Sony, Square Enix and the PC Gaming Show in other posts below because character limit (30000 characters is roughly the limit as far as I can tell).
BETHESDA
All games available for PC, PS4 and XBOne unless otherwise noted.
A load of wank to start with, as was to be expected.
As usual, nonsense and recaps to start with.
Aaaand the actual show starts late.
Oh fuck. We get a professional liar (PR & Marketing director) talking on stage. At least he's a good liar.
DOOM Reboot
trailer:
DOOM is being given the reboot, built on id Tech 6(66). So it'll run questionably well, that one's guaranteed. I BLOODY WELL HOPE THEY DIDN'T FORGET THE FOV SLIDER. Ohhh, double-jumping, and it's otherwise sort of like DOOM 3, which was quite fun in it's own right. Yeeep, this is a good one... but one can't help but notice it looks like it's being played with a controller or like it was done by some sort of cinematics professional. It doesn't look bad, but how would we know this is not like Aliens: Colonial Marines all over again? Oh well.
There's also what looks like an in-game cutscene thingy with a monster that is nonexistent that you can't even shoot. What's the point of it if you can't splutter it to bits? Oh and there's a chainsaw that lets you saw enemies to bits. Thank god for innovation, eh?
Levels look more or less linear as well. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they went for making large arenas connected by small corridors it seems like. Decent enemy variety seems to be kept up in a Painkiller style, which seems like a good thing. Movement speed also seems a bit slow.
Blechhhh talk afterwards about playing the game with a controller. I sure hope the game is going to actually play well like a first person shooter is SUPPOSED to be played, with non-weird ass slow controls. If they forget to put the proper 1234567890 gun selection in there, there's gonna be a shitstorm.
Also talk afterwards of the game playing like "Bruce Lee on a skateboard with tons of guns". I fucking hope so.
hm. Guy on stage talks about Arena FPS multiplayer in the new DOOM. There's supposed to be an in-game map editor, but it seems to be designed for consoles :/. GtkRadiant is impenetrable to me, so this new map editor is something I welcome, being a bit more easy to use.
Also talk afterwards of the obvious. DOOM: Reboot is going to run at 1920x1080 at 60 frames per second on consoles, so it's not going to be super terrible (you still have to use a controller to play a supposedly fast-paced game, but at least the framerate's not going to annoy you even further).
Releases Spring 2016, apparently.
BethesdaNet
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? SOME SORT OF ATTEMPT AT MAKING THEIR OWN SHIT DRM? WHO KNOWS, WE SURE AIN'T GON' TELL YA!
BattleCry
Looks like a Team Fortress 2-esque TPS MOBA... thing?
Dishonored 2
trailer:
A game with less magic,but more fun steampunk technology stuff. And the new main character is basically Batman, and she seems sort of imbued with demonic powers or similar as well. The game plays out in another location. The player will be able to choose the main character from... well, the two of Corvo and Emily.
The location is Karnakha, Carnacca... bleh, fuck knows how this is written, the southernmost city in the Empire.
Dishonored: Definitive Edition
A "high definition" rerelease of Dishonored for PS4 and XBOne.
ESO: Consoles, otherwise known as Tamriel Unlimited
The capital of the Empire, apparently controlled by demonic forces. Neat. So I guess the Daedra do get to come out and play.
Orsinium, not sure if this was in a TES game up until this point.
Elder Scrolls: Legends
A free to play strategy card game thing for iPad and PC. Which seems fucking weird, and like copying Blizzard.
Sadly no interesting to watch riots as the marketing head honcho tries to faux end the press conference before showing Fallout 4
trailer:
Todd Howard reminds us he's old. Fallout 4's been in development for four years, apparently. Good.
A lot of quite nice looking concept art is being shown which kind of makes me feel like Fallout is getting a slight more modern and less extremely 50-ish in some respects. Then again, it still looks awesome, and I guess that that's what counts.
The game is supposed to start BEFORE the bombs fall, which is neat, has an EVE Online-like character creator, allows you to play as either a voiced female or a voiced male character, and has a nice voiced main character. And you can customize both characters in the couple, apparently.
