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xyzzysqrlFriends, loved ones, weird spambots who won't stop emailing me about my upcoming Medicare audit (??? seriously why is this happening to me)... You folks are all aware that I play a lot of video games here at xyzzysqrl dot blog.
You also might remember that for the past couple years I've caught myself a bad case of E3 Fever, the debilitating illness where the symptoms and cure are the same thing: Watching hours of corporate mating dances onscreen.
(Refresher: 2017 got one post, but 2018 got a whole tag to itself.)
Well, E3 is happening again this year and I'm thinking of crawling back into the Blunderdome to hammer out another yearly play-by-play. This might not be as efficent as it was last year because my sleep schedule looks like the work of a random number generator, but if worst comes to worst they do record these things so I'll watch the tape and do it pre-recorded hours late instead of live right away.
I don't think y'all should be using the blog of a fluffy pink lump of indeterminate gender to plot your E3 course anyway, please do consult alternate sources that have things like "journalistic standards".
So! With the TIME OF GREAT MAGIC a little over a week away, let's toss the stones and see if we can divine what sort of future may come, in the future.
June 8
This is before E3 even starts, but EA are doing some kind of all-day-long presser thing. They won't be showing a "traditional conference" which means I don't actually have to watch dudes in suits shuffle around. I plan to sleep through most of this and check what's being revealed later. As such, EA will probably not have a post to themselves.
HOPES: I just want Dragon Age 4 you guys. I want Dragon Age 4 not to look like it's the last dying sob of Bioware before the customary EAxecution technique of two bullets and a studio closure. I don't care what else they show.
EXPECTATIONS: Dragon Age 4 will not actually appear. Plants vs Zombies 3: BoomTubers will. Sports sports sports sports. The next mobile game from EA is a Dead Space cookie clicker clone. EA will announce in a surprise confession that they dropped the Star Wars license and it rolled under the fridge and they've been trying to push it out with a mop for the last five years.
HYPE LEVEL: 2/10.
[EDIT] EA has released their E3 schedule. It's boring. boooorrriiiiing. Oh well.
JUNE 9
Microsoft: 4 PM Eastern
Here we go, my colleagues. Microsoft are throwing down for a solid hour and they're always a fun show because they just firehose games up and down the stage. Even if they lose, they win because almost everything comes out on PC.
HOPES: I want to see more of that Halo Infinite business. I wanna see another Super Lucky's Tale sequel. Wanna see some Ori. Wanna be surprised by some indie stuff nobody's talked about yet.
EXPECTATIONS: Halo and Ori are almost a for-sure promise. Additionally, there's been rumblings Microsoft will show off whatever comes after the Xbone and the XboneX and the XboneS and so one. I'm looking forward to awkwardly cracking Xbtwo jokes until I realize nobody can pronounce that. It won't stop me, look at the username I've had for the last couple decades.
HYPE LEVEL: Microsoft usually brings home a solid 7/10 hype. I think I can sustain that.
Bethesda: 8:30 PM Eastern
So Bethesda has this thing. They're great hypemen. They know how to start off by fellating themselves, then they start tonguework on the audience. Their shows the last couple years have been great. Their releases have not. I'll probably still mark out for TODD HOWARD CLIPPING THROUGH THE STAGE AND PERSONALLY CORRUPTING YOUR QUICKSAVE but I'll be a little more reserved this year.
HOPES: Give me Doom Eternal you fucking human shrubbery.
EXPECTATIONS: A Fallout 76 expansion pack, a couple new mobile games, more cards for Elder Scrolls Card Game and a feature-length retrospective on Bethesda Studios. As a surprise at the very end they'll announce they're going back to their roots and doing a tie-in game for the new Terminator movie.
HYPE LEVEL: 4/10. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again.
JUNE 10
PC Gaming Show Sponsored by Epic: 1 PM Eastern
For the last couple years I've been thinking of this as the PC Gaming Naptime but with Epic on board all bets are off. A storm of angry 13 year olds who AREN'T battle royal developers could swarm the stage at any moment and I want to be awake when that happens. I won't be, because it's still the PC gaming show, but I want to be.
HOPES: Like a trillion indie games that do not trailer well but will be cerebral and interesting enough to buy when they appear on Steam or the Epic Store for $12 each.
EXPECTATIONS: 2 1/2 solid hours of Fortnite dancing live on stage led by Michael Flatley.
HYPE LEVEL: soft warm pillow/10.
--
Ubisoft: 4 PM Eastern
Ubisoft is always my favorite show because they're so damn bombastic. Let's throw our hands up for the obligitory Let's Dance pandas, and then stay to see what happens next. Will Assassin's Creed really star Vikings? Will they make that Watch Dogs sequel set in Tokyo? How bad is the writing in the next Far Cry? I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT.
