today, apparently.

(XCOM subreddit thinks it's a new Enemy Within-style expansion, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict an "expandalone" that continues the story with the same engine and full mod compatibility.)
posted by tobascodagama at 8:48 AM on June 12, 2017

Artw, that should be announced tomorrow here.
posted by selfnoise at 8:49 AM on June 12, 2017

Oh, wait, today is Monday. Geez.
posted by selfnoise at 8:50 AM on June 12, 2017

my kids got super into Minecraft before I discovered Notch was actually a gigantic bag of dicks masquerading as a game developer. What's a moral gaming dad to do?

Consider pointing out some other alternatives that satisfy similar building urges: Dragon Age Builders, Lego Worlds, Terraria, Stardew Valley.
posted by Fizz at 8:56 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I honestly think he was far happier when he was puttering around building the original Minecraft.

I'm of the opinion that money doesn't change people, it just frees them to be who they are unfettered. I'm guessing dude was a deep piece of shit before the Minecraft money started rolling in; now he's free to unleash his shittiness on the world.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Life is Strange prequel looks great but what even is the point :(

Also not really stoked about aging Skyrim on yet another platform, especially because going back after BotW will highlight a lot of its shortcomings. And paid mods nonsense back for round two! Bethesda, I like you less every year.
posted by one of these days at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2017

But I got the initial impression from seeing the knee-jerk backlash that his comments were going to be reveal him as a raging Nazi 4chan troll or something...but he wasn't?

You don't have to be actually sending someone death threats to be an awful person--you can just defend the people who're sending death threats, in public, at the time when they're actively being threatened. His comments defending GamerGate came way, way too late for anybody to not know what was going on. That's even aside from everything else, which I'd say would be questionable but wouldn't necessarily have risen to the level of my boycotting the whole game from the ones I've seen. But you go defending GamerGate and you'd better be ready to write one hell of an apology afterwards--and certainly not writing it three years later for it to show you were just misinformed and not a terrible human being. He knows what he is.
posted by Sequence at 9:03 AM on June 12, 2017 [14 favorites]

The gamergater controversy over Tim Soren's pretty mainstream and non-trolly twitter comments (which I mostly disagree with as political opinions) seems overblown. Everyone has a right to be offended and personally boycott whatever media they like, of course.

Not really a matter of offense - have whatever shitty personal politics you want if it has no bearing on the game - but some of his tweets made clear that this is the entire premise of the game - it takes place in a world where progressives and feminists have "won" and created an oppressive dystopic surveillance/police state. And I just have zero interest in exploring that world, especially as envisoned by this guy (for the record I think it could technically be interesting but only as written by someone who has clearly spent considerable time and energy in progressive circles and has the familiarity and empathy necessary to treat the subject with nuance and complexity. Tim Soret is not that person.)
posted by naju at 9:07 AM on June 12, 2017 [20 favorites]

my kids got super into Minecraft before I discovered Notch was actually a gigantic bag of dicks masquerading as a game developer. What's a moral gaming dad to do?

Notch has less than nothing to do with Minecraft these days, so just do whatever.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:09 AM on June 12, 2017 [9 favorites]

I literally LOLed at the new AssCreed trailer. You have this gorgeous, epic, totally next-gen filmic footage of an eagle soaring over an imagined ancient Egypt, it cuts to a cool Egyptian dude writing at a table, and then it shifts to in-game footage and it's like the dude had turned to the camera and said, "Wanna see my Ezio Auditore impression?" before doing pitch-perfect parodies of The Crouch, The Stalk, The Lumbering Sprint, The Wall Scramble, the Tree Crook Perch, the Jumping Stab.

"Hahaha! That's awesome! Now do Edward! Or wait, is that Connor? No, Shay! You're doing Shay, right?"
posted by straight at 9:13 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Supporting a harassment campaign against women is mainstream now?
posted by Artw at 9:13 AM on June 12, 2017 [12 favorites]

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Daud! Billy Lurk with Void Arm! Yes!

Literally nothing else on this list touches me, which is odd.
posted by pan at 9:14 AM on June 12, 2017

Supporting a harassment campaign against women is mainstream now?

Yeah, we had an election about it and everything.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:18 AM on June 12, 2017 [31 favorites]

Nintendo's will be 'hey remember those same 16 characters we've been occasionally dusting off for the past 40 years? This year we've created the most believable blinking system for Mario ever!'

That Hot Take from 2016 is totally lukewarm now. Because with Breath of the Wild, Nintendo just took the entire game industry to school, improving and perfecting a bunch of things open world games have never quite gotten right while simultaneously fixing just about everything players have complained about in recent Zelda games that was annoying or getting stale.

If the new Mario game is 25% as innovative and polished as BotW, it'll be one of the best 3D platformers ever made. I can't remember the last time I was this excited to see what Nintendo was going to do next.
posted by straight at 9:25 AM on June 12, 2017 [10 favorites]

The Artful Escape looks really good. I wish the physics of Dauntless didn't look so janky - the world is intriguing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:26 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, we had an election about it and everything.

