Microsoft’s E3 2017 briefing came and went today with no news about Halo. Its absence was expected, but Microsoft’s biggest brand not factoring into the show in a big way might have caught some by surprise. Now, the head of Halo developer 343 Industries has responded.
Writing on Twitter, Bonnie Ross said the studio is currently “heads down on the next big Halo.” She said the game is shaping up well, but explained that Microsoft is “not ready to announce [it] yet.” She didn’t mention Halo 6 by name, but that is likely the project she is referring to.
While fans will have to wait a while longer to learn about the next mainline Halo game, Microsoft will make some kind of Halo Wars 2 announcement on June 12. Ross said there will be some sort of announcement for the game during the Xbox E3 Daily show on Monday. Halo community manager Brian Jarrard also mentioned that Halo Wars 2 news is coming tomorrow.
Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor also chimed in on the matter, saying the bulk of the 343 team stayed home this week to work on the “next big Halo game.”
As for when we might learn about this game, Jarrard said, “it’s going to be a while,” suggesting in a tweet that the announcement won’t be at Gamescom this August.
As for what Microsoft did announce at E3 today, the company revealed the final name, price, and release date for Project Scorpio, among other things. Here’s a roundup of all the big news.
Bethesda’s E3 2017 briefing wasn’t the longest, but the company managed to pack in a number of game reveals and new trailers. If you missed the show or want to watch them again, we’ve rounded up all the big trailers from the event for you to watch right here.
Sunday is already a big day for game news at E3 2017. Although the conference unofficially kicked off on Saturday with EA Play, Sunday brought with it quite a lot. Microsoft hosted its press conference during the afternoon, and that was followed by Bethesda’s press conference at night. Scorpio was a big focus for Microsoft, while Bethesda revealed an multitude of new games, including The Evil Within 2 and a new Wolfenstein.
If you weren’t paying attention or simply want a recap, we’ve rounded up all of the biggest news of the day so far below. You can also check out our recaps of all the news from Microsoft’s conference, or head to out E3 hub for all of our coverage. Be sure to check back often as we update this page with more of Sunday’s biggest news.
Assassin’s Creed Origins Confirmed–Ubisoft has unveiled the first look for the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed series, which will be set in Egypt.
Bethesda’s E3 press conference was packed with a plethora of news and announcements on its latest games. With so much new details to take in, we’ve rounded up all of the announcements from the briefing.
Today during Bethesda’s E3 press conference, the company presented Quake Champions in a new, yet familiar light. It was painted as a major esports title, and it’s being backed up with a sponsored competition on August 26 during QuakeCon, which will have a $1 million prize. The event is called the Quake World Championships and anyone can participate, though more details will come.
As a result, Bethesda announced that Quake Champions is back in open beta and will run indefinitely. Players can signup on its official website right now. As a nod to Wolfenstein and the newly announced The New Colossus, BJ Blazkowicz is a playable character in Quake Champions and he’ll have his own attributes and voice lines. This includes the ability to dual-wield any weapon. Additionally, the game is adding three new maps, including two for Duel, and improved matchmaking, a weapon called the Tribolt, Custom Game support, Spectator mode, and more.
EA kicked off its not-quite-at-E3 festivities earlier today, and now it looks like Square Enix wants to join the party of “companies that don’t need your big E3 press conference to show off amazing trailers.” A new Kingdom Hearts III trailer is live now, and you should just watch it before reading anything else.
While the trailer is mostly in Japanese, some of the text is in English. And combat is, of course, a universal language that we can all appreciate.
In addition to showing off some of the game’s villains, levels we haven’t seen before, and new bits of gameplay, the trailer also revealed when we’d get the next bit of information. At the very end of the trailer, text pops up on screen saying: “Join us next month at D23 Expo 2017 as we personally present a NEW WORLD and NEW TRAILER! July 15, 2017.”
D23 is a Disney-focused event held in Anaheim, California that also tends to include news for Disney’s expanding library of content, including Marvel and Star Wars.
But the most interesting part of this trailer is that it’s not part of Sony or Microsoft’s press conferences. Instead, Square Enix chose to run the spot during a Kingdom Hearts concert that took place on Saturday night. Since the next new bit of information isn’t coming until D23, that means we likely won’t see any more of the game at E3.
Square Enix has several other big franchises in the works, the publisher/developer decided not to host its own press conference at E3 this year. While this doesn’t rule out the possibility of getting info about Square’s other franchises during the show, it sets an interesting precedent for the reveal of AAA game trailers going forward. Regardless, this still adds to the year’s most exciting week in gaming news.
E3 is effectively underway. The video game industry’s major event takes place in Los Angeles from June 13-15, but things start in the days prior with a variety of press conferences from console manufacturers and publishers. To help you prepare, we’ve rounded up the times and dates for all of the big press conferences in the week ahead.