This will be the first game to happen BEFORE any of the previous ones, I think, but also at the same time as Fallout 3 or so (2277). Is it possible Vault 111 was equipped with cryogenic freezing pods? Because that seems incredibly likely to me, Vault-Tec being as they are. The overall setup seems quite interesting to me.
AAAND THE GAME IS STILL RUNNING ON THAT ANTIQUATED ENGINE OF THEIRS. Let's just hope they made it work a tad better than Skyrim's engine did by default, because Skyrim was a bit of a mess in several regards. And then there's also the matter of the engine being closed source, where an open source engine would be a lot better for the modding community and the longevity of the game in general (you could still tie that in with Steamworks DRM, not that hard).
Also, conversations with only 4 options to reply with each? Seems like it'll need similar crutches to the dialogue wheel in the Mass Effect series.
VATS is of course still a thing, and the weapons sound less meaty than they did in Fallout 3, not that they sounded particularly great there, but the gunshots sounded a tad more sharp than NERF guns...
Obviously, as had already been semi-confirmed, the game plays out in the ruins of the Boston area.
Armour is now handled very much like in Morrowind, with all the pieces interchangeable (maybe even layerable), which is wonderful.
The Pip-Boy's functionality has been extended a bit, and it has some minigames on it. Oh, and there's a real one that comes with a special edition of Fallout 4, which you can put a phone into and have it act as a proper Pip-Boy for the game, and the app works without the special pip-boy anyway. The guy even goes so far as to call it a "stupid gimmick", but insists it's at least the best damn one.
After a break talking about the mobile game thingy (more about that below), Howard talks about being able to change the environment around you. You will be able to actually build your own things in the environment, all that wonderful stuff, and you'll have your own settlements that are sort of like a cross between a stronghold in Far Cry 4 and Mahjula.
Crafting finally is done better, allowing you to modify weaponry sort of like in Blacklight: Retribution, and allowing you to craft things using things from a category, so being able to use Wonderglue or duct tape to do basically the same thing. Oh, and you can modify your Power Armour.
They might've put a bit more work into the combat in this one. Seeing as the combat in Fallout 3, wasn't super great, yeah this seems like quite the improvement.
Seems like you'll be able to ride vehicles in this one, yourself, as well. Neat.
And now, with all these improvements and all this wonderful stuff, even if this game is buggy as fuck, who cares... so long as I can up the field of view to the point of not getting motion sick in the game. We'll be able to find out soon though, because it's slated for release on the 10th of November this very year.
Fallout Shelter, a mobile game
I feel like this has been done, and I don't think Todd Howard is too happy about having to present it. Neither is the audience. Oh, and it's "inspired by" Progress Quest. And free to play, uhm. And supposedly not terrible about it? Who knows, but you can try it since it's already released, and it's for iOS and Android (because what else would it be for, Windows Mobile? Psshhhhhahaha no.).
Bethesdamiibos?
There are apparently some sort of small figurines of Bethesda characters. They might've been exclusively given to attendees at Bethesda's E3 press conference though, which'll probably make selling them on eBay crazy lucrative.
As an interesting side note, the Bethesda blog was down after the press conference. There was something quite surprising though, and that was the fact that the whole conference went over smoothly. No technical mishaps, no videos without sound playing, no "our PCs BSOD'd". Nothing done wrong in a major way, nothing done horrible badly. It went very smooth and was, as E3 press conferences go, pretty damn well done.
END OF THE BETHESDA PRESS CONFERENCE
MICROSOFT
The stream for this was a tad wonky.
Bonnie Ross talking what is probably fucking nonsense...
... and she immediately goes on to talk about Halo 5.
Halo 5: Guardians
"XBox One exlusive" it says at the beginning of the trailer. Oh god they're going to torture the word "exclusive" again aren't they.
Looks like this one is going to have a campaign playable co-operatively to completion?
The game looks kind of... slow presented like this. The whole "played with a controller" thing really doesn't help it, I guess. It also seems quite linear, but then again I don't know enough about the other Halo games to be able to tell you if that's a good or a bad thing.
