Overall 2015 wasn't a horrible year for the show. The addition of three new conferences only increased the amount of announcements and the embarrassment was mostly relegated to one show.
Alright, let's go through the shows rapid like and see what worked, what didn't work, and what made E32015 worth talking about:
Bethesda
Bethesda came out swinging, or more specifically firing both barrels with their extended look at Doom 4. They rode that train through the Dishonored 2 announcement, including the announcement of a playable female protagonist, right through Battlecry and into Elder Scrolls Online.
Then they delivered the coup de gras with plenty of Fallout coverage, including two in-game demos, more information than you can shake a mininuke at, and the announcement of a Pip Boy companion app and arm brace. Couple that with the launch of a Fallout mobile game for IOS (Android version still pending) and you have a great show.
Overall, for their first show as a company, Bethesda did great. They obviously did a lot of research on how to properly control the show and kept a great energy throughout. It is a bit unfortunate that they had so few games to talk about, but they nicely balanced it with plenty of video content and demos.
Microsoft
MS have had a shaky history at E3, often spending more time talking about television and sports then actual games. I'm happy to say that wasn't the case this year, as they never mentioned television once and focused on actual game announcements and demos.
Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Gears of War 4 all had great gameplay demos showing off some interesting tech, as well as a second look at Fallout 4. There were plenty of announcements from third party developers, including Ubisoft and EA each showing off some interesting content, although Ubisoft won hands down with announcements concerning the Division and R6: Siege. The debut of Dark Souls 3, Gigantic, and a host of indie games was a nice touch too, since MS never really attracts the indie crowd.
Ok, let's talk about the VR segment. I seem to be in the minority here by thinking it's not going to be that great. Seriously, I don't think Hololense is going to work nearly as well as the stage demo, and I say this with historical evidence to back me up. I seem to be the only person that remembers the stage demo and following hype for the reveal for the Kinect, which has since become an industry punchline. We'll see, but I don't have high hopes for Hololens, save for the fact that Peter Molyneux is no where in sight.
Finally, while I think the announcement of native back-wards compatibility is nice, I still think they're fucking liars and cowards for waiting this long into the hardware's life cycle to release it. I understand there may have been some actual engineering, but the cynic in me believes it wasn't all that difficult and X1 sales are so dismal they needed another angle. Regardless, it is a good thing, and has done wonders for my opinion of the X1.
EA
EA... wasn't all that great. It's that kind of bad that you don't realize till it's over, but yeah, EA was sort of bad. Starting the show off with Mass Effect: Andromeda was nice, although an actual trailer rather then just a reveal teaser might have been better. Need For Speed looks like it might be an ok reboot/continuation/culmination of the franchise, provided the awful banter is not actually part of the game.Unravel and Mirrors Edge Catalyst might be great, but hands down the gameplay reveal of Battlefront 3 stole the show.
That's the good, the bad is pretty much everything else. Like I said, NfS might be ok, but the demo shown was so annoyingly awful that it actually sort of put me off the game. PVS:GW 2 was also terrible, with boring looking gameplay and an unenthusiastic presentation. Worse it came right after Unravel's genuine stage presentation and was like watching a small town parade walk through a poetry reading.
Then there's EA sports. Between a host of games that don't look much different then their predecessors, horribly scripted banter about fantasy football, something called a Hoop Gawd trying to act excited about face scan technology that looks demonic, and just far to much Pele, EA sports halted what was already a second rate show to a complete stop.
If it hadn't been for Battlefront 3 they're show might have been a failure, as it stands, thanks to extended in game footage, culminating in a short fight between Vader and Luke, EA was barely tolerable for yet another year.
Ubisoft
Despite being based in my home and native land, I have no love for Ubisoft of late. Thankfully their cocaine powered E3 presentation was interesting enough for my rage to subside and there were plenty of announcement that got me excited.
A new South Park RPG, For Honor, R6: Siege, and Ghost Recon Wildlands top my list for their game announcements. We also saw an extended demo of The Division, which would be nice were it not for the fuck-awful banter they insisted on keeping. It didn't work when the game was announced and it doesn't work now. The announcement of a console version of Track Mania was pretty great and got me interested in that series, and while I have no idea who the black guy was for Just Dance, I understand the appeal of those games.
Yes, they announced the new AssCreed game, and no I don't really care. It doesn't have pirates, it looks exactly like all the other AssCreed games, it doesn't have pirates, and looks like it's filled with witty British mannerisms right out the ass. It might be good, and considering the negative PR Ubi got for the last two also non-pirate AssCreed games it sort of has to be. The inclusion of a female PC is a nice touch, so I guess they figured out their animation issues.
