Well before I watch the presentation by Microsoft, let’s quickly go over yesterday’s E3 things I didn’t post about.

Devolver Digital was right after Ubisoft… Devolver always makes something really entertaining. The games? Not particularly interesting, IMO. Some looked okay but nothing really caught my attention. The presentation? Awesome fun, extremely well made.

Then there was Gearbox. They did literally nothing. Seriously. Fuck Gearbox.

I skipped UploadVR… partly because VR is lame, partly because I think I can’t even actually use VR anymore because of the current state of my eyes… I’d need to try it, but I think the screens would be in a distance that would suck for both of my eyes.

Oh and I actually logged into the E3 app. What the fuck is even this crap? Seriously I have no idea how to use it, what a shitty app. I got out of it after 5 minutes of fiddling with menus and not understanding what anything was. Good job proving your pointlessness, E3.

So anyways, now it’s Microsoft’s turn. I’m pretty excited for this, largely because Microsoft tends to be a good place for third-parties to do announcements. And also all games here will be multiplat, which is great. Their presentations in the past few E3s have been pretty solid, even when they didn’t announce things that interested me that much. I think this should be a pretty good presentation.

So let’s go with the live reaction! I’ll be writing my thoughts live, followed at the end of the show with my overall thoughts. I’ll post the entire reaction after I’ve edited everything. And as usual this intro is written before watching.

Timer is going down. LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!

The Show

Oh no not Todd Howard. Don’t like the guy. He feels very fake recently, and hasn’t made a good game in over a decade. Ah so we’re starting with Starfield. In-game teaser… That usually means “not actually gameplay”. I can’t really comment on anything because it’s just a cinematic where nothing is happening. That will continue being a shitty way to show a GAME. 11-11-22, sounds like it’s coming in november next year. Yup. It says “Xbox Exclusive” but it’s coming to PC as well. This was a really bad way to start, showing a boring cinematic that revealed exactly nothing about the game at all. It’s a bit ridiculous.

“Next is something truly riveting”. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 huh? I don’t think I’ve played S.T.A.L.K.E.R., no idea if it’s actually good but I know people have been excited for this one. The game looks really fucking good visually. From the little gameplay shown I don’t know how interesting it really is. 28 April 2022. I’ll keep an eye on this, see if more gameplay looks interesting.

Another darker game… It’s Back 4 Blood. There’s actually a presentation for this later, after the Squeenix thing. It does look good. Not the type of game I’d get into, but I’m sure it’ll be a solid hit. October 12 (I think we knew that).

Xbox Console Exclusive (which means PC). Avalanche Studios. Co-op. Open World. It’s called Contraband. And this was nothing. Just a camera going through a time-stopped room. Okay. Not useful.

Sea of Thieves update next. I’m just gonna ignore this. Sea of Thieves is the big boring. But hey it has Jack Sparrow now. Don’t care.

Available now on Game Pass: Yakuza, the entire series. And they’re adding Like a Dragon… showing it with english voice acting for some reason. If you play Yakuza with english voices you don’t deserve to play it at all.

This is DICE, so I assume it’s the new Battlefield game. I have no idea how this game is supposed to work, there’s just so many people on the map and it’s so chaotic. It looks pretty awful ngl. Lacks… design.

Console launch exclusive. Annapurna… oh it’s that game with the time travel groundhog day kinda thing. Not sure about this one. 12 Minutes… I feel like I may have not been paying attention to most of this trailer, not sure if it said anything important.

Psychonauts 2. I wasn’t a fan of the first one, it kinda bored me. This one looks pretty good as long as you don’t look at the graphics for too long. Some of these character models wouldn’t look out of place on the PS2. Out August 25, that’s very soon. I’ll wait for reviews, I’m not convinced.

Bethesda time. Maybe they’ll actually show Starfield gameplay. Just talking about stuff on Game Pass. And now… Fallout 76 update, are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way people are actually playing this trash. Maybe Bethesda has other stuff to show after this garbage. Looks like more Fallout now. Not sure if 76 or something else entirely… It’s more 76, oh well.

And now Elder Scrolls Online. Is anyone even playing this? I can’t even try to care about this. And I guess that’s it for the Bethesda segment. What a lame company.

Console launch exclusive. That’s… I forget what this is called, I’ve seen it before, it’s on PC. Some kinda arena fighting game with wonky-ass controls and shitty animations to make it look “wacky”. Ah yes, Party Animals. Meh!

Hades. I guess it’s coming to Game Pass. Okay. Hades is good, grab it however you can. August 13 on Xbox, I guess it’s not Game Pass.

Console launch exclusive. Some walking simulator I guess? It doesn’t seem to have any gameplay beyond walking/running. Not sure what this is meant to be. It’s called Somerville… I can’t care. 2022.

Halo time. Halo Infinite multiplayer will be free-to-play? Huh. I guess the single-player will be a regular game you actually buy, and the multiplayer will be microtransaction-ridden crap. Now we’re getting lots of story cutscene shit for Infinite. I hope we get some actual info. We’re definitely not getting gameplay though. Launching this holiday, both the free multiplayer and the paid game. GAMEPLAY. I mean, it’s Halo multiplayer, it plays like Halo multiplayer. Should be good if you’re into that. We’re not being shown any gameplay for the actual game though, just the free multiplayer mode. No release date, just Holiday.

9.23.21. Nice release date for whatever that is. Oh it’s the Diablo 2 remaster. It sure looks like Diablo 2 with slightly better graphics. Not sure I’m getting this, but I might. I played a lot of D2 back in the day. It’s soon, very nice.

