We may have already known about some of Bethesda’s big E3 games — the publisher announced both Rage 2 and Fallout 76 ahead of the show — but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot to get excited about at the company’s showcase. There’s a sequel to Doom, a new Elder Scrolls, and a brand-new franchise called Starfield. Here’s everything you might’ve missed if you didn’t catch the event live. 2016’s fantastic reboot of Doom is getting a sequel... and that’s about all we really know so far. Bethesda announced Doom Eternal with a cinematic trailer and says it will show the actual game later this year at QuakeCon. In addition to the usual Bethesda franchises, the company also revealed its first brand-new property in decades: Starfield, a long-rumored sci-fi epic. It’s a story-driven single-player game, but we’ll have to wait to find out more about what kind of experience Starfield actually is. Starfield wasn’t the only tease from Bethesda: the developer also revealed The Elder Scrolls VI, the next major entry in the fantasy role-playing series. It’s the follow-up to the beloved Skyrim, and it’s (presumably) quite a ways out from being released. Post-apocalyptic shooter Rage 2 looks like a mashup of a number of open-world games, all wrapped up in a gritty Mad Max style. You can get your best look yet at the game in this 7-minute gameplay trailer. Andrew W.K is contributing music to the new Rage — he even appeared onstage at Bethesda’s keynote — but that’s not the only way he’s lending his services to the franchise. The collector’s edition comes with a hideous mask that speaks in the rocker’s voice, so as to better help you party all the time. If you’re looking for a slightly more sophisticated video game collectible, the special edition of Fallout 76 will come with a functional power armor helmet. It should go nicely with your Fallout 4 Pip-Boy. In addition to its collector’s edition, Bethesda also finally gave us a real look at Fallout 76, and the game looks fascinating. It’s an online-only experience where players work together in small squads to survive in the wasteland. It’s also coming out shockingly soon: you’ll be able to play the next Fallout in October. One of the cooler things you’ll be able to do in Fallout 76 is get your hands on nuclear weapons. You can then use them to blow up the bases of other players. It’s a great way to make friends in the wasteland. Wolfenstein is getting a spinoff, but this one doesn’t star Nazi-killer B.J. Blazkowicz. Instead, you’ll play as his twin daughters, fighting your way through 1980s Paris. It’s out next year. Even Bethesda is poking fun at the multitude of ports for Skyrim. A goofy video starring Keegan-Michael Key shows what the world might be like if the fantasy RPG was playable on Amazon’s Alexa — or on a refrigerator. Surprise! Not only is Fallout Shelter making its way to both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, but it’s also available tonight. Bethesda has been a big supporter of virtual reality, bringing its biggest franchises like Fallout and Doom to VR. Now it’s doing the same with both Prey and Wolfenstein, both of which are getting VR spinoffs. The next Elder Scrolls game is a beautiful mobile RPG named Blades If you can’t take the inevitable long wait for the Elder Scrolls VI, Bethesda is also bringing the series to mobile this year. But this isn’t some cheap cash-in: Blades is a gorgeous RPG built for smartphones, with a variety of combat styles and the kind of graphics you’d usually see on a console. It’s coming to both iPhone and Android.<doc-sep>Good afternoon, downtown L.A.! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the giant banners with gun toting cyborgs have been unveiled. That can only mean one thing: it’s time for E3! Electronic Arts kicked the show off this morning with the first official press conference, and the big news was, as anticipated, Battlefield V. Battlefield V The World War II title will likely get a little more love at the Xbox press conference tomorrow morning, but we did get a look at some compelling gameplay. Notably, the title is getting a Fortnite-style multiplayer, battle royale mode. Anthem Bioware’s next title isn’t due out until next February, but Anthem still managed to get a lot of love today at E3. The multiplayer shooter finds players assuming the role of mech suit wearing “Freelancers.” FIFA 19 Due out September 28, EA’s big soccer (or football or whatever) title is adding UEFA Champions League gameplay, after picking up the license from Konami. That’s big news for European soccer fans, bringing the annual tournament to the title. The company also announced a free trial for Xbox, Playstation and PC players. Madden NFL 19 The popular football title (the other football) is destined for the PC for the first time in more than 10 years. It will bring with it new, more lifelike player animation when it debuts August 10. Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order It wouldn’t be an EA E3 event without some Star Wars love. Due out during the 2019 holiday season, the title will offer a dark take on the familiar universe, allowing users to play as a Jedi. That’s all we know so far, and sadly, there’s no trailer yet to speak of. Unravel 2 No waiting on this one, however. The yarn of a puzzle platformer sequel just dropped today for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.