/longest possible sigh in the universe.
posted by Artw at 9:34 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Because with Breath of the Wild, Nintendo just took the entire game industry to school

I just want to be able to order a Switch and have it delivered to my home, though. Is that really too much to ask?
posted by uncleozzy at 9:42 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is anyone else here paying any attention to Bloodstained? I missed the kickstarter but have been following the development a bit, and I'm having a hard time allowing myself to get very excited. The animations look mechanical and the levels, after playing Trine for example, just look flat.
posted by ropeladder at 9:42 AM on June 12, 2017

That Hot Take from 2016 is totally lukewarm now.

Also, considering that one of the most hotly anticipated games of the show is part of a franchise that started in 1981, back when Mario was still "Jumpman" and didn't have his own game yet, I think Nintendo deserves just a bit of slack.

(I mean, it's their whole thing. Same characters, new gameplay mechanics.)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:46 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Re: Bloodstained - it's very hard to make a 2.5D platformer that actually looks good. I'm not sure why studios keep thinking they can pull it off while falling into all of the same traps. Frankly the game is excruciating to look at.
posted by naju at 9:54 AM on June 12, 2017

I've got a free idea for the games industry to overcome its clear case of sequelitis.

You play as a group of mexican/tejano former ranchers who use the American Civil War as cover to take revenge on the people who stole your land during the era of Texas Annexation/Mexican-American War. You disrupt supply and crop shipments, free slaves and assassinate the occasional plantation owner in East TX. Trapped in Confederate territory, you make a deal with the Union: keep doing what you do across all of the South, and the Union will return your land to you once the war is done. It's like a cross of Red Dead Redemption's aesthetic and story structure, with Ghost Recon Wildland's play.
posted by Groundhog Week at 9:54 AM on June 12, 2017 [14 favorites]

Or, fuck it, more Call of Battlefield's Destiny, Because the "Venue for boys to call each other homophobic slurs" game segment isn't saturated.

To their credit, female characters and gamers were prominently featured in that Anthem stuff.

I have been super disappointed this year. Bioware and Bethesda were my great hopes, and to have both of them turn out to be absolutely nothing worthwhile...

Fallout 4 is less than 2 years old. It feels a little early to be expecting a big open world RPG from Bethesda. Though I guess not that early to at least hear about what they're working on next. Maybe they're funnelling their open world efforts into the MMO?
posted by ODiV at 10:02 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I just want to hear an official Elder Scrolls VI announcement. Not Skyrim 2.0, not ESO, not TES-but-it's-cards.
posted by lovecrafty at 10:05 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Destiny 2 runs great for me on a PC these days. Didn't have to do anything to get it working. Although I did wait 6 months for them to iron out the bugs. That said, yes, I am buying that one.

Meanwhile, I actually killed the Anthem trailer as soon as the players started talking to each other. If I wanted to play Destiny or Destiny 2, I would play those. DA:I and ME:A convinced me that BioWare is subpar at making open world maps in the first place. Also, remember, ME:A lost talent to Anthem. I'm not going to say I'm done with BioWare, because the next time they come out with something for the single player I'll probably snap it right up, but it's nice to know they're saving me some money.

I can't tell what Vampyr is like. It's not White Wolf based, otherwise Paradox would have been involved in the creation of it, but at the same time, it does remind me of Bloodlines. However, if it's just an action game, then, well, it's an action game. I may or may not get it. If it's an RPG I will almost definitely get it.

Dauntless, they killed an owlbear, cool. However, multiplayer, so it's out.

Finally, I enjoyed the new Doom. If the new Wolfenstein harks back to the classics, I might get it. Depending.
posted by Hactar at 10:07 AM on June 12, 2017

I don't see it listed, but I'm uncomfortably excited about a return to the Inner Sphere: Battletech. Turn based with heat modelling? House Kurita says, "Yes, please!"
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:17 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Maybe they're funnelling their open world efforts into the MMO?

I mean, two years was a fine wait for New Vegas, apparently, so it doesn't seem to me to have been terribly unreasonable to think we might have at least gotten a Fallout 4: New Hampshire or whatever announced this year. I think this might be correct, but it also is about the least exciting thing they could be doing right now, as far as I'm concerned. And I don't necessarily need something in my hands next week, but I need something to be excited about. I found Fallout 4 somewhat disappointing--too much shooter, too inflexible a roleplaying experience--and now they're asking me to get excited about what feels like yet another plate of cheese and crackers and I'm just like... dinner? I'm here for dinner? Are we going to eat dinner someday, or are you spending all your time fixing more snacks because they're cheaper?

