E3 2018 Bethesda Showcase Summary

Bethesda E3 2018

 

The presentation opened with a countdown to a trailer that was called “This is Bethesda.” It began the showcase just showing the audience the various members of the Bethesda staff living their lives, engaged in mundane day to day activities. From there, it shifted into the office, showing everything that is happening inside there. The progress and how the team works as a whole across the world. A short trailer that showed clips of that had been announced prior to this showcase ran after that.

 

Opening the broadcast and presentation was Global Senior Vice President, Pete Hines. He said that the theme of this year is “Create.” He explains that Bethesda creates the world, but it is the players, the gamers who create the stories inside those worlds. From there, he listed the numerous award-winning games that have been released over the past year: Prey, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, The Evil Within 2, and Wolfenstein 2. He touched on the updates released for the Elder Scrolls online, the VR versions of Doom and Skyrim, plus the first 2 games for the Nintendo Switch. He made a joke of the leaked game titles from Walmart Canada that came out ahead of the E3 presentations of numerous companies.

 Bethesda E3 Rage2 Title

The presentation began with a trailer for Rage 2. People came in from the sides, Andrew WK, beginning the presentation with “Ready to Die.” This number was the rock number that we had been hearing along with the Rage 2 trailer. This high energy song was a great choice to open the presentation for the craziness that is Rage 2. After that, Tim Willits and Magnus Nedros came on stage. Respectively, they are the Studio Director of id Software and the Game Director from Avalanche Studios. They talked about their goal to just bring in just a crazy open world shooter. Apparently, you will be playing Walker, the last Ranger in the Wastes. From there, it launched into a pre-alpha build of the game that is running through the “Eden Space Center” where he will be pulling a much-needed satellite, an Eco-Pod from orbit. In this trailer, we got to see a few weapons and a number of powers being used. We also see Walker get a new power, Shatter, that he very much enjoys using. We got a release window of Spring 2019.

 

Next up was Christan Van Hoose. He came onto the stage to start talking about Elder Scrolls: Legends. He announced that Legends will be getting a massive UI overhaul as well as releases on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. He did also explain that using the Bethesda.net account, you will be able to transfer your progress from the PC, Mobile or Tablet onto the console version.

 

Matt Firor was the next presenter in this showcase. He represents the Elder Scrolls Online at ZeniMax Online Studios. Last year that ESO was named “MMO of the Year”, released Morrowind along with a lot of excellent DLC. Just last week, the game saw the release of Summerset, the latest chapter in the long story of ESO. There is a lot of content in the works. The next DLC is the Wolfhunter DLC, based on Werewolves. After that, is a story DLC called “Mirkmire,” bringing the story back to the Black Marsh, home of the Argonians. Firor promises that this will offer a deeper dive into Argonian lore and culture. He was sure to iterate that the core aspect of all the DLC throughout the world: strong story. He left with a trailer showing the achievements of the community across all of the DLC and stories told in the game and what is to come.

 

Bethesda E3 Doom Eternal Title

A trailer ran after that, leading us into the next Doom game: Doom Eternal. On stage to talk about it were Marty Stratton, the executive producer and game director, and Huge Martin, the creative director for Doom Eternal. For the past 2 years, they have been listening to what the community wanted. The Doom slayer more powerful? Yes. More demons? How about twice as many? Want hell on Earth? “Well, we just teased it.” They announced that their team will be debuting Doom Eternal at QuakeCon this August (2018).

 

From there, a trailer ran, rotating the symbol we say for Doom Eternal to the very well known Quake Symbol. Shown in a gray chamber, we then got to see the representative from the Quake team, their Community Manager, Joshua Boyle. He talked about the massive community support for the game and how Quake has been in eSports for over 20 years. He talked that there will be a massive expansion on the eSports arena, having it present at both grassroots all the up to the highest professional level. Quake Champions just got a bunch of new features for people to enjoy. Everyone was then welcomed to the arena. This week only, Quake Champions is open to everyone, free to play. Plus, you can get in and then keep playing for free even after the trial closes.

