Some of the most promising projects revealed on E3 2015

Deus Ex

Eidos Montreal are rendering one of favourite flavour of dystopian science fiction, and for that Deus Ex has just pipped Dishonored 2 to become my high in a stunning week for PC gaming.

A 25-minute chunk of footage confirmed some of  hopes for the sequel. It’s beautiful—darkly textured, lit with sparse pale golden light and covered in destructible clutter. The assault rifle roars now where in Human Revolution it sputtered, and it still cracks satisfyingly in half when you reload. If you’re a stealth player normally, but you’re tempted to go loud in Mankind Divided, if only to play with the improved guns and spear enemies with Jensen’s armblade projectiles.

The new abilities are a derivative, it’s true, but It doesnt matter. The dash mimic’s Dishonored’s blink; Titan armour is a cooler version of Crysis’ armour mode; the bullet time sections channel FEAR. If the abilities are fun, they deserve to become options in Deus Ex’ armoury. The joy of Deus Ex is that it can become the game you want it to be, and a wider selection of tools will only let me craft that experience with greater finesse. It’s going to be immense.

 

No Man Sky

No Man’s Sky is an upcoming science fiction adventure survival video game developed and published by British studio Hello Games. Players are free to explore the entirety of a procedurally generated open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion planets each with their own set of flora and fauna. By exploring, players will gain information about the planets that they can submit to The Atlas, a universal database that can be shared with other players of the game. Players also gain materials and blueprints to upgrade their character’s equipment and purchase a variety of starships, allowing them to travel deeper into the center of the galaxy, or trade with other ships. Some activities will draw the attention of Sentinels which will attempt to kill the player-character for killing too many lifeforms or draining too many resources from these planets.

No Man’s Sky represents a vision of a broad, attention-getting game that Hello Games has had in place since the formation of the company, set aside while they secured their financial wellbeing through other, less risky titles such as the Joe Danger games. The game’s original prototype was worked on by Hello Games’ Sean Murray, and then expanded into a small 5-man team prior to its first teaser in December 2013. Since then, more of Hello Games’ staff have since worked on the game and it was formally announced at Sony’s press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014.

The game will be released simultaneously for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows, though no release date has yet been announced.

 

Sea of Thieves
One game you might have missed—partially because it was initially announced as an Xbox One exclusive, even though it isn’t—is Rare’s “most ambitious game” yet, Sea of Thieves. Based on the look we got, it’s a multiplayer, first-person pirate game—the trailer shows multiple players exploring islands, finding treasure (angering skeletons), and manning a ship as a crew. Rare’s style is impeccable in the trailer—which is said to be real-time gameplay, but let’s not take that at face value just yet—and the idea of taking a crew of friends to scour the seas for treasure is appealing as hell. Getting players to work together, with systems that allow that (who gets to be at the helm?) is tricky, and sometimes messy or not as freeing as it seems in scripted trailers. But it’s something I look forward to learning more about, and that’s a happy thing.

 

HITMAN

Its levels will be bigger than Hitman: Blood Money, and its post-release missions and locations will all be delivered as free updates. It sounds like it’s taking a semi-sandbox approach, and that suggests areas with multiple paths to target and plenty of opportunities for creative assassination.  For me, most Hitman games are completed in a flurry of revisionism, as I repeatedly try new things in search of a Silent Assassin rating. It’ll be nice to get out of that comfort zone; to be forced to mess-up, improvise, and ultimately accept the final outcome.

There’s still issues that could wrong with the game. But we should choose to cling to the hope that this is the Hitman game We’ve been waiting nine years for.

Metal Gear Solid 5
The more raw gameplay I see of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, the more excited I get for it. The freedom you have in choosing how to handle a mission is intriguing, but I think it’s really the pace of each gameplay loop that interests me. Select your loadout, drop into a remote area, travel to the mission, gather intel, execute you plan, then escape. The latest video actually spurred me to buy MGS5: Ground Zeroes last night while it was $5 in the Steam Summer Sale. While it’s beautiful and fun, I yearn for The Phantom Pain’s base management aspects, if for no other reason than to attach balloons to everything I see. We didn’t really see much new stuff from MGS5 at this year’s E3, but after the upsetting talk of Kojima being taken off the game, it was comforting to even see more of the same.

Also, a special shoutout to Cuphead, because that game looks downright adorable. They absolutely nailed the 1930’s cartoon look they were going for.

Fallout 4

Beside all of the rumors circulating around for a year and a half,Fallout 4 is confirmed couple of weeks ago.Anyhow,Bethesda’s showing of Fallout 4 trailer came as a surprise for many.Tuesday night’s PC Gaming Show, which was an exciting, anxious, gratifying thing to pull together. Bethesda’s presentation was lighthearted, refreshingly low on marketing jargon, and it hinted that Fallout 4 is embracing the series’ silliness: weaponized teddy bears, DIY art projects, and over-the-top radioactive creatures.

Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Siege

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is an upcoming first-person shooter video game under development by Ubisoft Montreal and to be published by Ubisoft. It was announced by Ubisoft on June 9, 2014 at E3. The game uses Ubisoft’s AnvilNext game engine, and is the first game in the Rainbow Six franchise since Rogue Spear not to use Epic’s Unreal Engine. Considered as a successor to the now cancelled Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots, Siege puts heavy emphasis on environmental destruction and co-operation between players.

UNCHARTED 4:A THIEVES END

 

Sony’s heavy hitter for 2015 was supposed to be Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, but the game was unfortunately delayed to 2016. Granted, the game will still be available by April of next year, so the wait won’t be too bad for fans of the franchise. In any case, Uncharted 4 is shaping up to potentially be the best entry in the series to date, with some of the best graphics ever featured in a video game, and multiplayer designed by the critically acclaimed team behind The Last of Us.

For the most part, Sony has kept a lid on Uncharted 4, but E3 is when the lid comes off. Considering it is easily the biggest PS4 exclusive on the horizon by a significant margin, expect Nathan Drake to be the stars of Sony’s E3 press conference this year

MIRROR’S EDGE 2

The original Mirror’s Edge is the definition of a cult classic. The game featured highly innovative gameplay and was praised for being unlike anything else, but didn’t sell quite that well. Eventually, though, it developed a large enough fan base over time to justify a sequel.

At one time, the chances that we’d ever see Mirror’s Edge 2 were fairly slim, but now the game is actually closer to becoming a reality than ever before, expected to release in early 2016. With its release just on the horizon, Mirror’s Edge 2 will likely be a large focus during EA’s press conference, so fans of the series should tune in to see the new game in action.

STAR FOX

Nintendo’s 2015 admittedly looks a little bare, mostly due to a gigantic Zelda-sized hole, as the next game in the franchise was delayed to 2016. To make matters worse, The Legend of Zelda Wii U game won’t even be shown at this year’s E3. While a lack of Zelda is definitely disappointing, hardcore Nintendo fans do have one major Wii U game to look forward to seeing, and it’s the revival of a franchise that hasn’t had a console release since 2005 on the GameCube.

Star Fox has been missing in action on consoles for over a decade now, but Nintendo’s beloved sci-fi franchise is looking to make its triumphant return later this year. Since its secretive reveal at E3 2014, Nintendo has relegated Star Foxto a short off-screen appearance. That secrecy finally ends at E3 2015, as not only will the new Star Fox be featured at the event, but it will even be playable on the show floor.