Looking at: Bethesda E3 2015

For their first year at the show, I think it's safe to say Bethesda killed it. plenty of announcements, gameplay for most of their upcoming projects, and just enough details to keep me hooked. They did their research and it payed off perfectly. Let's brake it down. 

Doom

While I wish they would change the name back to Doom 4, what's clear is that the gamplay is definitely a return to form for the shooter franchise. It was fast, brutal as hell, and looked fucking awesome. It's a bit to early to tell how the actual game will look in comparison to this demo, but nothing shown looks out of the scope of possibility for Id Tech, whos previous games were Rage and the Wolfenstien games. 

It's all about the gameplay with the Doom games, and this was Doom at it's finest. Between the two levels shown, we got to see the absolutely brutal melee finishers, tonnes of demons, the new Chainsaw, and honest to god power-ups. The game looked great, and if it just plays like a modern version of Brutal Doom I'll be totally down. 

Then there's the extras, in this case a full multiplayer suite and the SnapMap function, allowing you to crate game mods and maps with ease. I always appreciate anything that lengthens a game's shelf life, and Bethesda is acutely aware of the power of a modding community. 

They also announced something called Bethesda.net, which just sounds like a third part system for Bethesda games. There weren't any details about it, so here's hoping it's not another GFWL or U-Play. 

Battlecry

I wasn't really all that interested in Battlecry before the show, and I still don't really have that much interest. At best, it kinda looked like every other multiplayer arena game available, like Chivalry or TF2. I didn't manage to grab any screenshots of this one. 

Dishonored 2

It's unfortunate that this was a pre-rendered trailer, so details are sketchy. What is confirmed is that it's a direct sequel, the Outsider will play some part, and Emily Caldwin is now a playable character. While he wasn't shown in the trailer, Corvo is returning as well, and they'll each have different abilities. I loved the hell out of the first game, so I'm very excited for this one. 

There was also an announcement for Dishonored: HD for the next-gen consoles, but no footage shown. 

Elder Scrolls online

ESO is coming to the consoles, and to celebrate that it's also getting some hefty new content. ESO has been struggling to find a foothold on PC, so this might be it's last hope. 

First up is a return to the Imperial City of Oblivion, and oblivion seems apt, as it looked filled with monsters and terrible things. 

There was also the reveal of the Orsinuim, a completely new location never before seen in one of the 3d games. Orsinium is the home of the Orcs in Tamriel, so it's likely to be a fairly barbaric place to hang out. 

Elder Scrolls legends

World of Warcraft has it's own card game, so why shouldn't ESO?

Fallout Shelter

I don't often play mobile games, but I might have to get this when it hits Android. It looks very similar to This War of Mine, and I like Todd Howard's own admission that it's not pay-to-win. I should have some thoughts on this soon, since it's literally available right now for IOS. Release a game during your show? That's how you win over the crowd. 

It should be noted, there's no way in hell Fallout Shelter can be considered cannon. Here's why.

Fallout 4

The reason the show was even put on, and the reason so many people were watching. Todd Howard is the fucking man when it comes to talking about his own games, and it shows. There's so many things that I'm excited about, I'm just going to go through my notes:

Character Creation - few things here, like the confirmation of playable female characters, despite rumors to the contrary. The new face-gen system looks more intuitive then the old games, and I can't wait to play around with it to generate a monstrosity. The SPECIAL system is also confirmed, although the skills and leveling were not shown. 

Story - early rumors did say Fallout 4 was going to be largely story based, and it shows. The Fallout games always have had a stronger focus on story, and this one seems to be going whole hog. The main PC now speaks, adding a new level of depth, although I'm not sure I like the limited dialogue options, I do like how dialogue is much more dynamic, and less creepy staring at each other. 

Audio and Visual - the trailer released a week ago did the game no justice, Fallout 4 looks amazing. I really liked the dynamic lighting, and the texture work was awesome. Audio wise the game sounded great too, from the blowing wind, to the voice work. I especially appreciate that the Robot used the character's real name, and I'm interested to see how far that goes. 

Weapons and Combat - I'll talk about the new crafting systems in a second, but combat itself looked much more refined. It looks as though Fallout 4 is leaning harder towards shooter, and that's probably not a bad thing. Shooting looks tighter, and more responsive, and the dozens of weapons shown off looked brutal as hell. VATS is also returning, although it no longer pauses time, instead opting for a slow-down. 

Crafting - Holy shit, this might be the coolest feature shown off. I'll start small, with the item crafting system. Apparently you can break down any item to it's base components and use those to create new items, something I like the idea of. Weapons can be modded to hell, turning a pistol into a carbine, or a laser rifle into a shotgun, and there's a proposed 700 combinations, outclassing all the previous Fallout games combined several times over. It's unclear how deep this system goes, but what was shown was pretty expansive. Finally, you can craft your own settlement, including a power infrastructure and attract citizens to live with you, while defending against raider attacks. I always appreciate dynamic side content like this, and the idea has been present in mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas already. 

Power armor and Vertibird - The power armor seems like it's much more... power-ey then before, with it's own HUD and upgrade options. Jetpacks make an appearance at one point, and it's unknown how deep this goes. There's also the option to call in a vertibird, although the context isn't yet known. 

Pipboy - Not only does the in-game pip-boy look awesome, like a real pip-boy, but now there is a real pip-boy, with a companion app. If there really is an app that lets me manage my inventory from my phone instead of in-game I might finally have to praise a companion app. There's also a arm mount for your phone to let you feel like you're really wearing a pip-boy, but that's a little to nerdy for me. 

Release date - probably the most exciting thing is the release date, mostly because it means the final game will probably look very similar to what was show. November isn't that far off, and the game has been in development since 2009, meaning it's probably very close to being done. 

That's all for Bethesda. Tune in tomorrow for my reviews of Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Sony.