 

Bethesda E3 Prey Mooncrash Title

After a quick transition, we are given a video from Arkane studios with Susan Kath, Production Direction, and Ricardo Bare, Lead Designer. They came on to talk about the first expansion DLC for Prey: Mooncrash. They opened with a huge thanks. The studio has loved the response from the community and the players. To this end, they are rolling out a huge update to the game, tonight. This update includes Story Mode, New Game+, and Survival Mode. They then talked about the new Expansion: Mooncrash. This is a new twist on Prey, where the enemies, hazards, and loot will be different with each play through. The presentation from the studio ended with one of the creatures from the game materializing and attacking the camera. This lead to the trailer for the expansion. There were numerous times in the trailer where we saw, “Simulation reset” and we also saw the phrase, every death, second matters. It definitely promises to give just what they offer, a very replayable game.

 

The two presenters then appeared on the E3 stage. After a quick Mimic joke, they got into talking about the game Mooncrash offers no exception to the massive number of ways to play. They also spoke of the next update, Typhon Hunter. A lethal game of hiding and seek. This pits 5 people in an arena. 1 is a person and the other 4 people are mimics, scattered throughout the level. This mode requires a lot of teamwork and a high tolerance of jump scares.

 Bethesda E3 Wolfenstein Young Blood Title

We got another transition from there, moving onto Wolfenstein, with its logo coming into the center of the scene. For this game, they had Jerk Gustafsson, Executive Producer of Machine Games, and Jens Matthies, Creative Director of Machine Games, come on stage. They gave a brief recap of the events of Wolfenstein 2, the New Colossus. They mentioned that Wolfenstein 2 will be coming to the Switch June 29th, so you can fight the Nazis on the go. The next entry into the series follows the tail of BJ's twin daughters. This game, Wolfenstein: Young Blood is set in the 1980's in Paris in this alternate reality world. This will be a cooperative experience, but it will also have a solo experience. Then they ran the trailer properly. We got to see the daughters in some Exosuits, ready to fight the good fight. This game has a release window of 2019.

 Bethesda E3 Wolfenstein Cyberpilot

Now, we got to Pete Hines once again. He touched on the new VR properties coming. Prey Typhon Hunter will be coming from VR. It will offer the multiplayer competitive experience as well as a puzzle-solving single player experience. Another series getting a VR title is Wolfenstein. That game will be called, “Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot.” This will have you playing a Resistance Hacker, taking over Nazi Warmachines and turning them against their masters. There are demos available at E3. From there, Pete Hines went on to introduce Todd Howard.

 

Todd Howard finally came on stage late in the broadcast. He opened talking about that he had at the first E3. He then talked about the vast history of E3. From there, he just talked about the various locations and setups for E3. After that, a trailer ran, showing what Skyrim would be like with Alexa, Motorola pager, and smart refrigerators. Todd Howard came back on stage after that, saying, “We had to do it. We had to do it.” There is something to be said for a gaming company that just utterly embraces the joke of Skyrim being brought to everything that they can. Of course, there is the fact that Skyrim: Very Special Edition is real and available to play. You can access it through either Alexa or the Amazon App's Alexa.

 Bethesda E3 Fallout 76

Finally, we got to Fallout 76. Todd opened explaining that Fallout 76 is a prequel to every other Fallout game, and he stated that its world is four times the size of Fallout 4. This one will be set in the rural hills of West Virginia. The trailer started with something we had never seen all that much in a Fallout game, the bombs themselves dropping. We see a soldier in Power Armor falling from the blast of the bombs. After that, a cover of “Take me home, country roads” began. It opens showing a massive forest where we will be able to explore. There were a few new mutants and some new items. It also looks to be in a different region than what we have seen before as well. It was made clear that only the best and the brightest were selected to enter into it. After the trailer, Howard came on. He explained that it was the vault built to celebrate the tricentennial. The inhabitants have been waiting for reclamation day. This is when the inhabitants of the Vault have been waiting 75 years for this day. There are a number of Mr. Handys spread around the area sending you off, happy to see you go. From there, the events lead us into a new world. Howard explained that this is a very vast world. It is set in West Virginia. It has an incredible array of secrets. The Overseer sends this Vault Dweller to seek out a number of government secrets. This is a story they have wanted to tell for a long time. The big difference is that each of the characters are real people. It will be an entirely online game.

