Month: June 2016

Bethesda might not have had anything on the scale of Fallout 4 to announce at its E3 press conference this year, but the publisher did have a few surprises up its sleeve. First up is Quake Champions, an arena-style shooter "designed for players of all skill levels."

Developed by iD Software, Quake Champions will feature "a diverse cast of warriors each with different attributes and unique abilities, allowing you to fight the way you want," according to iD studio director Tim Willits. Like other contemporary shooters (Overwatch for one), Quake Champions is being pitched as an e-sports game, with promises of tournament support from the publisher. That's a tough sell given the competition, but at the very least pro players won't have to worry about speed: Bethesda is targeting 120FPS rendering for the game.

Little else was revealed about Quake Champions, including platforms (PC is a given), but there was a CG teaser trailer, complete with a glimpse of character classes and explosive battles in a large arena. More info is promised for QuakeCon in August.

If video games have taught us anything it's that grappling hooks make everything better. Nintendo knew it with Zelda, Avalanche Studios knew it with Just Cause, and Respawn Entertainment knows it with Titanfall 2. With one simple addition, Titanfall—which pitches humans against mechs on the battlefield—goes from an already fast shooter to an even faster one for the sequel, a shooter where rodeo riding a ten foot Titan before chucking a grenade into the unsuspecting pilot's cockpit is a mere flick of a grappling hook away.

Titanfall was always stupid fun. Titanfall 2 is even stupider fun.

That's good for shooter players like me who, not for want of trying, aren't exactly skilled when it comes to hitting rapidly moving targets with a virtual gun and an analogue stick. Accessibility has always been Titanfall's forte, despite being a multiplayer-only game. And while Titanfall 2 does introduce a story mode for those that don't want to play online at all (it's not on show just yet, but you can see the trailer here), I'm relived to find the accessibility of the multiplayer hasn't suffered as a result. If anything, it's even better.

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Before E3 gets going, Bethesda will be sharing its plans for the coming year in a splashy press conference from the LA Hangar movie studios here in California. We'll be bringing you all the updates live as they happen starting at 7pm PDT (10pm Eastern, 3am Monday UK time) on Sunday, June 12.

Bethesda doesn't have a lot of experience with this whole E3 press conference thing, but last year's premiere presentation from the publisher blew the roof off the place with lengthy reveals of Fallout 4 and the upcoming Doom reboot, as well as a brief announcement of Dishonored 2. Expect a lot more Dishonored 2 at this year's show, as well as possible announcements of a remastered Skyrim and sequels for Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Evil Within, and even Prey, if rumors are to be believed.

LOS ANGELES—Though Electronic Arts officially dropped out of the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year, its press conference presentation at the EA Play event felt a lot like a standard E3 presentation.

The event started off with new footage from Titanfall 2, which now comes with the single-player focused campaign its predecessor lacked (including a talking Titan voiced by Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen). The new game features six new giant walking titans, a "deep progression system," and a grappling hook that can be used to launch yourself right into a Titan cockpit or grab an enemy out of the sky. The game is available on October 28.

We also got more information about Battlefield 1, the previously announced military history shooter set in an alternate history version of World War I. EA promised that "destruction is more intuitive and natural than ever" in the game, and it highlighted the ability to take control of "behemoth" vehicles like air ships, armored trains, and entire battleships. A dynamic weather system with rain, fog, and blinding sunlight will also feature prominently.

LOS ANGELES—Electronic Arts isn't merely sitting on its video game rights to the Star Wars license after last year's multiplayer-only Star Wars: Battlefront. In an E3-adjacent press presentation today, the company announced plans for a number of upcoming story-driven Star Wars titles from some of its biggest studios.

The announcements began with a new Battlefront game from developers DICE and Motive, featuring content from the new films. "What excites me now is bringing in more characters, more planets, more environments, more eras..." DICE Senior Producer Sigurlína Ingvarsdottir said.

That comes alongside a third-person action-adventure game from Titanfall-maker Respawn from "a different Star Wars era." Then there's the new action-adventure game from Visceral with "an original narrative... with new characters" from former Naughty Dog scribe Amy Hennig. "Our goal has always been not to just make a game in the Star Wars universe, but to tell an authentic Star Wars story... How do you ground the unfamiliar and new in the familiar?" Hennig said.

KIRKLAND, Wash.—As I made my way out of Harebrained Studios' modest, Seattle-area office on a gray June afternoon, I heard a shout: "Hold that elevator!"

Studio co-founder Mitch Gitelman was running in my direction, the way someone might dash if a visitor left a wallet or set of keys behind, but it wasn't that. "Now do you see why we left permadeath in our multiplayer mode?"

You're stopping the elevator for that question? Actually, what sounded like a generic, nerdily phrased exclamation was pretty important in this case. An hour earlier, Gitelman had sat me down with my second-ever demo of Necropolis, a Dark Souls-inspired dungeon crawler, and I went into that playtest with raised eyebrows and low expectations. The single-player demo I'd played at a press event in Santa Monica a few weeks prior was fine enough, and I asked for a studio visit and a little more gameplay, having not been entirely sold by my first session. I thought to myself, maybe I'd write the game up soon, but certainly not during my busy E3 schedule.

The FIFA series has always tended be a touch exaggerated, like more of a rose-tinted rendition of the beautiful game as opposed to a wholly realistic one. Skills and tricks, favouring attacking over defensive solidarity, and building fantastical lineups through Ultimate Team—these are the hallmarks of the modern FIFA experience. But even they are about to outdone by what EA has planned for FIFA 17.

This season, you can take part in "The Journey," an interactive narrative in which you play as the young footballer Alex Hunter trying to earn his first Premier League contract. Through dialogue decisions, on-pitch performances (in which you control only Hunter), and lavishly created cut-scenes his story is told, influenced by what you choose to say and how well you play on the pitch.

No bones about it, this a wild departure from FIFA's tried and tested formula, particularly for a franchise that has tended to favour small yearly tweaks over grand reinventions. Having said that, as sports game fans will already know, The Journey isn't an entirely original exercise. The NBA 2K series, which has effectively made EA Sport's own attempts at a basketball game redundant, has a remarkably similar mode called MyCareer.

Rumors and insider tips have pointed to an Xbox One "slim" model being revealed at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, and the news was so good, someone at Microsoft couldn't wait to spill the beans.

Images found by multiple NeoGAF forum members confirm the news of the new "Xbox One S"—and the ability for gamers to pre-order it soon enough. Multiple Xbox sources had recently confirmed to Ars that some sort of "slim" system would be announced at this year's E3 and that a major part of its bulk reduction (which has been measured by Microsoft as "40 percent") will come from the removal of its AC adapter's  "power brick," which will make this the first Xbox-branded console to nix that bulky portion.

The leaked announcement image also confirms news that the Xbox One S will support 4K output, though Microsoft sources have informed Ars that 4K support will mostly manifest in the system's menus and in any streaming app that announces support for 4K output in the future—meaning, this will not include the kind of hardware upgrades needed to automatically boost current software to 4K resolution. The announcement image also trumpets support for high dynamic range (HDR) imagery, a vertical stand, and a "streamlined" controller, though we have yet to learn what exactly will be streamlined or changed in that controller.