Pretty creepy place with lots of dead shit in an ancient city and a weird flood of…. I don’t know, are they insects? Rats? A Plague Tale Requiem. 2022. This didn’t show me anything meaningful, just a CGI trailer again. Pointless.

Far Cry 6 again. They keep showing this game in every E3 presentation. I have no interest because it’s not Blood Dragon 2. Well it sure is a Far Cry game. With roosters. I’m sure it’ll be very okay-ish, like the other non-Blood Dragon Far Cry games. October 7 2021, I think we knew this?

Console launch exclusive. Colorful. Oh it’s Slime Rancher. Maybe a sequel? I never did play the original, it looked okay-ish. Yeah, Slime Rancher 2. Okay cool I guess. I do have the original because it was free on Epic Game Store a while ago, should try it.

Shredageddon? Is that a catchphrase in whatever this game is, or is it the name of the game? Just a pretty boring-looking snowboarding game. Very unexciting. Okay so it’s called Shredders. December. Meh? This looks boring as hell.

Some FPS with superpowers of sorts and a weird pop-ish song. Looks pretty cool. Atomic Heart. I’ll inform myself on this more.

Console Launch Exclusive. This certainly looks pixel-y, with some really cool parallax scrolling going in in a forest. The graphics give a feel similar to that 2D-HD engine by Square Enix but not exactly the same, it looks really pretty. Side-scrolling platformer with some brawling stuff, might be interesting. Replaced. 2022.

Obsidian. This is an older game. I forget what it’s called. It’s an update for it, it’s the one where you play as tiny shrunk people in a backyard building shit or something. Ah it’s called Grounded, completely forgot about this. I literally never saw anyone playing this, no idea if anyone cares.

Among Us. It’s coming to Xbox too. With 15 player lobbies (which is probably just a regular update to the game). It sure is Among Us.

Oh Eiyuden Chronicles. I backed this on kickstarter. It’s a Suikoden-ish RPG with over a hundred characters and interesting combat and story elements. Looks quite nice so far. And Eiyuden Chronicles Rising, an action game based on it. Rising coming in 2022, main game coming in 2023.

Oh I saw this game before. It’s Diablo-ish but also a twin-stick shooter. What’s it called again… The Ascent. Looks fun. Coming soon. Pretty sure this is even an old trailer of it, I’ve seen all these clips before.

This looks like some strategy 4X kinda game where you go through history. Oh it’s Age of Empires 4. Coming in October. Huh. Might not be quite 4X then, but yeah, should be good.

Console Exclusive (aka coming to PC too). Fable? No maybe not. This is a weird self-aware trailer describing random stuff that doesn’t make sense and isn’t even in the game. Okay it’s Outer Worlds 2 I guess. Alright then. They had nothing to show so made a wacky trailer. Why? Just wait until the game is fucking ready to go before announcing it.

Console Exclusive (on PC too). There’s planes, flying over things. Is this just Microsoft Flight Simulator? Yup. Guess it’s getting a console release.

This sounds like Top Gun. Yeah it’s a Top Gun expansion for Flight Simulator. Eh.

Console exclusive (PC game). Oh hey it’s a Forza game. Is it 8, or Horizon 5? Probably Horizon 5, looks wilderness-focused. Sure looks like a game where you drive cars. November 9. Where’s Forza 8 then?

Oh, I though they’d show something else, but it’s just more talking about Horizon 5. A bit of gameplay demonstration. Feels like they’re just wasting our time. But hey, this is actually gameplay, it’s good to see some of that even if it’s not particularly interesting gameplay. Just not sure why they’re spending so long on a car game where you drive cars. I don’t care that the graphics are a little bit nice.

Okay it seems like we’re just about done with this presentation. Mentioning a few things that weren’t here like Avowed and Fable. Basically just flexing about how good Game Pass is right now (which it is, I’m just holding off on getting to it because I have other shit to play). Xbox isn’t the best place to play though, Phil. PC is better, objectively. But there’s one last thing.

New open world shooter by Arkane Studios. This is gonna be just a cinematic, isn’t it? If so, terrible way to announce not just a new game, but a new IP entirely. I can’t really guess what any of this will be like gameplay-wise if you just show a boring cinematic. We can see vampires, superpowers, no gameplay. I’m given no reason to give a shit. It’s called Redfall. It’s coming next year. We know nothing about it. Stupid dumb reveal. Might as well not have shown it at all if they have no gameplay.

Overall

Well I’m disappointed. There was very little here at all. 31 games shown total, almost all of it was stuff we already knew about. The few actually-new announcements showed no gameplay. I think those new reveals are Contraband, Redfall, A Plague Tale Requiem and Outer Worlds 2 (which showed even less than the other 3 because it was all a joke). The only new reveal that showed gameplay didn’t even need to, that being Forza Horizon 5, which is… Forza Horizon, the fifth time. Starfield was shown… but not really because they just showed a cutscene that probably isn’t even in the game, and nothing about what the game actually IS. Why?

Looking for highlights here… I guess S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2? Slime Rancher 2? Atomic Heart? They showed very little gameplay of anything so it’s hard to care about anything here. Like, maybe Redfall is exciting, but we know absolutely nothing about it so right now it’s not. Halo Infinite is probably the biggest highlight… and even that they showed no gameplay for, they just showed staged multiplayer “gameplay” for the new free-to-play multiplayer game that’s coming alongside Infinite. At least it’s supposed to be out this year so that’s something.

Yeah, so I was hyped for this presentation, and got very little out of it. Quite a shame. I don’t know why game companies are so allergic to gameplay.

Well gotta hurry with posting this because Square Enix is right up next. I will post about that one if it’s not nothing.