For the first time ever, E3 is open to the public this year, but the show otherwise seems to be largely the same as in the recent past. One notable difference is that things are beginning earlier than usual–EA has already held its EA Play press conference, and Microsoft’s will be taking place a day earlier than usual (and it’ll be longer than in the past). You can see the full schedule below, and hit the links to find out more details on what to expect and where you can watch.
Asked if Payback developer Ghost Games would support Scorpio and PS4 Pro, Nilsson said, “Yes, we are.” He added: “Both of those platforms will be supported.”
Microsoft’s Scorpio console is expected to be formally announced tomorrow, June 11, during the company’s E3 briefing. It is more powerful than Sony’s PS4 Pro, which launched last year. We’ll have many more details on Scorpio tomorrow, so keep checking back for the latest.
As for a possible Switch version of Payback, don’t get your hopes up. Although Nilsson is personally a big fan of the hybrid console, it sounds like Payback won’t be headed to it.
While some version of Payback might be possible on Switch, which is underpowered compared to its other console platforms, Xbox One and PS4, Payback for Switch isn’t in the works now.
“Would that be a platform that Need for Speed: Payback could run on? I don’t see why [not], but it’s not something we’re looking to at this very moment,” he explained.
Payback launches on November 10 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more from our conversation with Nisson. And for more on EA’s E3 2017 announcements, here are roundups of all the big news and trailers.
Unlike the 2015 reboot, this year’s Star Wars: Battlefront II has a single-player campaign. It puts players into the role of Iden Versio, a female soldier fighting for the Imperial side after the events of Return of the Jedi. After EA’s E3 event today, I watched a demo of an early portion of the campaign game and then got to play myself. While the production values in the sequence I tried are outstanding (even in its pre-alpha state), the gameplay did not do a whole lot for me.
The mission I played, “Dauntless,” picks up with Iden speaking with her father, an admiral in the Imperial army, about a mission, alongside the Emperor. He is dead, but he’s still giving commands by way of a hologram projected onto someone else’s body. When she asks who she’s attacking and why, she gets yelled at and is told that information is not for her to know. This sequence may allude to Iden’s inquisitive nature and it feels like she may not always want to listen to authority, though how this plays out remains to be seen. It could also be that the developer is trying to make you feel less strange about playing as a solider in the Imperial army.
After this story setup, you jump into a TIE fighter and gun down Rebel pilots attacking a ship you’re escorting. One big note about Battlefront II’s flying sequence is that you can now control your ship with both the right stick and the left stick. The left stick causes a ship to roll in any direction, while the right stick moves left, right, up, and down. This can be disorienting at first, and I crashed twice at the start before getting the hang of it. This feature is also present in multiplayer, and we can only imagine the moves that skilled pilots will be able to pull off.
Eventually in the demo, you enter a massive Rebel ship and do more of the same: lay waste to every soldier standing in your way. You can chuck grenades to clear out enemies en masse or use Iden’s droid to electro-kill soldiers. The droid is also capable of breaking through doors to help Iden advance.
Also new for Battlefront II is an updated active-reload feature. After your weapon overheats, a sequence pops up that tasks you to tap the reload button in one of two zones. The yellow zone is larger and easier, reloading your weapon as it should. But if you manage to hit reload in a smaller green zone, you’ll get back into the action faster and also earn the bonus of faster shooting.
After blasting through hallways of Rebel soldiers with ease (the AI in this portion of the game does not seem all that smart), you get to a hangar with three ion cannons that you must destroy. Upon entering this room, you are overwhelmingly outnumbered. In the developer playthrough, Iden used stealth to take down enemies who never detected her presence, sneaking up on them and performing takedowns when button prompts popped up. I, however, decided to go guns-blazing, and that strategy worked as well. Writer Mitch Dyer told us that Battlefront II won’t force players down one path, and that you can re-kit before missions to suit your style.
After successfully destroying the ion cannons, something terrible happens and Iden is sucked into space. The screen cuts to black and there is no telling what comes next.
Overall, the Battlefront II campaign left something to be desired. The production values in the cutscenes specifically are astounding, but there wasn’t anything in the setup or execution of the gameplay sequences that felt all that novel or exciting. Of course, it was only a 15-demo of a pre-alpha version of a game that doesn’t come out until November. And it’s just one part of the equation, as Battlefront II’s multiplayer looks pretty incredible based on what we’ve seen so far.
E3 is officially underway, as Electronic Arts today hosted its EA Play press conference. Much of the news concerned previously announced games, such as Star Wars: Battlefront II, Need for Speed: Payback, and FIFA 18. It also had some surprises in store–even if they were leaked shortly beforehand–like BioWare’s new IP, which is called Anthem, and an exciting-looking co-op action game named A Way Out.
