Microsoft had a good showing at their E3 press conference this year, with the major focus being games, 42 of them, to be exact. Here we’ll cut through all the excess and boil the conference down to just the essential details.
Xbox One X
Microsoft unveiled the name of their upcoming (November 7) 4k capable console, the Xbox One X. This $499 machine will play the same games as your current Xbox One, with Microsoft saying there won’t be any exclusives for it either. So if you don’t really care about 4k gaming, this console probably isn’t worth your money. The Xbox One X also happens to be the smallest Xbox ever created, which surely won’t cause confusion between itself and the Xbox One S, which is the slim version of the Xbox One.
Assassin’s Creed Origins
Ubisoft officially unveiled Assassin’s Creed Origins, which everybody already knew about thanks to leaks. But we did get our first look at gameplay in the ancient Egyptian setting. Having taken a year off of their traditionally yearly-release franchise, many gamers were looking for a lot of changes to mix up the gameplay. To me, though, the game still looked a lot like the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve come to know and love. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing, but unless they show some more changes than a bird that acts as a personal drone and the ability to control arrows in midair, the series may continue to feel stale.
Sea of Thieves
Sea of Thieves, which feels like was unveiled forever ago, was shown off with new gameplay footage. The multiplayer pirate game from Rare focuses on teamwork, with this trailer taking us underwater into a sunken ship where treasure (and sharks!) awaited. We then moved to an island where more treasure (and skeletons!) was found. We were then taken into a giant storm where we saw ship-to-ship combat, which was very reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, that is to say looked great. The game still looks as fun as ever, but some of the animations were a bit janky, so it’s probably a good thing it’s not being released until early 2018. If you have friends to play this game with, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on, though it seems it could be much more boring if playing alone.
Cuphead
Cuphead, another game that feels like it was announced forever ago, finally got a release date! You can get this Steamboat Willie (but colorized!) looking game Sept. 29.
Crackdown 3
Holy crap there are a lot of games here that were announced a long time ago. Crackdown 3 is one of them, but it brought with it a release date this time! You can start destroying skyscrapers as a Terry Crews voice-acted protagonist Nov. 7. If you love destruction and wacky, completely unrealistic but fun gameplay, the Crackdown series is probably for you.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Ori and the Will of the Wisps wasn’t announced a long time ago. In fact, it was just announced at the conference. The sequel to the absolutely adorable, challenging and fun Ori and the Blind Forest, everybody should keep an eye out for a release date for this platformer.
OG Xbox backwards compatibility
Microsoft also announced backwards compatibility for certain original Xbox games will be coming later this year.
Anthem
Finally, EA, which announced Anthem the day before at their own press conference, showed off the first gameplay footage of the title. This open-world third person shooter looks absolutely awesome. Using your exosuit, you can fly, propel yourself underwater and, of course, kill. All with up to four friends. The game looks to be set on a planet as cool as the exosuits, with lots of fauna and huge creatures for you and your friends to take on. The gameplay footage tells it best though, so be sure to check it out. You and your friends can look forward to playing this RPG fall 2018.
Those are the things that stood out to me this year at Microsoft’s E3 press conference. Are you as intrigued by them as I am? Or maybe there was something I missed that caught your eye instead. Let me know in the comments below!
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