E3 Conference: Microsoft

Let’s review the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017.

Following the previous article by the Platygamer, let’s now review the Microsoft conference.

Right at the start, after a slideshow of trailers and gameplay videos, the big announcement of the night was the Xbox One X, previously known as the Xbox Scorpio.

Expected for the 7^th of November 2017, it is supposed to be a THE “monster”, well for a console. With the most powerful system ever put in a console it will provide True 4K, for the rich people able to buy a 4K screen. And a lot of things that I don’t really understand, such as 6 teraflop GPU or Wild Color. Compatible with every accessory and every game from the Xbox One, the game will still be able to run at 1080p. They also stated that it will be the smallest console ever created.

Then again, a small box for a big price, at 499€ it is still more expensive than the new PS4 pro.

As a transition, the Xbox One X demonstrated its capacities on the upcoming Forza Motorsport 7 with a rendering even more realistic than the previous one. I, for one, don’t understand why they chose a car game to demonstrate the realism achievable with the console. Car games have always been about realism. Since Gran Turismo 3 at least.

Well anyway, here’s the trailer.

Following that, good news for all of us post-apocalyptic scenario fans. The Metro’s saga is back with Metro Exodus!

After a few years without any news, the game is announced for Xbox One and PC. More beautiful and dark than ever, the opus is really something to follow closely in the next few months. The game will take place in Russia, striken by a nuclear catastrophe and will put the player against frightening creatures coming from their deepest fears.

You’ll never guess, what’s next. Yes! Another Assassin’s creed! The next game of the franchise that nobody is surprised to see at the E3 anymore. Assassin’s Creed Origin takes place in Ancient Egypt, and is integrating “many new RPG elements in a huge systemic world”. This is supposed to make the world look more alive than ever before.

The trailer is HERE !

After a short introduction of the project Mixer, supposed to help create games focused on the streaming community, the discussion quickly derails in the direction of PlayerUnknown’s: Battleground. A game apparently developed by a gamer for his streaming audience.

You can watch the trailer here!

Then we are introduced to another Xbox One exclusivity, Deep Rock Galactic. A 4 player Coop’ game with a nice-looking cartoon design. It’s a fps where you’ll have to kill monsters and gather resources in procedurally generated caves.

Followed by a game of Zombies, State of Decay 2. Come on people… Zombies? Again? Well the game looks nice and realistic, the trailer presented giving us some nice visual effects and the graphics look extremely detailed. The game is announced on PC and Xbox One.

You can watch the trailer here.

Minecraft, that I will not introduce specially, is back to introduce Super Duper Graphic Pack 4K texture pack at the end of the year. They also announced a new type of server designed to host players from Xbox, mobile, VR and PC, all together in the same world.

Then Dragon Ball Fighter Z is announced, as the usual fast paced and explosive fighting game, but this time with a 3v3 gameplay and beautiful graphics. The game will be released at the beginning of 2018.

And again you can watch the trailer HERE!

A massive multiplayer game is then announced. Black desert online, already available on PC, has beats ’em all gameplay, with easily customizable characters that will allow you to create your avatar as you’ve always want it look. The game will be granted natives 4K textures at its release on Xbox one X.

The Last Night, a game all in pixels, looks really intriguing and beautiful with a lot of very well thought out visual effects. The game takes place in a cyberpunk city, where the players interact in 4 different districts in an action infiltration gameplay that we will talk about in a future article on the PC Gaming Convention.

We were then presented with a strange game. The Artful Escape is a guitar game platformer with a very wtf artistic direction.

A trailer to fully understand the madness can be watched HERE.

Moving on from the indie scene, we are presented with an in-depth gameplay trailer of Sea Of Thieves, an open world pirate game. The trailer introduced us to the dangers of the sea, the vicious other players and the island exploration, but also showed the reward of playing with other players. The game looks like an excellent gaming experience, and may as well be the first game I’m truly looking forwrd to for the first time in years.

Then we are submitted to cuteness. So much cuteness. Super Lucky’s tale, the sequel of Lucky’s tale, is a playful, very colorful and very cute platformer where you incarnated as a fox. Although the game has the same gameplay as the first, it can be compared to the 3D platformer from the N64 era, such as Banjo-Kazooie. The game is due to be relased on the 7^th of November on PC and xbox one.

For an overdose of fluff and cuteness you can watch the trailer Here.

After so much adorable-ness what’s more attractive than a good old let down? Crackdown 3 trailer looks like a bad advertisement with Terry Crew cosplaying a character, even though he doesn’t seem to be in the game. The game is explosive, with most things being destroyable but the trailer didn’t give us the feel of epic-ness that Terry Crew in cosplay deserves.

Better and more intriguing, there is Ashen with its open world with a unique art style and open world, eerie yet enchanting. The trailer shows us a world with no sun light and no faces. Yet another game to follow closely until its release, that is yet to be announced.

For all the fan of the first one, Life is Strange is back with Life is Strange: Before the Storm. A prequel of the game and will focus on the sixteen year old Chloe Price, the best friend of the heroine of the first game. The game is due on the 31^st of August for its first episode. The studio announced 3 episodes in total.

The trailer Here.

We are then exposed to an extensive trailer of Middle Earth: Shadow of War, showing the gameplay and new features of the sequel to 2014’s Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. The game is violent, yet beautiful. It continues the narrative of the first opus, following Talion still infused by the spirit of the elf Celebrimbor. The humor is omni present in the trailer and I can’t help but think that it would make J.R.R Tolkien roll so fast in his tomb that it would produce electricity for all of Europe. The game is to be released, if everything goes according to plan, on the 10^th of October 2017.

TRAILER !!

With beautiful music played on stage, by the composer of the soundtrack, comes Ori and the will of the wisps, just the trailer. But what a trailer. Very rich and colorful, touching my soul, but hey. No gameplay. So let’s move on.

To finish their conference, Microsoft bring back EA on stage to develop on the upcoming game Anthem, that we talked about in the previous article. We discover that the game will be an Open world, looking a lot like Destiny but far more beautiful, with a very unique art direction. As for the gameplay, it will be a third person shooter, relying a lot on jet pack moves, comparable to Andromeda, the previous game of the firm. Let’s just hope that it will be better. The game is awaited for the beginning of 2018.

How to conclude this conference? This is by far, the most promising one of the whole E3, a part from 1 or 2 faux-pas like Crackdown (my opinion here) this is almost a perfect. If E3 was a competition, the prize would be awarded to this one. What? E3 IS a competition?

Once again, I’ll wait impatiently for the games Ashen and Sea of thieves.

See more at: https://www.e3expo.com/gallery/