Apologies beforehand. I was having a hard time keeping up, so I missed some of the presenters' names
Well, it may not be the official first day since I guess conferences were being shown last night, but it's the first day for me. Sadly, I got the times mixed up, so I'm just now catching the MS live conference 20 minutes late. I most likely missed them showing off Gears of War 4. I tune in to them playing Forza Horizon 3, and from what I've seen, it looks beautiful. There's lush scenery everywhere. I love the offroad aspect of it. September 27th, it's coming out for both Xbox One and Windows 10. So I guess cross platform development for Windows 10 and Xbox One is going to be a thing...
Next, they showed video for a game called Recore. They showed off several characters and some gameplay segments. It looked pretty fun.
SE came out next to talk about Final Fantasy XV and to show off a playable demo. It's for Titan's trial. Titan looks very intimidating, absolutely gigantic. The first thing that came to mind was that this is straight out of Shadow of the Colossus. Titan's constantly swinging at the players, of which there looks to be three fighting it. It looks very chaotic, but this is really getting me excited for the game! September 30th!
A Ubisoft trailer is now being shown for a shooter game, The Division: Underground.
Battlefield 1 is up next. October 21st. EA Access on Xbox One allows people to play on October 13. A cinematic trailer for the game is shown with bits of gameplay footage laced in between. It actually looks pretty damn fun. If the single player campaign is solid, I might consider this.
Mike Ybarra of Xbox Platform Engineering comes out to talk about more servers to enhance Xbox Live. He talks about backwards compatibility, New Xbox One Experience, and cross network play. He also mentioned they're going to bring something to Xbox One that 360 actually was doing when it first came out, being able to use your own music. *slow clap* He then talks about something called Clubs On Xbox Live. Looks like it's a social group for gamers. There's also an app called for Looking for Group, which helps find similar players among games. He also talks about Arena on Xbox Live which helps with tournaments and other competitive gaming and a partnership with EA to bring games like FIFA to Arena.
Then a couple of people come out to talk about Minecraft. *yawns* They talk about something called Friendly Update and Minecraft Realms, which lets people play with friends even when they're not online. I honestly never got into Minecraft, so I'm not really impressed with anything I've seen here. There is John Carmac, however, coming in to play with a VR headset, although I didn't catch what it was. I can see how Minecraft would be one of the killer apps for VR, though. There's also a mod-like thing called Add-Ons. That sounds pretty fun for Minecraft players.
A new Xbox Wireless controller is unveiled through a montage video. It looks a little more smooth contour wise and it seems like it will have fully customizable aesthetics.
Next is a game being shown prefaced with "From the creators of Limbo." Already, it's gotten my attention. It looks dark and mysterious. The name is Inside. A guy comes out to talk about it, calling it a "Masterpiece". He also announces that Limbo is free to all Xbox One players today (odd, because I thought it already was. I got it for free a long time ago). He then shows a montage video showcasing a bunch of independent games. Some look fun, some interesting, some not so much. One did catch my attention, though, and that's the long awaited Yooka Laylee (spelling?).
He talks about Ark being one of the games for their Xbox Games Preview which is pretty much a pay for Early Access thing, which I don't like. I don't want to pay for games that aren't finished yet while providing feedback. Those are called game testers, and they should be the ones getting paid. While I'm going off on my rant, I missed the name of this one game that's being shown. It looks like a 50s era game. It's in first person, possibly set in London. The guy's wandering around an office, looks like he's poking his nose into places where he doesn't belong. It has an almost Bioshock like atmosphere. Now, there's people urging him to strike a pinata and when he does, it blows up a into bloody mess revealing what looks like a dead rat. Then, reality is being distorted, and he's called a "downer". Then he's being chased, and the demo ends. The game is called We Happy Few and it's available July 27th, I think?
CD Projekt Red comes out to talk about a new card game called Gwent, inspired by the amount of people who spent so much time playing the card games in the Witcher. It will have its gameplay and visuals reworked and fleshed out so that it's its own game. I'm not that much of a fan of card games so I'm not really excited about it. A beta can be registered at playgwent.com.