 

The first question answered is that you can play this alone. Howard admits to being very curious about the world of Fallout with the option of having people. This was an idea that they could not shake. The team wanted to do in their own way. He described the difficulty as “Softcore survival,” death will not mean the death of your character or progress. Each server is going to have around a dozen players. You will be able to bring your progress along with you. “When we think about games, we think about worlds,” Howard declared where there will be a massive world with lots of things to do. This lead to another trailer, this time from Vault-Tec. This will apparently feature an e-mote wheel to aid in conversation. There is still the question of in-game voice chat. Howard explained that you will be able to work with your team to build where you want. You will also be able to move it to wherever you want. To this end, a new item, CAMPS has been introduced. You will be able to work with others to build and defend. It looks to give you something that will be able to bring around the world of this Fallout game. Howard then mentioned something that was surprising. They talked about having multiple nuclear missile sites. They are giving us access to this and letting us run around that world. These will be accessed by finding the fragments of a launch code from around the world. By collecting the whole code, you will be able to launch these missiles at your targets. You will need to work with others to get the whole code. After that, you will be able to launch the missile at a target of your choosing.

 

This was followed by the announcement that there will be an open-beta of the game. From there, he moved onto the special edition. From there, he revealed there would be a glow-in-the-dark map, a number of figurines as well. The big surprise that was a wearable power-armor helmet.

 

There was also the announcement of the Vault-Tec program B.E.T.A. (Break-it Early Test Application). Access to this Vault-Tec program is offered through Bestheda.net. No word as to when this will be opened to the public though. Just how to sign up, which is using the Bethesda.net account.

 

Next, he announced the released date of November 14th, 2018. He then thanked us for the support for the 10 years of Fallout since Fallout 3. He then announced that Fallout Shelter will be coming out on the PS4 and the Nintendo Switch. All of this will apparently be free (with paid content). He then announced that these versions will be released tonight (6/10/2018).

 Bethesda E3 Elder Scrolls Blades

Howard then started talking about the Elder Scrolls Blades. Like Fallout Shelter, they wanted an experience that would be unique. This is a massive game, meant to be a first-person RPG. He suggested using a powerful mobile device. From there, we got to see the game being played with the touchscreen commands. This game will have both hand-crafted and procedurally generated dungeons. The game will also be playable in portrait mode as well. This will have more than just dungeons. It will also have a world for you to explore as well. This game will have at least 3 modes of play. The first is Abyss, a rogue-like experience for those dungeon crawl lovers. Arena offers the PvP mode within this game. The town will be the hub world. You will be a member of the Blades. You will return to your hometown which will need to be rebuilt. You will be able to determine the look. As it levels up, you will gain access to new NPCs. The players will be able to visit each other's town as well. An Elder Scrolls game available on every platform they can. This world will also be continuous across the platform. This will allow for PvP across the supported, possible devices. Blades will be coming this fall for free. It is now available for Pre-Order. There is an early access can be gotten at PlayBlades.com

 

Howard started to wrap up encouraging the audience to cheer for the teams across Bethesda working on these projects. Then he hinted at what is to come in the future. He said that they are working on a next-gen first player game. It is to be a wholly original franchise. This lead to the reveal of Starfield.

 Bethesda E3 Starfield

The trailer opened with a shot of a planet and a sweeping orchestral score. It pans down to show a space station and then we are warped away. Howard explained that Starfield is a game they have spent years working on this. It was a game that Bethesda explained that they are uniquely situated to build.

 

He then said the next game is the one we keep asking about. That would only be Elder Scrolls 6. The trailer opens with a zooming shot going over mountains. He alluded that it would be coming out in about 2 years. That was the last announcement that Todd Howard had.

 

From there, the announcer came back on to thank us for the time we have put in. He reiterated that you should go to Bethesda.net to create an account to participate in the upcoming betas of Elder Scrolls Blades and Fallout 76. It went from there to a trailer showing off all the games that have been announced this E3. All with a heavy rock backing to it. Bethesda, as always, brought their best to show with many exciting announcements to come along with it.

 

Source:

Bethesda Youtube

*Correction: Skyrim: Very Special Edition is real and available through either the Alexa app or Amazon app.


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