I'm so jaded on E3 this year. All my interest in this corporate wank festival has drained out of me in the last 3 years or so. I'm not sure if that's me changing or the show changing. Probably both, but who cares? So if I sound particularly sarcastic or unenthusiastic about this whole thing, then that's why. Anyway, in previous years I've watched the keynotes live, but this time I'm going to be sleeping like a responsible person. I'm still interested in game announcements, so I'll just be reading the news like anybody else.
So. E3 is a thing and it's a thing that is happening soon. Expect a flood of game news to come rolling through in the next week or so.
Sometimes I offer half-assed predictions of what each company will do for E3. That seems like a lot of effort, so here are my exclusive quarter-assed predictions for E3:
- Nintendo wont be at E3 this year. Instead, they're doing an online video.
- Nintendo realised that this whole thing is a sham and they can get the same number of eyes pointed at their advertisements without paying for flights to LA. Their videos are always lowest on the bullshit meter - they announce a title, talk about it briefly, show an in-game trailer, and move on to the next title.
- I genuinely have no idea what Nintendo are going to do, because I'm way out of touch with them. So my predictions will be on how they'll disappoint me.
- Advance Wars, Golden Sun, and Elite Beat Agents (hey, let me dream) will continue to be dead IPs.
- Metroid Prime 4 won't get any screen time.
- Too much time will be given to Pokemon, even though it's already had a lot of time recently.
- Wind Waker HD won't get a Switch port, and therefore will continue to only remain available to the 3 people who actually own a Wii U.
- They might have something about Dark Souls 2/3 on Switch.
- Sony won't be at E3 this year. Instead, they're doing an online video.
- This is the first year Sony has skipped E3 that I can remember. What I think that means is that the PS5 stuff they've talked about recently won't be mentioned much (or at all) this year.
- Because Sony has recently been talking about next-generation hardware but probably aren't ready to actually announce something officially, they'll probably be focusing on already-announced games like The Last of Us 2 and .... those other games that I can't remember.
- Third party titles will probably get a decent amount of coverage. Maybe a bit more Nioh 2, that GRRM/FromSoft game, stuff like that.
- Activision won't be at E3 this year. Instead, they'll stick their junk into the Microsoft or Sony presentations.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I'm not even kidding, that's what they're calling it. Their marketing people need to be switched (not the Nintendo kind).
- Maybe some Sekiro DLC?
- What else is Activision doing these days? Nobody actually cares, do they?
- Blizzard won't be at E3 this year. Instead, they'll .... I dunno. Cancel some more games, probably.
- Ok I'm being a bit unfair with ActiBlizz. They ditched E3 years ago. They have Blizzcon later in the year, where they'll ask you if you've gone and gotten a phone yet.
- EA will be at E3. EA's presentations have followed almost identical scripts every single year. There's no need to predict this. I can tell you what they'll talk about.
- Battlefield. Madden. FIFA. NBA. Golf or something probably. Star Wars game. Dragon Age. Need For Speed. Resurrection of IP they've been hoarding for a few years. End.
- Ubisoft are the most French company who will be at E3. So you know they're weird. It'll have Aisha "Ladyboners" Tyler cracking jokes that nobody finds amusing in the slightest. Ubisoft try so hard to be interesting and fun but everything they do just comes off as annoying and mildly offputting.
- Just Dance or some other dancing game that literally nobody wants but continues to exist anyway. It'll be awful. They'll dance for like 10 whole minutes.
- A new Watch Dogs game has already been confirmed, so there's that.
- Probably more footage of BG&E2, just in case anybody still mistakenly thought it'd be anything like the first one.
- Rayman or something perhaps? They do some indie stuff every now and then.
- There's that new Ghost Recon game, plus R6 Siege is doing that evergreen thing so they'll probably talk about that. Maybe they'll revive Splinter Cell? If they do, Strider will hate it.
- Microsoft is always highest on the bullshit meter. They usually get in some random sports people to roleplay on stage, it's fucking weird.
- I guess they'll talk about Halo, whichever the next one is. And Forza. And... what else does Microsoft do? Oh, right...
- Minecraft will get like 20 minutes of coverage. But it won't be anything new. It'll just be Minecraft. Gotta get your money's worth!
- They'll talk about VR or their Hololens stuff again. It'll be boring. Again.
- They'll say the word EXCLUSIVE a whole lot.
- Bethesda has the most shills at E3. If you're not aware, shills are people who are paid to attend and pretend to love everything (or they could be rabid fans, of which Bethesda has loads for reasons I don't understand).
- Someone will mention Elder Scrolls Online and the audience will applaud.
- Doom Eternal will be showed and the audience will applaud.
- Titles of games will appear on screens with no additional information and the audience will applaud.
- Todd Howard will take a giant dump on stage and the audience will applaud.
- Who else... wait, Square Enix is at E3? Since when?
- I thought SQEX kept all their good stuff for TGS. Well, I guess they do own Eidos now... Maybe another Deus Ex? Tomb Raider?
- They might talk about their Japanese titles. Maybe Dragon Quest, or publishing some of their phone ports to western markets.
- Maybe some surprises. Nier Automata certainly did well, will they do something with that IP? Possibly too soon for that yet.
- There are a few other dregs but they're exactly that. Nothing worth worrying about.
- Oh yeah Cyberpunk 2077 is a thing. I'm sure there's a bunch of important stuff I missed. Pretend I didn't.
I accidentally put way too much effort into this. Here's the short version: E3. Discuss, if you want.