Multiplayer maps are supposed to be up to four times as big as any of the older ones. If the maps are well designed, this is not an issue. If they aren't, though, this could mean a lot more downtime where the player effectively does nothing but push one of the sticks forward.
recore
A game about... a teenage girl with a robot dog and a rifle on a desert planet with strange artifacts?
This could be good. Very good. But it did kind of say "XBox exclusive" at the start and so I kind of doubt it'll be relevant in any way... or that I'd ever play it if it stayed on the XBox, because I dislike playing at 30 frames per second on a locked down good for basically nothing machine that costs a fortune.
Oh and the dog obviously immediately gets torn to bits only to be resurrected in a different robotic frame.
This is... a franchise now? WHOA, hold up, you've just announced the damned thing.
Backwards compatibility to the XBox 360? Yeah, in a way.
Here's the deal: Microsoft somehow converted the old encrypted binaries and so when you put a disc in you basically download the whole game and then you get to play it.
A new wireless controller.
Oh wow, this one's got a proper audio jack now. And a d-pad that looks like it's so rubbish it's not even real. It also comes with button remapping and two paddles as extra buttons. Button remapping, which should be a standard fucking feature in every game in the first place.
Bethesda talking about Fallout 4
This was not entirely unexpected.
A "Phil Spencer" character with an intelligence stat of 3. I love the fact that Bethesda managed to sneak that past them.
Ooooh cool, some actual footage of a guy in power armor tearing raiders to shreds. And some story stuff, I guess, like how the main character got a hold of this set of power armor.
Free modding on the XBOne. Good, considering the debacle that we had earlier this year.
Peter Moore, CEO of EA, talks about EA access
All upcoming EA titles are going to be on EA access a couple days earlier.
He also talks about Titanfall coming soon to EA access members for free, as well as Dragon Age: Inquisition later this summer.
There's also a free week going on for all the titles coming with EA access.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
This one's supposed to be very crazy and over the top. Releases spring 2016. And the showed a trailer, that is quite wonderfully and colorfully nonsensical.
Forza Motorsport 6
Oh look, it's a Ford GT. That's a kinda neat looking car, I gotta admit.
It's Forza and it's exclusive to the XBOne, who woulda guessed it.
This will supposedly run at 60 frames per second at 1920x1080 and will be released on 15/09/2015.
Dark Souls III
Whelp, Microsoft has done it. They got FROM Software to debut their new game at their press conference. Now Sony's going to look just a tiny bit dumb if they show up and talk about Bloodborne.
A cinematic trailer this may be, but it's also really nice to watch in a Soulsy kind of way.
Releases early 2016.
The Division
Why's it say "world premiere" there? We've known about this game for quite a while.
They can't possibly keep this graphical fidelity up. Especially if they want the game to run at more than 1 frame per minute... that is, it could potentially run well if it didn't run on Ubisoft's patent "absolutely shit" engine.
A beta exclusive to the XBOne in December.
Rainbow Six Siege
Launches in 13/10 and includes Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2. The shown trailer is quite similar to what had been shown last time at Ubisoft's press conference.
Gigantic
Exclusive to Windows 10 and XBOne? God damn they're really going for the smallest possible audience aren't they? What's next? A Mac OS 9.0 exclusive?
Looks like some sort of TPP MOBA thing. It's got a nice art style, and it's free to play. But this thing's dead in the water as it is, I really feel sorry for the devs.
Indie game showcase
Too many things basically at once for me to be able to list them or even write them down. There's probably going to be a nice list on reddit somewhere, but I really can't be bothered. Some of these are early access games though.
Tacoma
A timed exclusive for the XBOne, a first person exploration game by Fullbright (developers of Gone Home) about a lunar transfer station. The main character's name is apparently Amy Ferrier, and she's voiced. Neat.
Ashen
An open world pvp survival game thing. Art style is pretty stylised, and there are some nice horrors from the deep. Looks like it wants to capture the feeling of a Souls game's world, in a way, but might put it's own kind of neat spin on it.
Available on XBOne and PC, apparently. Not on PS4 for some reason.
Beyond Eyes
A game about being blind, which seems nice, somehow. "First on XBone and PC".