HOPES: A real-ass dating sim starring SynDi, the squirrel mascot of the Trials game. All that stuff about Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs. Beyond Good and Evil 2 actually looks cool+awesome. Ubisoft cuts a deal to make a new Rayman game that crossover-stars Kirby somehow because they built their Paris office on that leyline that cuts through Nintendo HQ.
EXPECTATIONS: The ghost of Tom Clancy possesses a man live on-stage and announces some kind of real time strategy thing. The Division will keep being a manshoots about depressing things. We're all gonna dance with the pandas, it'll be great. That pirate game nobody can remember the name of will continue to fail to distinguish itself.
HYPE LEVEL: 8/10 Ubisoft always delivers.
[EDIT]: Watch_Dogs Legion is confirmed, set in London post-Brexit.
--
Square Enix: 9 PM Eastern
whoooooo knows
HOPES: FF7Remake shows off the HoneyBee Inn sequence so we can stop getting snide jokes about it. That Avengers thing shows up. Romancing SaGa 3 English release date. Yoko Taro just grins at you for a solid minute and they abruptly end the presentation.
EXPECTATIONS: FF7R will be vaguely existant again. New Tomb Raider I guess. Shadowbringers hype. ...I dunno what else, surprise me guys.
HYPE LEVEL: Neutral 5/10.
JUNE 11
Magical Nintendo Christmas: Noon Eastern
We're not gonna see hardware at this but all bets are off otherwise. I'm also gonna predict we're not gonna see much Pokemon Sword/Shield because they're dropping a Direct on the 5th.
HOPES: Oh god I don't even know, it's Nintendo. Metroid Prime 4? Animal Crossing? I'm gonna say Animal Crossing every year until we get Animal Crossing.
EXPECTATIONS: The next Smash DLC reveal. More of that Labo VR support for various games. ... I don't know, it's Nintendo, they're gonna bomb us with something I can feel it.
HYPE LEVEL: Nintendo/10.
SIR NOT APPEARING AT THIS E3
Sony took their ball and went home after nobody was impressed with their quad-theater of human misery last year. Bye Sony.
SEE YOU AT E3 EVERYBODY!
(disclaimer: sqrlmog will not see you at e3, sqrlmog is not physically going to e3, sqrlmog is staying home to watch it on youtube with everyone else)
You also might remember that for the past couple years I've caught myself a bad case of E3 Fever, the debilitating illness where the symptoms and cure are the same thing: Watching hours of corporate mating dances onscreen.
(Refresher: 2017 got one post, but 2018 got a whole tag to itself.)
Well, E3 is happening again this year and I'm thinking of crawling back into the Blunderdome to hammer out another yearly play-by-play. This might not be as efficent as it was last year because my sleep schedule looks like the work of a random number generator, but if worst comes to worst they do record these things so I'll watch the tape and do it pre-recorded hours late instead of live right away.
I don't think y'all should be using the blog of a fluffy pink lump of indeterminate gender to plot your E3 course anyway, please do consult alternate sources that have things like "journalistic standards".
So! With the TIME OF GREAT MAGIC a little over a week away, let's toss the stones and see if we can divine what sort of future may come, in the future.
June 8
This is before E3 even starts, but EA are doing some kind of all-day-long presser thing. They won't be showing a "traditional conference" which means I don't actually have to watch dudes in suits shuffle around. I plan to sleep through most of this and check what's being revealed later. As such, EA will probably not have a post to themselves.
HOPES: I just want Dragon Age 4 you guys. I want Dragon Age 4 not to look like it's the last dying sob of Bioware before the customary EAxecution technique of two bullets and a studio closure. I don't care what else they show.
EXPECTATIONS: Dragon Age 4 will not actually appear. Plants vs Zombies 3: BoomTubers will. Sports sports sports sports. The next mobile game from EA is a Dead Space cookie clicker clone. EA will announce in a surprise confession that they dropped the Star Wars license and it rolled under the fridge and they've been trying to push it out with a mop for the last five years.
HYPE LEVEL: 2/10.
[EDIT] EA has released their E3 schedule. It's boring. boooorrriiiiing. Oh well.
JUNE 9
Microsoft: 4 PM Eastern
Here we go, my colleagues. Microsoft are throwing down for a solid hour and they're always a fun show because they just firehose games up and down the stage. Even if they lose, they win because almost everything comes out on PC.
HOPES: I want to see more of that Halo Infinite business. I wanna see another Super Lucky's Tale sequel. Wanna see some Ori. Wanna be surprised by some indie stuff nobody's talked about yet.
