Bethesda's conference started off with a video of developers talking to us saying without us, there'd be no games. Then, a montage of games was shown hinting at what could possibly be talked about at their conference. I saw a flash of Fallout Shelter and sadly, I would learn nothing new of the game would be announced. Shame, I enjoyed playing that game when there was stuff to do.
President of global marketing Pete Hines came out on stage, and I already like him more than Phil Spencer, even though he pretty much did the same schtick of talking about "the games the game the games." The crowd was much more receptive of him as well.
Todd Howard came out next and started to talk about games such as Fallout 76. A boo was heard in the crowd, which I thought was hilarious. He talked about how poorly it was received, and how feedback helped shape it to be a better game. He even made jokes about it. Then he mentioned Elder Scrolls Blades in early access and brought out some people to talk about Blades, which is also coming to Switch, which will be free. Bethesda always showing love for Switch!
Some people came out to talk about Fallout 76 and a new mode called Wastelanders. They mentioned the return of NPCs. That got a major reaction. New quests and dialogue trees would be added, so basically they're adding everything they should have added to Fallout 76 to begin with. Then, a new mode called Nuclear Winter was announced, which turned out to be a fucking Battle Royale. I damn near flipped my laptop off my table! Why must Battle Royale be in everything?!
Todd Howard something something. Oops. I used that a placemaker which I was supposed to return to to finish writing what he was talking about. I honestly cannot remember. Sorry.
Shinji Mikami of Tango Gameworks took the stage to talk about a new game called Ghostwire Tokyo. It's an action/adventure game that seems to have horror elements to it. Ikumi Nakamura came out as well to talk more about the game. They both had heavy Japanese accents, so it made it hard to understand what they were talking about. Then a trailer was shown with people on their day to day commutes. Suddenly, they started disappearing literally out of their clothes. Weird figures began to appear, and some spacial distortion started to affect the world. The trailer ended with a line of spoken dialogue. "Don't fear the unknown. Attack it." Okay! This game sounds intriguing. I want to learn more about this game.
Another video played, this time with every day people talking about their jobs when they're not playing games.
Matt Firor came out to talk about Elder Scrolls Online, which I've no interest in. A video was shown, but at this point, I went back to playing more Plague Tale (really, you should check that game out). When I heard Matt talking again, I returned to my screen to see a woman talking about a Commander Keen game. Turns out it's a free to play mobile game. Back to Plague I went.
Hines returned to talk more about their mobile games and showed a video for Elder Scrolls Legends, their card game, which allowed me to return to Plague yet again. Then he talked about Rage 2. A trailer showed off new content presented in a goofy old TV sitcom style. Got to love how Bethesda presents their games. What's weird is that the person who's in charge of streaming this has Wii sounding music going on... There was a constant string of random noises around this point in the stream. Not aware at all what they're doing.... Anyway, the expansion is called Rise of the Ghosts.
Jerk Gustaffsson (sp?) from Machine Games came out to talk about two new Wolfenstein games. Cyberpilot will be a VR game and looks decent. Will it be a full-sized game, though? Wolfenstein Youngblood was talked about next. It will be a co-op game, although you can play single player if you'd like. It's set in the 1980s in Nazi occupied Paris. It follows the journey of two daughters looking for their father BJ Blazkowitz (sp?). Looks like your typical Wolfenstein game, which is not a bad thing at all. I loved the last two Wolfentsteins. So far, it looks great. It will also be coming to Switch, but after playing such a downgrade with Wolfenstein II, I've no desire to play another downgraded game on the Switch.
People from Arkane came out and showed off a trailer for their next game called Deathloop. It's set in a place called Black Reef. It shows two black people, a male and a female, in juxtaposition to one another. We learn that they're assassins and they're hunting each other from the looks of it. There also seems to be mention of time-based elements. It looks really cool, so I'm going to put this one on my radar. I wish I could see some gameplay, though.
Now we have yet another video with everyday people talking about the community of Bethesda games. Not really a fan of these videos. They're just filler.
Some people come out to talk about their software engineering innovations. This was a lead up to their new tech called Orion, which will optimize gaming for streaming. They showed someone playing Doom 2016 on a mobile device mounted to an Xbox controller, and they've made a claim that regardless of bandwith consumption in the household or distance from a data center, you'll still be able to play Bethesda games at 60 FPS at 4K with max settings. Hmm.... I doubt that. I think they've got a bridge they're trying to sell people. That's a large claim.
Now what all we know Bethesda would close with, and that's Doom Eternal. A trailer plays and then developers come out to talk more about it. They show a gameplay montage that shows a lot of cool platforming and brutal combat. Definitely Doom. Now they show an actual gameplay video. How refreshing! These are rare so far. The Doomslayer immediately runs into an onslaught of demons and he's running and jumping very quickly trying to stay alive. There are new glory kills shown, some new weapons and what looks like a shoulder mounted gun as well, which could be in place of the gas powered chainsaw. The demo video ends with a Hellknight about to get blasted by what looks like the BFG. The game will release November 22nd, which kinds sucks for me, as I made Fallen Order my game for November. There will also be a multiplayer mode called Battlemode. It'll be a 1-on-2 mode where a fully loaded Doomslayer will go up against two demons. It'll be what they say is Strategy vs Skill.
Peter Hines ends the show by saying that Doom celebrates 25 years. Jesus, I'm old. Also, one of the collector's edition bonuses was revealed to be a full-sized Doomslayer helmet that someone in the audience was already wearing. Cool.
So right off the bat, I recognized that the crowd's energy level was much higher than MS's. Whether or not you want to chalk it up to paid screamers, it did effectively make the presentation seem more alive. The overall catalog of games wasn't as impressive, but there were a couple of intriguing titles that were announced being Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop. We got to see a good bit of Doom Eternal as well, but I thought I heard that a new Evil Within was supposed to be revealed? Maybe it was just a rumor. Even though the crowd was livelier, Bethesda lost a couple points for focusing too much on mobile games. I admit my bias against them, but I honestly don't feel they have any business being mentioned in an exhibition that focuses on a PC/console driven market. When you start talking about mobile games, you lose me instantly. WITH THAT SAID THOUGH, I'm really disappointed that nothing new was shown for Fallout Shelter. Bummer.
Overall grade: C
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