<doc-sep>Microsoft just showed off a ton of stuff at their E3 2018 Xbox press conference, including new Halo and Gears of War games, Fallout 76, The Division 2, Dying Light 2, a shiny Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, and a new samurai action game from the makers of Dark Souls. Personally speaking, I’m most excited about that last one, but there were a lot of good-looking games in general at Microsoft’s show. It was basically just a long run of trailers, but still a welcome jolt of excitement after yesterday’s sleepy Electronic Arts press conference. Many of the games shown were from third-party developers and will be available on other systems, so it’s a good idea to revisit my post from last year that broke down the various possible definitions of the word “exclusive” in this modern era. Advertisement Ready to dive in? Let’s do this. They kicked off by announcing Halo Infinite. The teaser was light on information, but showed what looked like the original Halo, some marines driving a warthog, Master Chief holding his helmet and, apparently, Chief loading an AI (Cortana?) into his helmet. No release date on this one. Ori and the Will of the Wisps still looks beautiful. We got a good look at the sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest, which debuted last year. Looks like the same mix of gorgeous visuals and surprisingly tough gameplay. Main question is how many times the sequel will get me to cry in the first 15 minutes. It’s coming in 2019. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a ninja game from the makers of Dark Souls, and I am excited enough for it to write a really long subhed for this entry! ! You know how I described Team Ninja’s excellent Nioh as “basically Samurai Bloodborne”? Well, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is ninja Bloodborne, and it’s actually being made by FromSoftware, the developer of Bloodborne and Dark Souls. Advertisement Hell yes. Hell yes! I will play the heck out of this, right after I finish playing all of Bloodborne for the second time. You play as a ninja with a prosthetic arm. He has a grappling hook, which means: traversal mechanics in a From game! (Not that “roll over a ledge and down to a weird platform” doesn’t count as traversal mechanics.) Also lots of sword fighting, huge bosses, monsters, and so on. Jason saw a separate demo of this game earlier today and will have more about it on Kotaku soon. He seems psyched, though. It’s coming in 2019 and will also be on PC and PS4. Bethesda gave us a first look at Fallout 76. It’s four times the size of Fallout 4, and set in the hills of West Virginia. As expected, it focuses on the years shortly after the bombs dropped. Not a lot of other details on how the game actually works, though of course my colleague Jason Schreier has already reported that it’ll be an online survival game with base-building, sort of like Rust or Ark. I’m sure we’ll learn more tonight at Bethesda’s press conference. Advertisement The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a new game in the Life is Strange universe. It looks like a charming game about a young boy with an active imagination whose stories come to life. It’s out as a free download on June 26th. Advertisement We got more Crackdown 3 Terry Crews antics. This game still looks pretty silly, as much later Saints Row games as early Crackdown. The trailer was trying pretty hard, but hey, the game lets you drive your car up a building, so whatever. As we reported late last week, the game has been delayed one final (hopefully?) time to February 2019. Advertisement Metro: Exodus is still looking nice and bleak. Nothing major or new in the trailer, just a bunch more good Metro stuff, this time in an open (or at least more open) world. Love these games; will definitely play this one, too. It’s coming out on February 22, 2019. Looks like February of next year is gonna be a hell of a month! Advertisement Kingdom Hearts 3 will have a Frozen world. The newest game in Square Enix’s extremely confusing but equally charming action series will feature a Frozen world featuring Elsa and Anna along with Rapunzel from Tangled. Last night Square Enix announced that it’ll be out on January 29, 2019. Advertisement Forza Horizon 4 takes the series to Britain, goes full shared-world. I love Forza Horizon 3 and will definitely play a new one of these games set in Britain. This one is being described as a seamless, shared-world online game, as opposed to previous games, which were more instanced and filled with AI “Drivatars.” There’ll be a 60fps mode on Xbox One X, which is nice; I love playing the third game at a high frame rate on PC. This is one of the few games at this conference that’s an actual exclusive, which means it’ll only ever be on Xbox and PC. It’ll be out on October 2, and will be included in Xbox Game Pass on the same day. Advertisement Advertisement Microsoft opened a new studio and bought a bunch of indies. They didn’t like, do any of that live onstage or anything, but they announced that they had. Xbox head Phil Spencer introduced the new Microsoft studio The Initiative, and also announced several studio acquisitions. Those acquisitions include State of Decay makers Undead Labs and Forza Horizon studio Playground Games, the second of which will be working on a new project in addition to Forza. Microsoft also bought Hellblade studio Ninja Theory as well as Compulsion Games, makers of We Happy Few. A couple of those studios had already been making games with Microsoft as their publisher. This all seems like Microsoft investing in having more in-house studios working on Xbox exclusives for the future. Advertisement The Division 2 is moving to D.C. in the summertime. The