Sony
It wasn't the worst show, but Sony's conference was a close second. Between ignoring the Vita completely, spending to much time not talking about games, and only a few new announcements Sony sort of became the Microsoft of this year's E3.
Ok, I'll give them this, starting the show with confirming that The Last Guardian still exists and is due out in a year was a smart move. Following that up with the reveal of Horizon: Zero Dawn was a great one-two punch and gave them just enough energy to carry through Hitman and Street Fighter 5. No Man's Sky was a nice cap off (although no longer a PS4 exclusive) before they slowed to a halt with whatever the hell Dreams is. Firewatch piqued my interest again, but the demo was nothing more then a short trailer. Then things took a turn for the worse with an uninteresting look at Destiny, a brief look at AssCreed Syndicate, a teaser for FF7 remake with no information, Whatever the hell Final Fantasy World is.
Things picked up again with a look at upcoming indie titles from Devolver, but got weird with the announcement of the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3. I don't think I like the idea of AAA companies using Kickstarter like that, but it did work and the project was funded in 9 hours flat. The look at Arkham Knight was boring and CodBlops 3 looks like the last three COD games.
Then there was the really boring shit, talking about Sony TV or something, and Skylanders Star Wars. They wrangled the show back up one more time with more Battlefront 3 footage before floundering with some footage of Uncharted 4. It wasn't an awful show, but there wasn't a great amount of energy in the room and not a lot of excitement for anything shown.
Nintendo
Once again Nintendo opted to do a Nintendo live pre-recorded presentation instead of a stage show and man was it ever a trip. Between the nightmare inducing muppet versions of the Nintendo executives, a string of nonsensical Japanese games and the breakneck pace of the entire show, I was still reeling from it well into the Square Enix conference.
They started off the show with the most goddamn surreal announcement for a game ever with the reveal of Star Fox Zero a remake-but-not of Star Fox 64. Then some talk of Skylanders/Amiibos crossovers, a new 3DS co-op Zelda game, and the reveal of Hyrule Warriors on 3DS. See Sony, when you have two active consoles you're supposed to talk about both of them.
Then things plunged head first into madness with rapid fire reveals of new Metroid game(s?), a new Fire Emblem, something called FE, and a look at Xenoblade Chronicles, only to pull the brakes hard with two new Animal Crossing games and Yoshi's Woolly World.
After a short trailer for something called YoKai Watch we got into the meat and two veg of the show with three new Mario games, with Mario and Luigi Paper Mario, a brand new Mario Tennis, and finally Mario Maker. I'm a big fan of Mario, so this was a nice way to cap off a crazy show.
Square Enix
Oh Square, you poor bastards. Maybe it was the lack of energy in the room, or the back-to-back times lot with Nintendo, or the lack of any games, but the Square show was a disaster. It sounded like there were maybe twenty people in the audience, and the fact that the show was mostly people talking didn't help.
They started with Just Cause 3, eventually, which was great, but then only teased at a new Nier game. They spoke a bit about Rise of the Tomb Raider, but only showed the trailer we had already seen. Then there was a bevy of games they didn't even talk about, including a new Dragon Quest and the Final Fantasy 7 remake, as well as the upcoming Final Fantasy 15. There was an overly long section for Kingdom Heats 3 and the new Kingdom Hearts mobile game, and that almost justified the show. Almost.
The awfulness continued with no new information about Hitman, the bizarre trailer for Star Ocean, a smattering of new info about Deus Ex: MD, and the cryptic announcement of a new studio called Tokyo RPG Factory. Overall, just awful and hard to watch.
The PC Gamer Show
While it was nice to have a show dedicated to PC gaming, and the interview format hosted by Sean "Day9" Plott was a nice change of pace, the show was just to goddamn long. It was interesting at least, but it rolled to almost three hours, and didn't actually announce that much.
It was mostly just updated information on games that had already been announced like Deus Ex, Hitman, Dean Hall's ION, Tacoma, and Beyond Eyes. The new information was welcome, sure, but rarely introduced revolutionary information.
There were some great reveals, like a new Pillars of Eternity expansion, Guild Wars 2's expansion (GUILDS!) Strafe and Enter the Gungeon demos, and of course the reveal that No Man's Sky was coming to PC.
If there is one really great thing to be said about the PC Gaming show is that it really was all about PC gaming. Being sponsored by AMD we saw a lot of hardware talk, and no one ever dumbed themselves down. There were lots of PC exclusive titles, and candid talk about the PC as a platform. Hopefully the show returns next year, but maybe a little less talking.
Overall
2015 wasn't a horrible year. Actually, it might be one of the better E3 shows out there. Plenty of announcements, three new contenders for better or worse, and lots of gameplay footage. Most importantly it kept us entertained and that's really what it's all about isn't it?
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