I know that good open-world RPGs are hard, but Fallout 3 and New Vegas were both, IMO, incredibly good. Skyrim was incredibly good. They had this thing down. And now they have VR and paid mods. I wouldn't mind either of those things as appetizers, necessarily, but they are shitty main courses.
posted by Sequence at 10:19 AM on June 12, 2017

I mean, two years was a fine wait for New Vegas

Just a reminder that New Vegas was by a different developer, using existing tech. I feel like they know that it's time for a new engine, which is going to be awhile. A lot of people (including myself) were pretty amazed that Fallout 4 used essentially the same engine that they've had forever, with some new stuff bolted on. I'm pretty amazed that they're making a VR mode for FO4, honestly.
posted by destructive cactus at 10:22 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just a reminder that New Vegas was by a different developer, using existing tech. I feel like they know that it's time for a new engine, which is going to be awhile. A lot of people (including myself) were pretty amazed that Fallout 4 used essentially the same engine that they've had forever, with some new stuff bolted on. I'm pretty amazed that they're making a VR mode for FO4, honestly.

Sure, you can point at the Van Buren plan or Chris Avellone or whatever fanciful reason you want, but I think it's clear that Fallouts are high quality and ship fast when they're set west of the Mississippi.
posted by The Gaffer at 10:25 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Announce Trailer

Reddit thread.
posted by Pendragon at 10:30 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Re: Bloodstained - it's very hard to make a 2.5D platformer that actually looks good. I'm not sure why studios keep thinking they can pull it off while falling into all of the same traps. Frankly the game is excruciating to look at.

It's that or spend lots and lots of money on 2D animation. SotN-style games generally have an enormous number of monsters in them, all of which need animating, and the way previous post-SotN games have been able to make budget is through massive reuse of sprites from SotN, Rondo, and the other post-SotN Castlevanias. Without Konami's coffers to draw on and without access to two decades' worth of pre-existing Castlevania sprites to draw on, 2.5D is probably the only way to get the game made.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Twitter in-joke
posted by ODiV at 10:40 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Just a reminder that New Vegas was by a different developer, using existing tech.

It was also new content, though. New content is the thing they aren't providing right now. If they don't have the resources to do the new engine now, it makes sense to use the same strategy they've used previously to actually get a new game out there, I think. If the new engine's not imminent, why wait on it? New Vegas was also released almost exactly one year before Skyrim, so that seems like a very similar point in the tech lifecycle. It doesn't seem like it was totally unreasonable to think there was going to be something more this year, though it's still, I know, entirely possible that something could get an announcement at some other event.
posted by Sequence at 10:41 AM on June 12, 2017

whatever fanciful reason you want

No, it was literally made by a different developer - nothing fanciful about it.

Edit: whoops, realized you're definitely joking because you said "high quality" and "ships fast" in relation to the Fallout series. Never mind!
posted by destructive cactus at 10:42 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

XCOM 2: Now with the Nemesis System! (Maybe. Based on this: "The Chosen are the most cunning enemies XCOM has ever faced, each with unique strengths and weaknesses that will be introduced with each new campaign." So it's either something Nemesis-like, or else it's a New Game Plus feature.)
posted by tobascodagama at 10:56 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Bethesda's F04/Skyrim team is supposedly working on a sci-fi open world RPG called "Starfield", but people were waiting on an announcement this E3 and it didn't come (despite their E3 banner being literally covered in a field of stars).

Todd Howard made some remarks I think last year to the effect of "don't wait up for a new Elder Scrolls game" and if they are working on Starfield it's hard to see what studio would be working on the former game. Nobody seems to know what Battlecry Studios is doing, but they don't seem like a good candidate anyway. They do have a satellite studio in Montreal but I don't think it's very large?

I really don't know if they can get away with another game on a Gamebryo descendent, anyway. FO4 was so incredibly creaky, particularly in animation. And the bar has been moved by Witcher 3. So they have some work to do.
posted by selfnoise at 11:05 AM on June 12, 2017

Wolfenstein 2 looks pretty fantastic, but I am growing weary of the ever-more-gory blood effects that are de rigueur in contemporary gaming. I suppose that is a side-effect of getting older.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:08 AM on June 12, 2017

Fallout 4 is less than 2 years old. It feels a little early to be expecting a big open world RPG from Bethesda. Though I guess not that early to at least hear about what they're working on next. Maybe they're funnelling their open world efforts into the MMO?

The developer for Elder Scrolls Online is ZeniMax Online Studios, whereas the mainline numbered Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles are developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Two separate development houses, both under the parent company publisher, Bethesda Softworks (which itself is a division of ZeniMax Media). The overlapping names lead to much confusion but TL;DR, regular releases for ESO should have no significant impact on the schedule for whatever Todd Howard's team is working on. Unless there's an employee on loan from one team to another, which I suppose is a possibility, but seems doubtful.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:12 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Or unless they think, "Well they're taking care of fantasy RPG stuff, so we can focus on something else."
posted by ODiV at 11:14 AM on June 12, 2017

Wolfenstein 2 looks pretty fantastic, but I am growing weary of the ever-more-gory blood effects that are de rigueur in contemporary gaming. I suppose that is a side-effect of getting older.

But, but, but.. IT'S NAZIS! (and NaziTech)
posted by Samizdata at 11:18 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Bethesda's F04/Skyrim team is supposedly working on a sci-fi open world RPG called "Starfield", but people were waiting on an announcement this E3 and it didn't come (despite their E3 banner being literally covered in a field of stars).

