Bethesda's E3 Showcase - Impressions

Bethesda were the first of the companies to kick off E3 with a press event/showcase/digital event and while it was their first one, I got the impression they took notes from the others because they kicked it off with a bang.

Out of the gate, we were treated to some kind words from Pete Hines, he said that they were only there because of the fans, which was received with a large round of applause from the fans in the audience. He then introduced Marty Stratton, the producer on the all new Doom, he gave some background on what makes Doom well Doom and what the team was trying to do with the new game and then we got to see it in action and boy was it awesome.

The first few moments, before the guns started going off, were enough to convince me that this game means business, it looked incredible. The moment that the helmet was cloaked and we were immersed into the world, I admit, I got a chill. But when we saw our first look at the monsters and the punishing melee attack, I was sold. The demo then continued on pace, picking up bigger and better guns, dispatching some of the enemies in the most creative and disgusting ways possible, which lead to the reveal of the chainsaw and the entire audience within the Dolby Theatre cheered.

With that in hand, enemies were nothing in the way of the nameless space marine, but we were not all powerful, as we soon witnessed when a large demon, a Revent knocked up so the ground, ripped off both of our arms and then the demo was done. It was a great way to kick off the show, but Marty was not done there, we then got our first look at the games multiplayer, which seems to return to a more arcade shooter style of multiplayer and then we were introduced to the all-new Doom Snapmap.

Snapmap allows players from all skill backgrounds to create their own levels, assign challenges to them, game modes and more. Players can even create cinematics should they desire too. Until I go hands on, I won’t know for sure how it goes, but it looks promising. Pete then came back out and we got a video detailing some of BattleCry, the all new 5v5 online action game that launched in Alpha in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, the video gave us our first look at the new faction the Han Republic, sadly that was all we really saw, but players were promised that a beta is coming later this year.

From there we were given some details around the all new Bethesda.net, but why the dot in the .net was not there dot from their logo is beyond me, an all-new way for Bethesda fans to interact with others. There will be forums, games will link back to it and while it already powers The Elder Scrolls Online Tamirel Unlimited, it will also power Doom Snapmap, which hopefully means it will be nice and stable by then. We were then shown a video from the Elder Scrolls Online team that showed off some new content coming to the game, which is looking nice and then Pete dropped the first big news story on us, an all-new Elder Scrolls game is coming.

But its not what you are thinking, The Elder Scrolls Legends is a card based game as for what that means to players, we don’t know as no other details were provided. One can assume it might be like other digital card games, but it might be sometime until we learn more. Then, the co-creative directors from Dishonored were on stage, they first thanked the fans of Dishonored for showing how much they loved the game as it was welcomed by the team back at Arkane. We were then treated to a video that showed a woman using a series of powers to get around town, until she entered the mansion to kill the ruler of the town as it ended we got a look at Corvo and Dishonored 2 was confirmed.

Players will get the chance to play once again as Corvo or the all new player Emily Kladwin, who has a different set of powers to Corvo, but even with the new options players can still use either character to kill any person they need to, in whatever way they want to, or they can go through the entire game without having to kill anyone. The pair announced that the game was coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, but would not give a time frame, but they did not leave on a sour note. In order to help players pass the time until the new game arrived, Dishonored Definitive Edition was announced, which takes the original game, adds in all the DLC and ups the quality of the graphics for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Pete then came back out to thank all for attending as we were done, but wait the crowd cried, where was our Fallout 4. Pete then laughed and said he almost forgot, but he remembers that he convinced the next speaker that he could get out of doing a large number of demo’s if he just did one, he never told him it was being streamed around the world. Todd Howard walked out and talked about how long they have been working on Fallout 4, since they wrapped Fallout 3 it turns out, what they wanted to do and what it takes to make a game like Fallout. We were treated to a nice display of artwork, showing off just how the world was built, but as nice as it was the people wanted gameplay and Todd did not disappoint.

Over the course of the next 30 mins we were shown how you create your character, how your baby will be created based off your characters looks and that the game will start before the bombs drop. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, we then jumped ahead to the exiting of the vault and were shown a lot more gameplay. The dialogue system is now reactionary, so you can see people talking and then walk away, or shoot them in the face if you wanted to, oh and your character now speaks. But we were stopped here and show the new Fallout game, yes another one, Fallout Shelter is out now for iOS devices and allows you to become the overseer of your very own vault.

After that brief but interesting side game, we got back to the meat of Fallout 4, players can actually build their own settlements and weapons based on scrap they find on their journey. The system looks quite impressive, so I can’t wait to get some hands on with it to see just how impressive it is. While Bethesda are new to the conference scene they came out of the gate swinging and by the end of the show, it was easy to see that they have a great 12 months ahead.