Hot on the tail of our EA E3 2017 press conference highs and lows feature, our attention now moves to Bethesda, so join us as we take a look back at the show and provide opinion on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Bethesda’s E3 hits
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: A big hit. Machine Games look to have gone all out for its gonzo sequel to The New Order. Acid trips, deadpan comedy, a heavily pregnant woman murdering a Nazi, and lots and lots of fast-paced shooting. Wolfenstein II’s grindhouse gunning truly looks like it’ll be an absolute riot.
Plus points for the TV shows at the start of the trailer. The Lassie as robot death dog skit was gold.
The Evil Within 2: Like Wolfenstein II, The Evil Within 2 has been a horribly kept secret, but there was still plenty of surprise in the direction of the sequel to Shinji Mikami’s 2014 survival horror. There appears to be a more Lovecraftian psychological horror vibe here, as opposed to the original game’s Resident Evil 4.5 with a dash of Silent Hill. If anything is concrete, it’s that our hero is fighting for his sanity big time here.
The use of the white gloop that prominently features throughout the trailer brings the trippy art direction of Brian Fuller’s Hannibal to mind, and if implemented correctly into the final game, it could prove starkly effective as it did there.
Watch the Bethesda E3 conference
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider: A smart move to have Arkane do as Machine Games did with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, and experiment with an established universe in a smaller stop-gap standalone adventure. If it comes even remotely close to capturing the wonderful sense of place Arkane’s other work has, then it’ll be another surefire hit for the developer.
Creation Club: Mod support for Skyrim and Fallout 4 on PS4 has been rather underwhelming for various reasons, but the announcement of Creation Club seems like a promising step up from that.
To offer proper new additions to both games via Bethesda and the mod community is smart, and hopefully signals to other significant developers that embracing this side of gaming could prove lucrative for creating longevity in its franchises without the need for loot boxes and glorified sticker packs.
The Bethesda kids: Adorable. Shame their parents had to get involved really.
Bethesda’s E3 Misses
Dwelling in the old: A minor miss. Bethesda’s show was comfortably short and snappy, but they padded out the runtime with a bit too much waffle about products already available. Four mentions of Elder Scrolls and none of it truly new, and similarly three for Fallout (even if Creation Club and Fallout VR do hold promise).
An additional gripe to to snap onto this one was that there wasn’t a single new IP on show. What Bethesda did have was great, but no hint of any new RPG or similar was mildly disappointing.
Morrowind reaction video: In terms of awkward, empty rubbish, what could possibly rival allowing gaming personalities to die a thousand deaths on stage at your conference? Easy, do a horrifically insincere reaction video.
Honestly, if you want to sell the return to Morrowind in Elder Scrolls Online, you could have gone with a thematically appropriate talking heads section with fans recalling what they lived about Morrowind. This just rang so hollow and false it could have got a reality TV show.
The Bethesda adults: Should have left the intro to the kids. I’m sure there’s a joke there about leaving the QA testing to them too.