Square Enix Proves They Can Hold Their Own - E3 2015

It had been quite a few years since Square Enix held their own E3 press conference and going into it, I was not sure quite what to expect from the company. I assumed we might get another look at Hitman, after it's reveal at the PlayStation Conference the night before, Final Fantasy anything was a given of course and Just Cause 3 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided to round things out, turns out they had quite a lot more to announce.

Of course going into their event, most people could not believe they had announced a remake of Final Fantasy VII the night before, that news alone was enough to blow the minds of many, but it turns out there was a lot more of those style of announcements to come. We got a look, a small one though at a new NeiR title being developed by Platinum Games, no more details than that small trailer were announced, but Atsoshi Innaba from Platinum Games was on stage to talk about the game. Whatever it ends up being, it appears that it is only bound for PlayStation 4 at this stage.

We got a brand new Kingdom Hearts game, by way of iOS and Android, titled Kingdom Hearts Unchained will allows players to create their own keyblade wielder who harnesses his or her own keyblade to combat enemies across the beloved worlds of Disney. As players explore the world of Unchained they will learn about the events from previous games as well as getting sneak peeks into the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3. Speaking of that, we got a new trailer for the game as well, with English voice over, more so a developer video was announced that announced that Tangled is coming to the world of Kingdom Hearts, no release date was set sadly.

We got another look at Worlds of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy VII, by way of the same trailers from the night before, but we did get news of a new Final Fantasy app coming called Final Fantasy Portal App. Think Halo Waypoint, but for Final Fantasy and you are there, players will be able to keep up to date on all the news relating to the long running series, though it's not just news as the Triple Triad card game from Final Fantasy VIII will make its mobile debut in the app.

Finally, a new Star Ocean game was announced, with the strangest title since Dragon Quest Heroes, the game is officially called Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. Developed by tri-Ace, the celebrated studio behind the Star Ocean series, and with character design by Akira Yasuda, the game is an epic adventure that introduces seamless transitions between gameplay and dynamic cut scenes, creating a new level of depth of immersive storytelling in video games. The game is due next year.

Jumping now to western games, we got an in-depth look at Just Cause 3, where the game promises to sport a revised parachute, making it easier to control and fire from. A revamped grappling line, that lets you set multiple lines or even trigger a manual retraction of it, so you can zoom around faster. The game has over 80 vehicles, but with the newly announced squirrel suit, and improved parachute and grapple, you might never actually step into one. The game also features unlimited C4 for all players, so you can create some amazing explosions, but finally the game will also feature a number of challenges to help keep players on their toes.

We got a nice developer diary for Rise of the Tomb Raider, with members of the dev team saying how they were excited with where to take Lara this time.  We got a lot more details of Hitman, including the fact that the world will always be changing. Players will be able to accept contracts as they see fit, with some targets only available for 48 hours before they are gone for good, meaning that you as the assassin, will need to work out your strategy and take the action you deem appropriate. The game will release first as a digital title only and over the course of the games life, more and more content and missions will be added, meaning players will have complete freedom to choose the targets they want, whenever they want.

We got looks at Lara Croft GO, the next in the GO series of games from Square Enix Montreal, a quick look at Deus Ex Mankind Divided and a release date for 2016 for it. Overall the Square Enix E3 Press Conference felt more like shareholder briefing, there was little of the show we have come to expect from an E3 event, or any of the fun. It was nice to get some details on new games, though we could have done without the repeats on games from other events, it was still a decent showing.