A Tekken 7 cinematic trailer is shown. Akuma and Heihachi are having a showdown trading equal blows and then it leads into the actual gameplay. I haven't played Tekken in a long time, but it looks like they've put in a lot more cinematic-like special moves that remind me of the Street Fighter series. Coming early 2017. So, it sounds like story mode is going to "transition seamlessly" from gameplay to these cinematic cutscenes, and I don't really like the sound of that. It just seems like it will be distracting.
A video is now playing to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock. There's a hand manipulating a phone, and it looks like this might be a new Dead Rising? There's all sorts of holiday themed weapons and vehicles. IT IS! DEAD RISING 4!! YESSS!!!!
Someone from Microsoft Publishing comes to talk about all the games they've brought up and the ones they're going to try to get. Blah blah blah. She introduces Hideki Kamiya from Platinum Games to talk about Scalebound. A gameplay video is shown of a co-op battle to fight a crab-like monster. This looks like Platinum Games' version of Monster Hunter. This monster is massive, and it seems like you're able to hop on your own dragons in order to attack it from tactical vantage points. It also looks like you can transition to different battle stances to access different weapons. The battle scene changed from a large pool to an elevated platform, and the boss has also changed. It seems like these fights will have many various phases, so the gameplay is always changing. Looks like a lot of fun, and a good exclusive to add under Xbox's belt.
A cinematic is being shown that looks like it's about pirates, set to the tune of a pirate ditty. The game is called Sea of Thieves. Rare studio head Craig Duncan comes out to talk about it. And this guy's wearing a Goonies t-shirt! Awesome! Hopefully, there will be some Goonies inspiration in the game. A video is being shown of people playing it for the first time given no tutorials. So, it looks like a mix of first and third person, and then everyone tries to work together to sail the ship and explore. There's also some ship battles and it looks pretty impressive. The ocean looks very real. I hope it's not a co-op focused game, though. Give me a solid single player campaign any time!
The next video shows a car wrecklessly driving down a county road with a few people getting out looking to cause some trouble. A guy is squeeging blood off the hood. Then it moves to gameplay footage . It's a zombie game. People are fighting them together. State of Decay 2 is the title.
Now we have a video of a futuristic game of soldiers fighting, things being destroyed, ah, a warthog. This has to be Halo Wars 2. I played the demo of the first Halo Wars and it was fun. The cinematic was pretty cool. Dan Ayoub of 343 Industries comes out to talk about the game. February 21st 2017 will be the release, with a week long beta on Xbox One starting today. A gameplay footage trailer is shown, and it looks pretty chaotic. I might have to try to find some time to play this beta.
Phil Spencer comes out to talk about the history of the Xbox and to end out the show. The Xbox Play Anywhere program sounds awesome, being able to buy a game just once and play it on Xbox One and Windows 10. I'm really liking the way Phil Spencer is taking this company. Also, he shows off a shot of the new Xbox One S. He also says that the next step in gaming is 4K and high fidelity VR. A video of game developers comes out to talk about this new upgraded Xbox One called Project Scorpio. The show wraps up with another montage of Xbox games, both AAA and independent.
Overall, it was a good conference. I wasn't really blown away from anything I saw here, although Dead Rising 4 REALLY got my attention. I love the series so I can't wait to play another installment. I love the sound of Xbox Play Anywhere, but I doubt I can take advantage of it with my current PC. Project Scorpio, as amazing as it might sound, also scares me in a way, the same way PS4 Neo does. Are we going to start seeing this trend of suped up gaming consoles appearing a few years after their originals? Do these console manufacturers really expect us to double down on their boxes? I would love to get a PS4 Neo and Project Scorpio, but two things stand in the way of that. One, I don't have a 4K TV and two, I probably won't adopt VR. VR for me is physically intrusive and disconnects me from what's going on around me. The big push is to make this the next huge leap in gaming, but I can't see it becoming a standard for the reason I just mentioned.
Thanks for reading!
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