The Morning After: E3 begins with 'Halo,' 'Elder Scrolls' and 'Anthem'
Ubisoft and Sony's events are on today's schedule.
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
E3 has arrived. After you read our recaps for Microsoft, EA and Bethesda's press conferences, set a reminder for today's big events from Ubisoft (4 PM ET) and Sony (9 PM ET).
Let's see, we've got our first Not A Flamethrower deliveries and the possibility of a Roadster steered by SpaceX rockets plus an Augmented superhero-like driving mode. For cars that actually exist, the exec promised "full self-driving features" will start to hit Autopilot-equipped Tesla's with the V9 update in August.
This is the always-on generation
No one would argue Microsoft didn't mess up in 2013, but looking back on five years of computational advances and widespread internet adoption, it seems like the company was on to something with an always-on Xbox One. Its original vision for the eighth console generation has come true. Now imagine the street cred Microsoft would have if it had pressed forward with its online version of the future -- and actually succeeded in selling it to the public.
Forget rehashing the mistakes of 2013. Despite being a bit light on platform exclusives, Microsoft stacked its presentation with games, and just games. That included a look at this year's Forza Horizon release that brings it to Britain, and a quick teaser trailer (wait, were those dinosaurs?) for Halo Infinite. PUBG will see big updates arriving later this year, the next Sea of Thieves expansions have a schedule and Cuphead is adding a new playable character. And it's using AI to make Game Pass games get ready to play twice as fast.
But the big game we know the most about is Gears of War 5, which will debut next year. Maybe by then the exclusives problem will be fixed too -- Microsoft took a page out of Sony's Worldwide Studios playbook by purchasing four existing studios and one new one: Undead Labs (State of Decay), Playground Games (Forza Horizon), Ninja Theory (Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice) and Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), plus The Initiative. Once all that's done, Microsoft even talked up a future game streaming service that should put "console quality" games on any device.
We didn't get Skate 4 (yet), but EA's Play event brought fresh looks at staple games like FIFA 19, Madden 19 and the now-battle royale-enabled Battlefield V. There's also a new Command and Conquer game built for mobile, and PC gamers can get all the newest titles on day one with an Origin Access Premier subscription. Oh, and of course Anthem made an appearance, getting everyone ready for its lootbox-free debut in Q1 2019 while Unravel made co-op play seem more adorable than ever. Go ahead and read, or take 12 minutes and watch all the highlights on your own.
The Elder Scrolls VI. We'd stop there, but so far all we really have is a title. Bethesda also dropped in new info for Prey, Rage 2, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein Youngblood and a little online survival game called Fallout 76. If you need something fresher than that, you can choose between Elder Scrolls Blades on mobile, Skyrim Special Edition for Amazon's Alexa (seriously) or its first brand-new IP in 25 years: Starfield.
But wait, there's more...
'Kingdom Hearts 3' will journey into the 'Frozen' universe when it launches January 29th
Here's your first look at CD Projekt Red's dystopian RPG 'Cyberpunk 2077'
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