Monday, June 13, 2016

E3 2016: Bethesda Press Conference

To be honest, this is the first time I've ever watched a Bethesda press conference.  I usually stick with the Big 5 (EA, Ubisoft, MS, Sony, Nintendo).  Let's see what Bethesda has in store!

It starts off with a cinematic of an alien looking shooter where big giant dudes in armor are fighting back, everyone jumping and shooting everywhere.  It's a new Quake game called Champions.  Tim Willits of Id Software comes out to talk about the game.  He rattles off some history about the franchise and its ties to competitive gaming.  Sounds like it's PC only.  Bummer... That's an instant turn off to me.

Pete Hines  comes out to set things off.  I also want to note that he's wearing a rainbow ribbon to support Orlando.  That was nice of him.  He talks about the success of Bethesda with all the different games that came out.  He's talking about upcoming games, such as The Elder Scrolls Legends card game.  A cinematic trailer is shown for the game.  I'm skipping this part.

A video is shown with some people from Bethesda Game Studios talking about the games they've been making, and to show some upcoming stuff for Fallout 4, which I've still yet to play.  Then, there's a huge update for Fallout Shelter coming (which I need to get back into).  It's also coming to PC, and that might be a better way to play, as it was a pain in the butt sometimes on Android.  Next, the video is showing off the Skyrim Remastered version for current consoles.  I actually never got around to playing Skyrim, so I think this might be the time to play it.

President of Arcane Studios Raphael Colantonio comes out to talk about Dishonored 2, or so I thought.  Instead, he shows off a video for another first person shooter set in the future.  The main guy keeps waking up like he's stuck in a Groundhog Day cycle.  Now, it shows him fighting and then there's a shot in deep space.  Oh, it's the new Prey game.  It looks like the old Prey.. .Raphael talks about the game, how you're stuck on this space station, and you have to use weapons available to you as well as mind-altering abilities... Hmm...

A video plays to show off some Doom stuff with a guy thanking everyone for making it a success.  He talks about something called Doom Snapmap, which I guess is a level designing app.  He rattles off some more updates for Doom including multiplayer modes and maps.  Peter Hines on stage again to talk more about Doom. He also says there's a playable demo of the first level available this week.  "On us."  Thank you for making it sound like you're so special, letting us play demos, which have been around for fucking years...

Matt Firor comes out to talk about Elder Scrolls Online, which I don't care about at all, so I'm skipping this part. Skip..skip..skip...damn, when will this end!

Peter Hines comes out to talk about some boring stuff with Blink 182 and a Bethesda VR set up. Morgan Web and Adam Sessler are talking about the playable kiosks they have set up.  This section is really starting to bore me.  Thank god I wasn't watching it live and had to endure this.

Finally, he's moving on to introduce Dishonored 2 by bringing out creative director Harvey Smith.  A video is being shown and shows what appears to be your character tinkering on something. It's going to be based in Cananca (sp?), the Jewel of the South.  It looks like a very pretty city. So far, it's just been fly throughs of the environment, nothing really going on.  After Harvey talks more about the setting and plot, a new video is shown.  Sounds like they have a female playable character now.  There's also a male character that sounds like you could swap between the two, like Assassin's Creed Syndicate.  More talking, and then a new video to talk about the factions, Overseers and Howlers.

This video shows off actual gameplay, as I've noticed a HUD on the screen.  It looks simply gorgeous! The player takes his time, listening to what's going on, and looking at things from a spy glass.  They're climbing around to the rooftops.  There's a silent kill as the player stabs a guard over a railing.  Looks like all the machinery in the city will be powered by wind.  Some actual combat now with guns, and blades, and a power that snatched a grenade out of someone's hand and flung it away.  There's a mesmerize ability that she has to distract enemies to slip by them without being noticed.  There's some trippy stuff going on with the some of these powers.  Now, there's a video showing off another mission in a manor, where there's some time changing stuff going on.  You can actually use a lens device to see what the other temporal world is like.  This allows for some creative puzzle solving.  Overall, it looks fantastic.  November 11th is when the game is coming out.  A new gameplay trailer plays and it looks really great.

Peter Hines takes the stage once more to announce some collector's editions.  Also, if you pre-order Dishonored 2, you also get Dishonored Remasterd for free.  I need to do that!  He closes the show with a bunch of thanks to all the different teams across the globe working for Bethesda.

Clearly, the star of the show was Dishonored 2.  Although I would have loved for someone to play the actual demo, it did show off many facets of the game. I was very pleased with what I saw and it's now making me want to play the first game, so much so that I don't want to wait for the second to come out so I could get the first for free.  I was disappointed to hear that Quake Champions is a PC only game, and all the Elder Scrolls stuff really bored me.  I also was  hoping to see more of Prey as well, because I'm very interested in the game.  I only hope they do the game justice, because the first was very unique and refreshing.  Overall, not really a bad showing by Bethesda.









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