Cuphead: "Don't Deal with the devil"
A platformer in the style of a 30s Disney cartoon. Coming 2016... possibly to PC? Wasn't mentioned, really.
Xbox Game Preview
This is basically Early Access for XBox One. The sane decision they made was to mandate a free trial, which I've got to say is a very good decision.
Dean Hall talks about his new game, Ion
"I want a game that is not a game, but a Universe... whuh?".
A simulation MMO exploring mankind's expansion into space? Aaand it's Early Access. I think we all know what state DayZ Standalone is in right now.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Coming 10/11/2015 (same release date as Fallout 4, damn they're screwed), and being an... exclusive? Great. Fucking great. Another game that a ton of people can't play because of two companies' desires to screw each other customerbase as hard as they can.
Oh, and this one might still have the fucking quick time events. And Lara Croft's name is "Laura", now? Oh god sliding down something sequences as well. Running over a path crumbling to bits behind you? That's it, we're ticking all of the boxes. And it'll supposedly include more raiding of tombs? I dunno.
Stomping on the corpse of Rare, just because they can, hammering home just how Microsoft-controlled Rare has become.
30 Rare games in one collection for the XBone, coming 4/8/2015. The head of the studio seems on stage like "this is the only thing they allowed me to do with the old games, they wouldn't allow me to make a sequel to any of these".
Sea of Thieveshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z48qvGsA_0
Some sort of first-person pirate-themed MMO thing. "Exclusive" to the XBOne. Lets you properly play ON a pirate ship, Guns of Icarus style. This might be good if executed well, but ehhh...
Fable Legends
I hate how they say "XBone and Win10 exclusive" BEFORE THEY EVEN PRESENT US WITH THE TRAILER FOR THE FUCKING GAME. It's really starting to grate on me now. Nothing to say about Fable Legends, we all know that's a third-person action RPG free to play co-op thing. I am now entirely uninterested in this.
"Windows allows developers to push the boundaries of creativity" - Yeah, because you put boundaries there, fucker.
VR
Cooperation with Facebook/Oculus: Every "Oculus" (yeah I know it's called the Rift, but the guy on stage didn't seem to know that) will come with an XBOne controller :/.
Cooperation with Valve in VR? Seems a tad weird.
Hololens... uhhhh I don't think anyone cares, and neither did the guy on stage, really.
Minecraft
A version of Minecraft for Hololens. Bleh. It's just like with a virtual screen.
Ah-ha. It has some more functionality. Funny, but kinda gimmicky it seems. It also uses motion controls, so... meh. And it's kinda godmodey as well... I just feel meh about this really.
And yet they're still not talking about a version of Minecraft written such that it performs well.
Gears of War Ultimate Edition
1080p, 60fps in MULTIPLAYER. No mention of single player. And there's some sort of open beta on XBOne starting today. And oh yeah, this is exclusive to the XBOne, because why not.
DOOM 3: Gears of War in a dark forest edition, otherwise known as Gears 4
At least these space marines were intelligent enough to strap their flashlights to their guns.
God damn this game looks murky and black.
END OF THE MICROSOFT PRESS CONFERENCE
ELECTRONIC ARTS
Mass Effect:Andromeda
This is the new Mass Effect game. Maybe it's after one of the endings of Mass Effect 3?
Need for Speed: the Rebooting
First a cinematic trailer, then a gameplay trailer:
Talking about great graphics and lots and lots of customization possibilities. The game seems to be made with the idea of pleasing as many people as possible at the same time, somehow.
Releases 03/11/2015 and looks like it has some sort of The Crew-ish level up system? Not feeling too great about arbitrary nonsensical limitations bineg present in a game I'd be playing.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
This has been existing for a long while, and is now getting an expansion called Knights of the Fallen Empire coming 27/10/2015 that consists pretty much entirely of story. It is free... to subscribers of Star Wars: The Old Republic (that does not include free players).
A cinematic trailer. Wonderful.
Unravel
EA saw the trend for cute indie physics-based platformers and decided they wanted to get one of their own, so they basically bought one from a studio in Sweden. Better than pushing a shit one out the door, I guess.