very first thing we saw in Ubisoft’s Division 2 demo was a sweaty, verdant jungle, which is about as far as you can get from the first game’s wintry Manhattan streets without going to like, Mercury. After the intro teaser came a lengthy staged multiplayer demo that looked pretty much like more Division, but set in a much more colorful and vibrant environment. At one point, one player subtly shamed another player for being underleveled, which is probably the most realistic interaction I’ve ever seen in one of these canned E3 multiplayer demos. Anyway, I’m on board with this game. It’s coming out March 15, 2019. Advertisement Shadow of the Tomb Raider heads to some nifty looking new places. Not a ton of new information about the game in the trailer they showed, but hey, it looks like another game in the style of Crystal Dynamics’ first two. At one point Lara got to cover herself in mud camouflage and do a Rambo-style takedown on a patrolling goon. I’ll play it. It’s out on September 14. Advertisement There’s a new skating game in the works called Session. This sure looks like a skating game. I like skating games! Devil May Cry 5 is real, and looks like a good time. At one point in the trailer, a massive demonic boss stuffed a car into the mouth in his stomach, then belched fire. The game was described on stage as a “true sequel” to Devil May Cry 4, without no mention of Ninja Theory’s surprisingly great 2013 take on the series. DmC 5 is coming in Spring of 2019. Cool. Advertisement Cuphead is getting an expansion. It’s called The Delicious Last Course, and will be out in 2019. I never got past the delicious first course of this delightful, hard-as-nails game, but I have a feeling those who did will welcome new characters and bosses. Advertisement Bandai Namco announced Jump Force, a massive anime crossover fighting game. It’s got Naruto! It’s got Goku! It’s got lots of super intense fighting action! Kyaaaaaah! Advertisement Dying Light 2 is more Dying Light, with a much more reactive open world.<doc-sep>
EA had already announced its biggest titles, like Battlefield V, before its E3 keynote. But it showed up with a number of smaller announcements, including a new indie game that’s launching today, as well as some gameplay footage for the highly anticipated BioWare game Anthem. And the show was shot through with promises that EA isn’t going to repeat last year’s Battlefront II loot crate debacle. It was a low-key way to start a week of big reveals, but not a disappointing one. Here’s the most exciting stuff from the show. After being announced last year, Mass Effect studio BioWare’s new game Anthem was due for a bigger reveal in 2018. It’s a shared-world role-playing game set in a hostile future, where players don powered armor suits known as “javelins” to play cooperative missions. EA didn’t disappoint with its reveal: it offered a release date, some more details, and a few minutes of gameplay. The footage so far makes it look like a combination of mech warfare, Destiny-style massively multiplayer gameplay, and the epic science fiction that BioWare is known for. Anthem will be released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 22nd, 2019. This isn’t a big surprise, since it feels like every game is getting a competitive multiplayer mode inspired by the massively popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. But now we know that Battlefield V will let you fight to be the last player standing in a World War II battlefield. You know, just like in real life. In any case, we got a new trailer with a little bit of multiplayer gameplay and some detail about the game’s single-player “War Stories.” The first Unravel stole our hearts with its adorable yarn protagonist Yarny, although it sometimes frustrated us with its challenging puzzle platformer gameplay. Now, it’s getting a sequel called Unravel 2, which is supposed to be “friendlier,” “more challenging,” and “more playful” than its predecessor. Among other changes, Unravel 2 will feature two Yarny characters, which means that either one player can control both, or two people can play cooperatively. Unravel 2 is not only being announced today, it’s being released immediately on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. EA picked up indie game Sea of Solitude some time ago, and it’s got a new trailer out at E3. One of the game’s core themes is that “when humans get too lonely, they turn into monsters” — and in this case, that’s literally the plight of protagonist Kay, who must explore a nearly deserted city finding others like herself. Sea of Solitude is shaping up to be a haunting little game when it comes out in early 2019 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Titanfall developer Respawn hinted at a new Star Wars game before the show, and now we know it’s called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. We don’t know much more than that, unfortunately. The single-player story game is slated for release during the holiday season in 2019; it’s set after Revenge of the Sith, when the Jedi are being hunted; and it’s got a dark and gritty feel. Oh, and you can use a lightsaber. Meanwhile, Battlefront II is getting expanded with material from the Clone Wars, including playable versions of Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, General Grievous, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. We don’t know when that’s coming out, but there’s a Solo-themed expansion arriving on June 12th, featuring new environments on Kessel and a new starfighter mode, among other things.