Every year in the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is held. Publishers, Developers and Hardware Manufacturers from around the world come to show of their latest games or pieces of kit for the media and gamers everywhere. For many gamers, E3 is the event of the year, eclipsing the European Gamescom convention and the Asian Tokyo Game Show. This is the event where the console manufacturers unveil their consoles and provide us all with what we can expect from them in the year to come.
E3 2016 was no different. The big three put on their shows and the biggest publishers showed off their upcoming games. Here now are my personal highlights from the convention; What stood out and what piqued my interest. Take note however that this is in no way a comprehensive collection of what E3 had to offer. There was so much on display and so much to talk about that I can only direct you towards dedicated Video Game websites for more information and a full accounting of the convention.
Microsoft
The first of the Big Three to take to the floor was Microsoft. With Sony recently having announced a new, more powerful PS4 model, codenamed "Neo", Microsoft hit back with their own upgraded Xbox One in Project Scorpio. Project Scorpio will feature a new GPU that allows for playing games at 4k resolution and an increase to 12GB of GDDR5 memory. Early reports hint at the GPU being based on a cut-down version of AMD's Vega architecture and pumping out 6 Teraflops with a clock speed somewhere around 800Mhz. The memory supposedly has a throughput of 320GB/s so the assumption is that we'll be seeing 12GB of GDDR5 on the board. All in all, Project Scorpio, when it launches, looks like it could be on track to beat the Playstation Neo in terms of raw performance. Whether Microsoft can compete with Sony on the games front however, has yet to be seen.
Oh yeah, and there's a new slimmed down model of the standard Xbox One on the way.
Speaking of games, Microsoft showed off some shiny new exclusives for XBox One. But they also revealed just how exclusive they would really be with the announcement of Play Anywhere which will ensure the release of Xbox One exclusives on PC and allow gamers to buy one of the supported games for Xbox One and play it for free on PC and vice versa. Of course, when I say PC, I really mean Windows 10 so if you're still (like me) hanging onto the great Windows 7, you'll be shit out of luck.
The exclusives they showed look promising and while stalwarts such as Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3 were to be expected, they did show off a new game from the makers of Limbo called Inside that looks to be an evolution upon that game and could well be as great and introspective of an experience as it was.
Another game that looks like it could be a lot of good fun is Recore, a charming yet challenging looking platformer from Keiji Inafune, the man behind the classic Mega-Man. Being the character designer on those games certainly seems to have paid dividends for Recore and the art style and designs look superb. Meanwhile, the combat and platforming seems set to be action-packed and full of interesting ways to play.
Yet another noteworthy exclusive came from the critically-acclaimed Platinum Games in the form of Scalebound, a co-op action adventure game that I can best describe as the child of Digimon and Devil May Cry.
The last title that stood out to me, but certainly not the least was Sea of Thieves. Developed by Rare, Sea of Thieves looks to be a return to old form for the developer as they rise from lackluster Kinect titles to produce a multiplayer game about pirates that promises to be a rip-roaring favourite for online play.
Finally, Microsoft showed off their new custom controllers, that allow for gamers to professionally personalize their gamepads and stand out among their friends. The controllers will retail for $79.99 so expect the EU and UK cost to be a little higher.
Come back tomorrow for a highlights from Sony's E3 Press Conference where they showed off a child killing their first animal and a naked Norman Reedus!
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