It's about... basically playing with yarn. As a figure made of yarn. Intriguing, I guess.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
The plants are on the attack. Heh. And the presenter went on stage after a dancing zombie saying "have fun" while telling the zombie to fuck off. Overall, this is Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, just with a bit more added to it. Like co-op horde mode and local splitscreen multiplayer. Free content updates for... time to come? Interesting new and strange concept for Electronic Arts, innit.
EA Sports stuff
I do not usually play these kinds of games, so this will not include comments by me and will simply be a very short and very concise listing of what I found to be most important:
- NHL16 - a hockey game.
- A golf game made using Frostbite.
- EA Sports Ultimate Team - whatever this is.
- NBA Live 16 - a basketball game - launches 16/09/2015 - talks about a physics-based movement system
- A new FIFA. How unexpected.
- Madden NFL. Yet another one.
Overall, there seems to be a lot of work put into making the games more accessible and getting people playing them.
EA gameface HD - a thing to put your own face on a basketball player in an NBA Live game.
Mobile games
- Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes - a Collectible Card Game (CCG). These kinds of games seem to be en vogue.
- Minion Paradise - funny, but not the kind of game I'd want to play.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
trailer:
This is the only game by EA I actually properly care about. Freerunning around, fluidity of movement. To be honest, that was what I loved about the first Mirror's Edge. I just want to play this now.
Releases 23/02/2016.
Star Wars: Battlefield a.k.a. Star Wars: Battlefront
Well, finally some gameplay, I guess. Bleh, captured from a potato.
Looks a lot like one of the new Battlefields to me to be perfectly honest.
Coming 17/11/2015, I think.
And that was it. End of the EA press conference.
END OF THE ELECTRONIC ARTS PRESS CONFERENCE
UBISOFT
Thankfully, they brought Aisha Tyler back...
... because she actually has a personality, and Ubisoft is generally meh.
FOR HONOR
short explanation released afterwards
A cinematic trailer depicting what looks like a fast-paced Souls game thing, or something like Mount & Blade. What is this? NEVER MIND, HALF-SWORDING IS A THING IN THIS GAME.
Then again, it seems to be multiplayer... even if the guy who's the creative director for it seems awesome. 4v4 medieval battles.... WAITAMINUTE. THIS IS BASICALLY BLADESTORM: NIGHTMARE UBISOFT EDITION.
No skilled warrior moves like that, attacks like that. It just looks so... artificial.
The Crew: Wild Run
Motorbikes? I dunno what this is. Ooooh, an expansion.
Trials Fusion: Awesome Level MAX
A cat with a golden Desert Eagle riding a fire-breathing Unicorn. This is an expansion (DLC) for Trials Fusion.
The Division
Yet another Ubidemo. To be perfectly honest, I don't care about this game at all, and it's being presented so MMOy that it makes me think there's going to be an absolutely terrible grind somewhere. Plus it just seems really meh to me. Keep in mind that I don't like third person shooters though.
Releases 8/03/2016, betas on XBone/PS4/PC before that.
Anno 2205
less nonsense trailer:
Basically Anno, but you can also go to Earth's moon. That is, a barren piece of rock floating around Sol-3.
Just Dance 2016
Now, another Just Dance game. Which isn't crazy surprising. And it now works without a camera and somehow just with a smartphone.
Rainbow Six|Siege
This could be fun to play in an R6V2 kinda way. There is a mode called "Terror Hunt". There's going to be a "beta" on 24/09/2015 (de facto a demo).
Trackmania Turbo
Trackmania is coming to consoles
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
Plays in a Victorian era London. You'd think the main character would be less conspicuous with a hat instead of his cloak considering everybody else wears a hat.
I guess the key question here is: Is the combat as simplistic and dumb as in the previous Assassin's Creed games, or is it actually more interesting and improved this time?
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Is this basically Far Cry for several people at once, but fighting drug cartels?
Oh wait no, it's a Ubisoft Open World Game. And it's... ehhh I dunno. It seems way too much like Metal Gear Solid V.
And they still haven't announced Beyond Good & Evil 2.
END OF THE UBISOFT PRESS CONFERENCE