Hey there, so it’s been a while hasn’t it (two years? Holy crap, has it really been that long)?
Well I just finished watching the Bethesda E3 2015 Presentation and I felt like writing a bit about it.
This year Bethesda leads the parade of E3 Press Conferences on Sunday and boy did they have a lot to show, I’m not going to cover everything but I will cover what I found interesting.
Let me just get this off my chest: I was bugged so much by this odd thing (ignore the fraps fps overlay in the top right corner, I forgot to remove it) on one of the big screens, is it a dead pixel or something else?
I will link to the part of the Bethesda press conference where the game was discussed but you can watch the whole presentation on YouTube or Twitch but be warned that it runs 2 hours and 29 minutes.
TL;DR: If you just want to hear about Fallout 4 then scroll down to the bottom.
Click the game heading to go to that part of the presentation.
DOOM
The in-game footage shown off looked all fine and dandy but I’m not really going to comment much on it because it is still footage from a game still under heavy development, it could change in the blink of an eye.
First off I’m just going to say I HATE the weapon switching system shown off in the videos where you select the weapon from a wheel and time is slowed down during that, it just screams console shooter and really takes away a lot of the difficulty of DOOM.
An in-game map maker was shown off where you can designed your own level for DOOM with built-in backgrounds, props, monsters, etc etc. Now what can you do with these maps? Share them and play them with other players through DOOM’s multiplayer of course.
Honestly I can’t say I’m all that interested in this feature, I’ve seen many developers try to implement a map maker into their game and I haven’t seen one that doesn’t look like a pain in the ass to use. I wouldn’t use this feature anyways, I would rather actually play the game than waste time trying to figure out how to use a game-specific map maker.
They showed off some multiplayer and there wasn’t too much surprise there, same old arena style MP shooter stuff. What looks like was shown off however is a mode where you can play as the monster/demons, if this mode does indeed exist then that would be fantastic.
Now with all that out of the way, let just say that I am very excited for this new DOOM game and can’t wait to play it.
Here’s one of there videos they showed:
Battlecry
Next up is Battlecry, this was a game announced last year from developer Battlecry Studios (such a creative name, right?) and they sadly really didn’t announce much this year. Oh but they did announce you can sign-up for a global closed beta on the game’s website right here.
I still felt like mentioning this game because I just think it looks like a promising class-based (TF2-like even) game.
Here is the video they showed off this year:
Dishonored 2
This one wasn’t really a surprise, I was expecting and I think everyone else was expecting a sequel to Dishonored. Not much was announced aside from a video but there will likely be more details as E3 progresses.
Here is said video:
Fallout 4
This is it, the game everyone was eagerly awaiting more details on: Fallout 4!
Now, I will say that I have only played a little bit of Fallout 3 and none of Fallout:New Vegas but even I am excited for Fallout 4.
The trailer released ahead of this conference got the blood of every Fallout fan flowing and craving for more and they sure gave us a lot to think about.
First off, I just want to poke fun at Todd Howard for basically saying “Now we’re not going to be spoiling the game’s story tonight but here’s how it begins.”, I just chuckled a bit when he said that.
Again I don’t feel too compelled to comment on in-game footage of a game still under development but if the current art style is any indication of what the final game will look like then I must say I enjoy the change from the dreary and grey look of Fallout 3.
One featured feature of Fallout 4 shown off was just how much you can customize your gun by crafting modifications (and your power armour) and I just have to say I’m impressed by this feature. While playing a game I would always wish the game had an extensive attachment or modifications system for guns and this game seems to offer a fairly extensive system, again time will tell if this system is as great as it looks.
Bethesda announced a mobile game for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android called “Fallout Shelter” with the purpose of this game being to manage your own vault and tend to the needs of its inhabitants. They have said there won’t any “paywall timers”, no internet connection required to play, and apparently minimal in-game transactions. The mobile game is out for iOS right now, check out their post about it here. I might give it a try once it arrives on Android but these kinds of games just don’t interest me as I rarely play games on my Android phone or tablet.
The next thing that Bethesda announced around Fallout was a real-life version of the Pip-boy, included in the Collector’s Edition of Fallout 4.
Now let me just say that this thing looks like a fairly cheaply made device and for their asking price of $120 (for the Collector’s Edition of Fallout 4) I guess you can’t expect too much but regardless this thing looks pretty cool.
So how this Pip-Boy works is you grab your phone (apparently it supports all the current ‘popular’ phones) and place it inside the device and then you run the iOS or Android app through the screen of your device. The app does not require the Pip-Boy to use (a smart move to not restrict it to the device) and will allow you to access the same stuff the in-game Pip-Boy can access right from your iOS or Android device.
Now the big bit of news and surprise around Fallout 4 was the announcement of the release date, drumroll please…
November 10, 2015!
I can honestly say I was not expecting the release date to be that soon, however there is still time for them to delay it so we’ll just have to see what happens.
Here’s the announcement video for the Fallout Shelter game and below that a Fallout 4 video.
Now if you have made it this far and you are reading this then congrats! I wasn’t planning on writing such a long post but I don’t restrict myself and I will write as long as a post as I like, so there you have it.
I may write up another post (or a few posts) about E3 this year but no promises, it really just depends on if I feel like it.
Thanks for reading!