E3 Special 2024

It’s that special time of the year, kids! Sony were up first with a State of Play best described as a ‘wet fart’. Like many people, I thought Concord was going to be some kind of solo or co-op sci-fi heist game but after an overly long, pound shop Guardians of the Galaxy style cinematic trailer, we discovered it’s actually another 5v5 hero shooter *blows a raspberry*

God of War: Ragnarok is coming to PC but I’m not sure I care. I wasn’t a big fan of the original and I’m not convinced any of my issues with the original have been addressed by this sequel. That’s what happens when game journalists circle jerk over a game so hard they forget to highlight its flaws. For a more recent example, see Baldur’s Gate 3.

And finally we have Astro Bot which seems to have gotten Sony fans all in a tizzy but then I guess there’s nothing else to get very excited about if you’re a Sony fan these days. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t look bad, but I can’t help but wear my cynical hat and wonder why people are so excited to pay to play a game that serves as one long advertisement – sorry, ‘celebration’ – for PlayStation branded products and franchises. Strip those away, and what are you left with?

Summer Game Fest opened with Lego: Horizon Adventures and the story online seemed to be all about how it’s not releasing on Xbox even though nobody expected it to. The real story is that it’s also releasing on PC and Switch Day 1 but not, oddly enough, PS4. I mean shit, if it can run on a Switch it can run on the PS4 so why not target that much larger install base?

The phrase ‘boiling the frog’ feels appropriate here in which the frog are hardcore PlayStation fanboys who Sony are slowly acclimatising to the notion of an increased multiplatform output. Even late PC ports of Sony games received a very negative reaction, but that’s become somewhat accepted now.

‘Live service’ releases on Day 1? They’re not happy about it, but it makes sense, eh? A Lego Horizon game on Day 1? Well, it’s not a proper Horizon game, is it? And Lego games sell really well on Switch, so it makes sense, yeah? What’s that, Sony fanboys? Starting to feel a little warm, eh?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is looking good if they can smooth out the rough edges of the first game. And finally we have Night Springs, the first DLC for Alan Wake 2 which I should be playing around the time this post goes live. Oh, and I’d like to say Phantom Blade 0 looked neat, like a more stylish ‘Souls’ game.

Ubisoft only really had two things that somewhat interested me, the first being Star Wars Outlaws. I say ‘somewhat’ because it looks just like I expected it to – like a Star Wars game made by Ubisoft – so I’m sorry, but I can’t muster up too much excitement.

And then we had Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I’ve wanted an AC game with this setting ever since the original but the problem is, the series is now so far removed from the AC games that I actually liked, that I just can’t get very excited for it. The series has evolved into something very different from where it started. But hey, I might still give both of these games a shot.

After so much mediocrity, Microsoft absolutely smashed it for the second year in a row. Black Ops 6 actually made me interested in playing a Call of Duty game again for the first time since Modern Warfare 2. I’ll give the BETA a spin, at least. Doom: The Dark Ages looks fantastic. I skipped State of Decay 2, but I’m curious to see how 3 shapes up.

We got our first look at the new Dragon Age and . . . okay, not as excited for this one, but I’ll keep an eye on it. Shattered Space – the Starfield expansion – focuses on House Va’ruun and I’m excited for this one and the regular updates and improvements they’re making to the base game. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looks impressively flashy with an interesting premise, so that’s another to keep an eye on.

South of Midnight, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, the return of Perfect Dark and another look at Fable. But wait, there’s more! Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is looking great, I’m starting to get a little more interested in Avowed now despite not liking The Outer Worlds much, Atomfall looks like a UK based Fallout game and Stalker 2 is also looking good.

And if that wasn’t exciting enough for you, we also had the reveal of Gears of War: E-Day. I really liked the first Gears of War, enjoyed 2 a lot but never really clicked with 3 which was the last one I played but never actually finished.

And finally we have the Nintendo Direct which I wasn’t expecting much from given the Switch 2 on the horizon, but we did get MIO: Memories in Orbit which looked a lot like Bayonetta Origins visually and Ori style gameplay and I’m totally okay with that. There were new games added to Switch Online including Perfect Dark which is pretty f**king awesome. I could break out my N64 copy if I really wanted to, but this is just more convenient.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection! Sign me the f**k up! I’d get it just for Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the rest are a bonus! Now we just need to hope it’s a good port. Will certainly save me the trouble of getting out my Dreamcast and Saturn. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was a big surprise. It’s using a similar cutesy style to the Link’s Awakening remake which I wasn’t a big fan of, but for a new game, I think it looks okay. Mechanically, it’s kind of ingenious which is what you’d expect from Nintendo. Not totally sold on it yet, but we’ll see.

Metroid Prime 4 really exists and it looks exactly how I hoped it would. Not out until 2025 but I’ve got plenty of other stuff to keep me busy in the meantime. A Switch 2 launch title maybe? Overall, a really good show from Nintendo. Not quite as good as Microsoft, but much better than Sony who had another pretty dire year.