Bethesda's presentation was very specific to say that all games shown come out in 2017. Sounds like they're keeping everything scheduled to come out in 2018+ behind closed doors for now.
posted by thecjm at 11:31 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wolfenstein 2 looks pretty fantastic, but I am growing weary of the ever-more-gory blood effects that are de rigueur in contemporary gaming. I suppose that is a side-effect of getting older.

Yeah but the gore in question is dead Nazi gore, the best kind of gore!
posted by thecjm at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I literally LOLed at the new AssCreed trailer.

AssCreed? That sounds like an Assassin's Creed game, but where you play as Leisure Suit Larry.
posted by mystyk at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Wow, Bioware has a new game coming out and it looks amazing!

"Online multiplayer only."

*stares at Bioware with cold, unblinking eyes of a Mass Effect: Andromeda NPC*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:39 AM on June 12, 2017 [20 favorites]

I never finished The New Order but damned if this news isn't going to fix that.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:46 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

massive reuse of sprites from SotN, Rondo, and the other post-SotN Castlevanias

Even pre! A few of SotN's sprites, like Slogra, were yoinked from Super Castlevania IV, which used unusually large sprites that played nice with the PSX's resolution with a little touchup.

The gamergater controversy over Tim Soren's pretty mainstream and non-trolly twitter comments (which I mostly disagree with as political opinions) seems overblown.

Some of the tweets are just typical hamfisted ignorance, but he called research into reproductive care for women "extreme," claimed feminism wants to "erase genders" and lumped these things in with "eugenics." People do change, and it might be worth forgiving someone for being pro-GG years ago out of ignorance, but the premise of the game isn't reflecting change and a lot of the tweets are indeed indicative of 4chan Nazi level bigotry. It's looking like the premise has been blurry for years because the premise is...well, bad.

It is disappointing because the game is pretty, but you know, as a total sucker for cyberpunk aesthetics, even I'm getting a bit tired of them. Rain of Reflections looks promising and seems more socially conscious (one of the game's goals is to present diversity of viewpoints in terms of race and class, two of the three POV characters are women, etc.).
posted by byanyothername at 12:31 PM on June 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

I don't even want to get into what's going down with Bioware, with Mass Effect, and with Mass Effect fandom (who are currently waging a civil war on reddit as I type).

Destiny is not my thing and I don't see Anthem being any different. But Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda are the first two games to be finished by Bioware after the founders left, and Anthem might be the first one to be developed entirely without the doctors' input. Three games in, and people need to realize that Bioware has changed from the top down.
posted by thecjm at 12:33 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

all of "The Elder Scrolls BUT IN SPACE" speculation about Starfield makes me want to believe that it is literally the first-person immersive RPG take on Spelljammer that I've been waiting for all of my life. Elves and orcs traveling through the ether on voidcraft with sunsilk sails that take them to crystal orbs cities that are towed behind comets, and exploring to the far reaches of a galaxy where the corpses of dead gods are mined for precious starmetal and lost artifacts that they ingested to keep them out of the hands of mortal races.
posted by bl1nk at 1:12 PM on June 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

Give me Animal Crossing on the Switch

A new Harvest Moon and (apparently) Stardew Valley have been announced for the switch this year. Not the same, but.
posted by bonehead at 1:33 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is purely a dream, but with Breath of the Wild being so popular, it would be an amazing move for Nintendo to announce a Zelda Maker for the Switch.
posted by naju at 1:35 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

During Ubisoft's press conference they just showed "What if Mario and Rabbids... but XCOM" and... I think I need to buy a Switch now.
posted by Roommate at 1:41 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Confession: I really, really hate the rabbids.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:53 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

"What if Mario and Rabbids... but XCOM

This looks great.

I really, really hate the rabbids.

Same. I kind of wish they had just gone with Mario but X-COM. That would have been good enough on its own. Throwing Rabbids into the mix, eh.
posted by Fizz at 1:59 PM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ubisoft also showed off a game that's basically the pirating parts of ACIV, and I wept a single salty tear and uttered an awed but quiet "Arrr..."
posted by zombieflanders at 2:02 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also, I think my birthday gift to myself this upcoming November is going to be a Nintendo Switch. Hoping there will be a price decrease between now and then as well.
posted by Fizz at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2017

You know, the “Nintendo just uses the same characters for the same games lol” warm take is especially oblivious-sounding of late, given that the Wii U’s biggest breakout hit was a 100% brand new IP (and they have another brand new one releasing this week).
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:08 PM on June 12, 2017

I kind of wish they had just gone with Mario but X-COM.

Right? I'd play the hell out of that.