EXPECTATIONS: Halo and Ori are almost a for-sure promise. Additionally, there's been rumblings Microsoft will show off whatever comes after the Xbone and the XboneX and the XboneS and so one. I'm looking forward to awkwardly cracking Xbtwo jokes until I realize nobody can pronounce that. It won't stop me, look at the username I've had for the last couple decades.
HYPE LEVEL: Microsoft usually brings home a solid 7/10 hype. I think I can sustain that.
Bethesda: 8:30 PM Eastern
So Bethesda has this thing. They're great hypemen. They know how to start off by fellating themselves, then they start tonguework on the audience. Their shows the last couple years have been great. Their releases have not. I'll probably still mark out for TODD HOWARD CLIPPING THROUGH THE STAGE AND PERSONALLY CORRUPTING YOUR QUICKSAVE but I'll be a little more reserved this year.
HOPES: Give me Doom Eternal you fucking human shrubbery.
EXPECTATIONS: A Fallout 76 expansion pack, a couple new mobile games, more cards for Elder Scrolls Card Game and a feature-length retrospective on Bethesda Studios. As a surprise at the very end they'll announce they're going back to their roots and doing a tie-in game for the new Terminator movie.
HYPE LEVEL: 4/10. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again.
JUNE 10
PC Gaming Show Sponsored by Epic: 1 PM Eastern
For the last couple years I've been thinking of this as the PC Gaming Naptime but with Epic on board all bets are off. A storm of angry 13 year olds who AREN'T battle royal developers could swarm the stage at any moment and I want to be awake when that happens. I won't be, because it's still the PC gaming show, but I want to be.
HOPES: Like a trillion indie games that do not trailer well but will be cerebral and interesting enough to buy when they appear on Steam or the Epic Store for $12 each.
EXPECTATIONS: 2 1/2 solid hours of Fortnite dancing live on stage led by Michael Flatley.
HYPE LEVEL: soft warm pillow/10.
--
Ubisoft: 4 PM Eastern
Ubisoft is always my favorite show because they're so damn bombastic. Let's throw our hands up for the obligitory Let's Dance pandas, and then stay to see what happens next. Will Assassin's Creed really star Vikings? Will they make that Watch Dogs sequel set in Tokyo? How bad is the writing in the next Far Cry? I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT.
HOPES: A real-ass dating sim starring SynDi, the squirrel mascot of the Trials game. All that stuff about Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs. Beyond Good and Evil 2 actually looks cool+awesome. Ubisoft cuts a deal to make a new Rayman game that crossover-stars Kirby somehow because they built their Paris office on that leyline that cuts through Nintendo HQ.
EXPECTATIONS: The ghost of Tom Clancy possesses a man live on-stage and announces some kind of real time strategy thing. The Division will keep being a manshoots about depressing things. We're all gonna dance with the pandas, it'll be great. That pirate game nobody can remember the name of will continue to fail to distinguish itself.
HYPE LEVEL: 8/10 Ubisoft always delivers.
[EDIT]: Watch_Dogs Legion is confirmed, set in London post-Brexit.
--
Square Enix: 9 PM Eastern
whoooooo knows
HOPES: FF7Remake shows off the HoneyBee Inn sequence so we can stop getting snide jokes about it. That Avengers thing shows up. Romancing SaGa 3 English release date. Yoko Taro just grins at you for a solid minute and they abruptly end the presentation.
EXPECTATIONS: FF7R will be vaguely existant again. New Tomb Raider I guess. Shadowbringers hype. ...I dunno what else, surprise me guys.
HYPE LEVEL: Neutral 5/10.
JUNE 11
Magical Nintendo Christmas: Noon Eastern
We're not gonna see hardware at this but all bets are off otherwise. I'm also gonna predict we're not gonna see much Pokemon Sword/Shield because they're dropping a Direct on the 5th.
HOPES: Oh god I don't even know, it's Nintendo. Metroid Prime 4? Animal Crossing? I'm gonna say Animal Crossing every year until we get Animal Crossing.
EXPECTATIONS: The next Smash DLC reveal. More of that Labo VR support for various games. ... I don't know, it's Nintendo, they're gonna bomb us with something I can feel it.
HYPE LEVEL: Nintendo/10.
SIR NOT APPEARING AT THIS E3
Sony took their ball and went home after nobody was impressed with their quad-theater of human misery last year. Bye Sony.
SEE YOU AT E3 EVERYBODY!
(disclaimer: sqrlmog will not see you at e3, sqrlmog is not physically going to e3, sqrlmog is staying home to watch it on youtube with everyone else)
