E3 – Day 3, Monday June 11th – Ubisoft Conference

UBISOFT

Came in with an awesome Just Dance 2019 live dance with dancers dressed as characters in the game, dancing in the streets and then heading into the conference to finish the dance on stage.

Dancing in that panda suit in this Los Angeles heat must have been intense and I do not envy that dancer. Just Dance 2019 is coming in October 2018!

Beyond Good and Evil 2 trailer

Looks like the team is in trouble as a young Jade makes a dramatic appearance with a full tactical strike on their ship in the prequel to the space opera. They followed up with a pre-alpha gameplay trailer taking place in the city of Ganesha. This open universe action RPG with solo and co-op allows you to seamlessly transition from ground to space battles. The Space Monkey Program allows fans to help create the game through an open invitation to contribute content, like art, music, radio content. It can be added to the game itself thanks to Joseph Gordon Levitt and the company he founded: HitRecord. JGL came on stage to help explain: HitRecord is a collaborative creative platform, and this is the first time they’ve done something in a video game. It’s not a contest where one of many musical pieces is picked. Lots of people work on the stuff together, and it just goes in. Creative challenges are live right now on HitRecord.org’s Beyond Good and Evil page. Some of the content will be showcased at the BGE Fest this fall.

Rainbow Six Siege has grown over the last few years to now include and impressive 35 million players. Huge competitions continue, as the Six Major is coming August 13th through 19th this year, and will be hosted in Paris. Pro League will take place in Brazil in November, and then the Invitational takes place in Montreal in February 2019.

Another Mindset is a documentary on Rainbow Six Siege competitive players and their incredible journeys to get past setbacks and make it to legendary status in the Six eSports community. The documentary will release at the Six Major.

Antti Ilvessuo rode through the audience in his Trials Fusion outfit, and trip-landed on his podium, destroying it to make his point of how Trials Fusion should be about crashing with style and getting up again.

The new Trials is back and “bigger than ever” with Trials Rising. You can rise anywhere in the world on epic tracks that cause the usual awesome crashes, like exploding barrels, crashing through someone’s skylight, and being hit by a giant wrecking ball.

This version of Trials is being shaped by the players in a closed beta happening later this year. Register online at TrialsGame.com
I’ve never really been a fan of the Trials series, as it’s not something that appeals to me on a console, but having it available on Switch somehow makes it seem much more entertaining.
Trials Rising is releasing February 2019 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch

We got a little more info on The Division 2’s storyline.

On Black Friday in NYC, a strain of smallpox was released on dollar bills. The infection spread across the United States. The virus was eventually burned out within half a year, but America was never the same. They must rebuild and start society again. The trailer shows a cute little girl drawing in a field, then running through the streets with a paper airplane, and climbing up a building to throw it off the side. When she throws it, you see that outside the barrier of this nice town is a desolate wasteland, complete with wrecked cars, waste and litter int he streets, and a starving horse wandering around with its saddle still on. Beyond that wall is chaos. People are creating their own rules for survival, and the consequences for breaking those rules is severe. Later in the trailer, someone picks up that paper airplane…

This is where you come in, as the last line of defence for the country. Your actions have an impact on the game. When you reach the end of the main campaign, you get to select a specialization (Sharpshooter, Demolitionist, or Survivalist) that will then open up a new progression path. The specializations unlock tools, weapons, and abilities that allow you to create a more personal experience. You can now gather 8 players for raids in The Division 2. They’ve already planned for years of frequent content updates. Three episode DLCs will be launching this year alone, opening up new stories and areas, and will be free to everyone.
The Division 2 releases March 15 2019 and you can register online for the beta at TheDivisionGame.com/Beta

Fans of the Mario Rabbids game will be thrilled to hear that the newest Kingdom Battle DLC will be Donkey Kong Adventure!

Coming June 26th this year or a day earlier for Season Pass owners.

Skull & Bones is a new pirate adventure game, taking place in the Indian Ocean, where you can steal from tons of merchants. The evolving world is presented to you by the local fortune teller, who can tell you of cataclysms, weather events, or existing faction conflicts you need to watch out for. In the Hunting Ground, you get to decide who is friend or foe in this open, shared world experience.

The ship is fully customizable, which helps you to stand out and contribute in group play to even out the skill sets needed to take down harder enemies. But be careful, because there’s no honor among thieves. A team up can quickly turn into a winner take all battle royale. You can sign up now for a chance to play early or wait for the release in 2019. Sign up at SkullandBonesGame.com

Elijah Wood, cofounder of Spectrevision, comes on stage to talk about Transference. Transference is a psychological thriller that allows you to enter another person’s thoughts to solve mysteries. It’ll chill your bones on VR and traditional platforms in Fall of this year.

Starlink trailer.

The legion is growing and your job is go out and find as much help as possible from the people of the Atlas star system — including Star Fox (for Switch only)! The trailer showed someone placing items on a toy of the ship you pilot, and the item becoming part of the ship, which makes this action-packed space epic an awesome addition to those who love the Toys to Life stuff. I’m wondering if the Star Fox amiibo line will have anything cool for the Switch version of Starlink.
Look forward to this release on October 16th this year.

For Honor announced and exciting new expansion for the world. We go from the West to the East in the For Honor: Marching Fire DLC.

Civil war consumed China after the great cataclysm. Wu Lin faction warriors left the area and headed West. It’s a campaign with new factions, four new fighters, and single player content yet to be revealed. They also addressed a big request from fans: a 4v4 castle siege mode called Breach. Siege weapons!
The new DLC releases October 16 2018.
And there’s more great news! For Honor’s PC Starter Edition will be free to download on Uplay until June 18th, so if you haven’t gotten the chance to play it yet, now is the time.

The Crew 2’s trailer showcases a lot of grotesquely unsafe practices, such as jets flying feet away from motorcycles, racing boats catching air above race cars, and it’s at this moment that I realize that I’m an adult now. This awesome game releases June 29th, and the open beta available PS4 Xb PC June 21st. Preload the open beta now.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey trailer looked amazing!

Looks like they’re bringing back the ship battles from Origins, which was fun but clunky. Hopefully they’ve enhanced that system a bit. Assassin’s Creed has come a long way since 2009, and I enjoy them more and more with each version. This version brings a lot more choice into the world of Assassin’s Creed by allowing you to choose your character: Alexios or Kassandra. This is similar to choosing one of the Frye twins in Syndicate to play, only you can’t swap between them. This is a choice that sticks for the rest of the game. Your grandfather is Leonidas, and you inherit his spear to use in the game. And for the first time in the series, you get to have dialogue options that help shape the world (and Ubisoft made a huge mistake giving me flirting options!).

In the gameplay video, we got a look at the new combat system, which has an improved parry option. You also have a quick select ability option, so instead of sharing a single command among all your abilities (and accidentally setting off a smoke bomb when you just want to carry a body), you can assign the abilities to buttons and use them more effectively.
Coming October 5th 2018 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC

That wraps up the Ubisoft panel! The theme of this seems to be “players choose” and to be honest, I’m a big fan of that. Any on-the-rails game is a game that makes for good kindling. These amazing franchises continue to get awesome new additions and I’m loving all of it.

Thanks for sticking with us!