*90% chance to stomp Goomba*
*misses, gets eaten by a Chain Chomp*
posted by tobascodagama at 2:12 PM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

Beyond Good & Evil 2 actually exists?!
posted by tobascodagama at 2:15 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

you guys I've been out of the gaming loop for a little while but holy shit that Kingdom Hearts III trailer just made me wanna be 22 again and holed up in my room playing games endlessly while ignoring my girlfriend
posted by numaner at 2:25 PM on June 12, 2017

Anyone know this 1st person shooter game? (occurs @ 3.22 mark on link)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GApTdfNQBwc&t=37s

It's not Big Buck!
posted by zippercollider at 2:27 PM on June 12, 2017

[Nathan Drake, Alan Wake, Sam Fisher, Rico Rodriguez, Desmond Miles, Joel, Aiden Pearce, Marcus Fenix, BJ Blazkowicz, and a row of Call of Duty soldiers, in gravelly-voiced unison]:

"Heh. Nintendo, making game after game with the same protagonists over and over again. Losers."
posted by straight at 2:56 PM on June 12, 2017 [12 favorites]

Mario and X-Com?

...so they're implementing permadeath?
posted by Earthtopus at 2:57 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Beyond Good & Evil 2 actually exists yt ?!

And after watching that, we all now wish it didn't.
posted by dng at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yeah, more or less.
posted by tobascodagama at 3:04 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

CODBLOPS
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:04 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mario always had permadeath. I wept when Mario's 754582th cousin, Zquario Jr., brushed the edge of a rising piranha plant and died. All that hardship and character development for nothing!
posted by Copronymus at 3:12 PM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

All this talk of Mario permadeath has me wanting a Mario or Sonic version of Darkest Dungeon.
posted by Fizz at 3:14 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like a fool, I watched the trailer for The New Colossus even though I'm in the middle of playing The New Order for the first time, and my main concern about the sequel is that the writing might not be good enough to sustain the interesting parts of the premise. I'm only about halfway through, and a lot of it would be better if it weren't executed kind of clumsily. They also lean pretty hard on a lot of tired tropes. I have seldom been more certain of a plot twist in something I haven't finished than that one of the ragtag band of miscreants in the resistance base will eventually betray us, because they're hitting almost every single one of those notes.

The aesthetic is really well executed, though, and Nazis in 60s America is a great place to go with it (a surprisingly seldom seen one, to boot). If they do more with that and less with the completely boring and unearned love story or, really, anything else with the extremely generic FPS protagonist BJ Blazkowicz character, I'd be pretty happy.
posted by Copronymus at 3:18 PM on June 12, 2017

There’s an $800 edition of Assassin’s Creed Origins

!
posted by Fizz at 3:31 PM on June 12, 2017

State of Decay 2 and Shadow of War are legitimately exciting and my two "must buys" from this list. I also really liked the Deus Ex-ish music from the Xbox One X (ugh) trailer. Everything else I've watched so far has an extremely cartoony feel that I don't enjoy at all, but since barely any of this stuff is going to be out until 2018, I guess we'll wait until the reviews start coming in. Really though there's nothing good that happens in the world any more. Why isn't The Long Dark on Xbox One yet? Bah.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:33 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also Prey is better than Dishonored 2 k thanks bye.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:38 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

turbid dahlia, I wish I knew. I'm playing Prey and it's fantastic, but I really do want to have an opinion on Dishonored 2 based on gaming experience.

Sadly, it looks like I'll never get to play it properly on my PC because it's a garbage port and they still haven't properly patched it yet. Maybe one day it'll be on sale for $20 and I'll just deal with it.
posted by Fizz at 3:41 PM on June 12, 2017

The Far Cry 5 gameplay demo featuring Boomer the dog.
posted by Fizz at 3:42 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ahh, fizz, I just like Prey better because I prefer retro-futuristic sci-fi to retro-futuristic alt-history. They're both excellent and Dishonored 2 is definitely worth playing. Shame to hear about all the issues PC gamers are having with it.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:50 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, Far Cry 5 looks fantastic! I mean, it won't look like that, at all, and the AI won't behave like that, at all, but still!
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:53 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I also love that the Wolfenstein II trailer has a 'Milkshake Duck' parody built right into the damn story. It's such an intelligent troll.
posted by Fizz at 4:01 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wow, wasn't beyond good and evil something of a kids game. I'm not knocking, I loved the game. I don't see how this is related at all?!? Besides the pig that is.
posted by batou_ at 4:12 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I really can't choose between my beautiful adult children Prey and Dishonored. I can only hope Arkane stays in business.
posted by selfnoise at 4:13 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

My favourite part of the Bethesda show was the animated Bethesdaland while discussing the popularity of Skyrim mods. Thomas the Tank Dragon flew by with a toot toot!
posted by thecjm at 4:23 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

My favourite part of the Bethesda show was the animated Bethesdaland while discussing the popularity of Skyrim mods. Thomas the Tank Dragon flew by with a toot toot!

There's another fun blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference in that Creator Club trailer as well.

(Fuck the hive mind, mod makers deserve to be paid.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:47 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sony/Playstation is streaming live right now.
posted by Fizz at 6:19 PM on June 12, 2017

New God of War looks tight.
posted by Fizz at 6:44 PM on June 12, 2017

This is a great list, thanks for making it! Separating the valuable stuff from E3 from the endless; useless hype is hard work.

Will you do the same thing for nintendo stuff tomorrow? I thought the switch was going to bomb hard, but boy was I wrong. Currently playing breath of the wild, and it's ridiculously good. Roaming around doesn't feel like a chore, collecting useless trinkets, like most other do *cough farcry cough* . And the map has this beautiful sense of place, I kinda don't want it to end.

Also, damn, that Wolfenstein II trailer. Gimme that. I think i might do a rerun of the first and the dlc. Good shit.
I also kinda loved the pirate co-op one? I wonder if I can gather a crew for that.

On a separate note: Does MeFi have a discord channel for the resident gamers? I'd be all over that.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 6:52 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Does MeFi have a discord channel for the resident gamers? I'd be all over that.

That'd be a great MetaTalk post. :)
posted by Fizz at 7:02 PM on June 12, 2017

God of War, Destiny 2, Spider-Man, Monster Hunter World, Days Gone, Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted the Lost Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds, The Inpatient, Detroit: Being Human, Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite, Undertale, Moss.

That was a pretty legit line-up for Sony's Playstation. But do we really need Skyrim in VR. Ugh, Bethesda is going to beat this dead horse into the fucking ground.
posted by Fizz at 7:08 PM on June 12, 2017

Detroit: Being Human still has me laughing though. It's like a mix of Quantum Break and Watch Dogs. This is not praise. Ugh. It's so hackneyed.
posted by Fizz at 7:14 PM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Does MeFi have a discord channel for the resident gamers? I'd be all over that.

MeFightClub has a Discord, though I don't know if anybody uses it for actual chatting.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:28 PM on June 12, 2017

The main takeaway from E3 this year seams to be that I need to purchase a Nintendo Switch.
posted by Fizz at 7:37 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

The main takeaway from any E3 is that the console you don't have is the one you really should have bought. If you have all consoles they'll just go ahead and release a new console (in this case, the XboneX).
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:14 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Do we really need Skyrim in VR? This seems like an awfully unnecessary step," complains internet full of people waiting with bated breath for Square to release yet another Final Fantasy VII-based thing
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:22 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I sold every copy of Beyond Good & Evil I could get my hands on when I was working retail 10+ years ago. It was my go-to for an actual good game that wasn't particularly violent, had an awesome female protagonist, and that people could feel comfortable buying for pretty much anybody above the age of [able to cope with some tragic or tense scenes].

The BG&E 2 trailer does not promise any of that, at all. It might be a fun game, but... what a disappointment.
posted by asperity at 8:35 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

The BG&E 2 trailer does not promise any of that, at all. It might be a fun game, but... what a disappointment.

You could also argue that BG&E2 is aimed at the same people who loved it 15 years ago. And they're all 15 years older now.
posted by thecjm at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2017

I was one of them! I wanted to see Jade's awesome new future, not Pey'j's skeevy past.

I liked Pey'j better when he was taking care of all those orphans. Also when I didn't have to see HD close-ups of his back hair.
posted by asperity at 8:47 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Detroit: Being Human still has me laughing though. It's like a mix of Quantum Break and Watch Dogs. This is not praise. Ugh. It's so hackneyed.

Until they release Nat Turner: Ninja Death Commando, I'll kinda take what Slave Uprisings I can get.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:38 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

"It's about ethics in nazipunching"
posted by symbioid at 10:20 PM on June 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

"This is mecha-Hitler, he's kind of a symbol..."
posted by Artw at 12:02 AM on June 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Woah, Wargroove is the Advance Wars Switch game I've been dreaming of. And it comes with a full-fledged map and campaign editor, with cutscenes, victory conditions, branching conditional paths, overworld creation, and events. I'm officially more excited for this little game from an indie dev than any AAA title announced yet. (It's coming out for PC and Xbox One as well.)
posted by naju at 2:27 AM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was one of them! I wanted to see Jade's awesome new future, not Pey'j's skeevy past.

I liked Pey'j better when he was taking care of all those orphans. Also when I didn't have to see HD close-ups of his back hair.


Wait you're saying that's Peyj? I just assumed if you can have one pig person, there must be others of the species?
posted by juv3nal at 3:39 AM on June 13, 2017

(Fuck the hive mind, mod makers deserve to be paid.)

Well, sure, but I feel obligated to mention that it's a little more complicated than that, thanks to Bethesda. They're the ones who won't allow mods to be sold on the Nexus. Mods all build on other popular mods. Yet they said that anyone who came to their marketplace had to make the content exclusive and that they would control it. So that schism didn't just appear in the community because people were greedy--Bethesda allowed that great big hive to develop and grow, then they launched a torpedo at it because who cares.
posted by heatvision at 4:05 AM on June 13, 2017

All versions of minecraft will get the graphics update, apparently. Rejoice!
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 6:16 AM on June 13, 2017

All versions except the Java version, I think ? Which is the only version I care about...
posted by Pendragon at 6:32 AM on June 13, 2017

Well, shit. I misread that, then. Crap. Abort the rejoicing.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 6:38 AM on June 13, 2017

Yes, the new cross platform Bedrock engine will be called Minecraft in the future and the java version will be renamed "Minecraft: Java edition". The Bedrock engine version will get the graphics update.
posted by Pendragon at 6:49 AM on June 13, 2017

So Doom VFR is just Doom but you can't actually run around? You have to warp everywhere? I'm confused.
posted by gucci mane at 8:14 AM on June 13, 2017

There are only two ways to move people around in VR without causing motion sickness: one of them is teleporting, as seen in Doom, and the other is tunneling. I think that tunneling is still a relatively new technique, so perhaps there isn't an implementation yet that both performs well and looks good, at least at the high speeds of a game like Doom.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:24 AM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are only two ways to move people around in VR without causing motion sickness: one of them is teleporting, as seen in Doom, and the other is tunneling.

Meh. I used the Oculus Rift developer headset back in like 2013 and it allowed you to move around normally using a controller. It even had awesome roller coaster sims! One of them did make me slightly woozy but it was worth it because it was almost fully immersive. Hopefully we'll get back to that kind of VR, because I really hate teleporting and am skeptical of tunneling.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:38 AM on June 13, 2017

Yes, the new cross platform Bedrock engine will be called Minecraft in the future and the java version will be renamed "Minecraft: Java edition". The Bedrock engine version will get the graphics update.

But haven't modders already added most of this stuff to the Java edition?
posted by straight at 8:40 AM on June 13, 2017

I mean, the good news here is that Microsoft/Mojang don't seem to be anywhere near offering real official mod support, which means another cohort or two of kids learning way more about hacking from modding the Java edition than they would if they were stuck playing games inside their console sandbox.
posted by straight at 10:09 AM on June 13, 2017

Uh, so apparently now Mario can possess other characters by throwing his hat at them, just thought you should know.
posted by RobotHero at 11:23 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, yes. Super Mario Odyssey makes an extremely compelling argument for buying a Switch.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:30 AM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Welp, looks like the ESA didn't think through their let the public in to E3 plan very carefully.
posted by kmz at 11:40 AM on June 13, 2017

It looks like, with Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo finally has an answer to Everything!
posted by aubilenon at 11:44 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Every single part of Mario Odyssey is some fucking kafka shit."
posted by tobascodagama at 11:46 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

What if Mario and Rabbids... but XCOM

The gameplay is so exactly XCOM I'm wondering if XCOM copied something else I'm not aware of or if it's a straight up Mario themed rip off of it;s gameplay.

I'm tempted by it, TBH.
posted by Artw at 11:55 AM on June 13, 2017

They're all in the turn-based tactical genre, of which X-Com, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Fire Emblem are probably the most popular examples.
posted by kmz at 12:10 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

At some point after Enemy Unknown, "XCOM-like" became a whole genre, and honestly I love it.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:11 PM on June 13, 2017

I think there's a distinction between the RPG Tactics style and "XCOM-likes", though. The addition of the "strategic layer" as a thing that you also interact with it a huge part of what defines the subgenre, at least to me. And there's a certain sensibility and aesthetic that a lot of newer games are borrowing directly from XCOM and therefore only indirectly from the original RPG Tactics genre that spawned it.

(Admittedly, I haven't seen anything about a strategic layer in Mario+Rabbids, but the aesthetic is like... yeah. That's XCOM, baby.)
posted by tobascodagama at 12:14 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wait you're saying that's Peyj?

I thought so, but that might've been based on something I read instead of something I heard in the video.
posted by asperity at 12:22 PM on June 13, 2017

I think an XCOM-like can be defined as "cover-based turn-based tactical strategy". I don't think other games in this genre have a cover mechanic (half cover, full cover, overwatch-type aspects) as so central to the gameplay. That's what I'm seeing here that immediately reads as XCOM-like. But this also seems to be wildly innovating the gameplay beyond that in many ways. It looks like a legit hardcore tactical game dressed up as ridiculously as possible, and you have to respect the chutzpah of that if nothing else.
posted by naju at 12:23 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

At some point after Enemy Unknown, "XCOM-like" became a whole genre, and honestly I love it.

Ooh - what are the notable examples of this genre?
posted by Artw at 12:26 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I do wish the first Fire Emblem game we're getting for Switch weren't a totally different genre. But I guess this Mario Rabbids thing might scratch the itch for a bit.

Disgaea 5 is fun, but in spite of having some similar turn-based tactical mechanics it's so open-ended that it's really not the same kind of game at all.
posted by asperity at 12:27 PM on June 13, 2017

Ooh - what are the notable examples of this genre?

Valkyria Chronicles is one you should definitely check out if you want X-COM but with anime and World War 2 social/political commentary.
posted by Fizz at 12:43 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

So I remembered there was a frog suit, and tanuki suit, and cat suit, and so on in the earlier games. So is this flipping that idea on its head?

Mario doesn't dress up as a frog, the frog dresses up as Mario.
posted by RobotHero at 12:45 PM on June 13, 2017

anime and World War 2

Ehhhhhhh.... I am extremly wary of this combo.
posted by Artw at 1:04 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mario doesn't dress up as a frog, the frog dresses up as Mario.

In Soviet Mushroom Kingdom...
posted by uncleozzy at 1:07 PM on June 13, 2017

In Soviet Mushroom Kingdom...

I wasn't aware that there was any other kind.
posted by radwolf76 at 1:12 PM on June 13, 2017

Nintendo E3 FAQ
posted by kmz at 1:20 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

This fall, David Lynch's Super Mario Twin Bros. Only on the Nintendo Switch.
posted by straight at 1:34 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ooh - what are the notable examples of this genre?

Invisible, Inc. is the one that I'd consider an absolute must-play. It's more of a heist game than anything, but it has the same focus on cover and the same between-mission management angle.

Massive Chalice doesn't really have the focus on cover, since it's a sort of medieval-fantasy setting, but it's still recognisable as having the same basic DNA.

I haven't played Hard West, but it also fits the subgenre.

Valkyria Chronicles is an interesting example, because it not only predates Enemy Unknown but directly inspired it. But most of the other games in the subgenre didn't copy VC's unique bits like the real-time movement and aiming, which is why I think of them as "XCOM-likes" and not "Valkyria-likes".

Ehhhhhhh.... I am extremly wary of this combo.

Understandable. But I assure you that the Nazi analogues are the bad guys in this one. The story is very obviously inspired by the occupation of Belgium, with the protagonists being the Belgians.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:06 PM on June 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Can I date a tank, though?
posted by ODiV at 2:12 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Can I date a tank, though?

You said tank, but what you really meant was pigeon?
posted by Fizz at 2:47 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Wolfenstein II trailer illustrates exactly how bad Bethesda is at making Fallout games.
posted by ethansr at 3:19 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

And how does it do that, exactly?
posted by tobascodagama at 3:40 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Military Madness (released in 1989!) is the direct predecessor to X-Com. The three main differences I can think of: 1)MM has pincer attack effect on attacks and defense(which I don't think X-Com has?), 2)MM's cover mechanism is much less refined (there are no walls), and 3)units can have up to 8 vehicles, whereas X-Com only has 1 soldier.
posted by Yowser at 6:05 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

METROID
METROID
METROID
METROID
posted by thecaddy at 7:49 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Laser squad doesn't have cover though, to my knowledge - that didn't really arrive in a Gollop game until X-COM (the first) and was less a formal cover system and more an incidental effect of having a 3Dish environment with half height objects around.

Also all the Gollop games relied on "Action points" and not the simpler but easier to handle two stage movement/other action turns of XCOM (non-Gollop) and this new Mario thing.
posted by Artw at 8:56 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Michel Ancel talks through the BG&E2 trailer.
posted by juv3nal at 3:02 AM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Was it in Laser Squad the computer players could see you through windows, which is a bit like needing cover, or am I thinking of Frozen Synapse?
posted by asok at 5:24 AM on June 14, 2017

Speaking of XCOM 2, IGN has a huge info dump on the new expansion. And now I know why we haven't heard much from Firaxis for over a year, because holy shit is that a lot of stuff, all the way down to a new ending(!!) for the campaign.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:02 AM on June 14, 2017

It's oddly specific. Not that games don't copy each other all the time but it's weird seeing Nintendo do it to this extent.
posted by Artw at 9:05 AM on June 14, 2017

Nintendo: "Okay, teams. We've been kind of stuck in a rut while the rest of the game industry has been innovating. We need to learn from the best. Look around and report back on what today's gamers like."

Team Zelda: "Dark Souls! Assassin's Creed! Far Cry! The original Zelda!"

Team Kingdom Battle: "XCOM!"

Team Mario: "Hats!"
posted by straight at 10:17 AM on June 14, 2017 [8 favorites]

Superficially it looks like a ripoff, but I fully believe the game will play out very, very differently. I guess we won't know for sure until we see some extended gameplay footage. But just for example that thing where one character jumps off another character's position and surprise-flanks an enemy looks unlike anything I've done in X-COM games and if there's a few dozen tricks like that, the game could get very interesting (or easy - I hope the difficulty is not ganked for a younger set).
posted by naju at 2:57 PM on June 14, 2017

It's a variation I can see comig in via a special ability or item - Floaters already do that move already, pretty much, without the bouncing off of someone's head bit.
posted by Artw at 3:48 PM on June 14, 2017

I'm way out of touch with Nintendo stuff so I gotta ask: are Rabbids just, like, rabbit-themed Minions?
posted by mhum at 4:19 PM on June 15, 2017

I instinctively cringe a little at them too, without knowing anything about them, so it seems fairly likely.
posted by Artw at 4:25 PM on June 15, 2017

Rabbids pre-date the Minions by a good four years, so it's more like Minions are themeless Rabbids.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:28 PM on June 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

XCOM developer is surprised and flattered by turn-based combat in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
posted by Artw at 3:14 PM on June 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

are Rabbids just, like, rabbit-themed Minions?

This wiki will explain all you need to know about rabbids, enjoy.
posted by Fizz at 9:57 AM on June 17, 2017