E3 – Day 2, Sunday June 10th – Microsoft Conference

MICROSOFT
Microsoft’s conference was basically an hour and a half of trailers. The trailers were mostly back-to-back, as there were 50 new exclusives, and a bunch of world premieres to get through. Because of that, there wasn’t a lot of info given on each trailer, save a few blurbs here and there from some developers.

Let’s just dive in, because there’s A LOT to cover!

Halo Infinite trailer

SlipSpace engine allows for beautiful natural rendering and textures, and it looks amazing. You’ll play as Master Chief after the events of Halo 5 in what the devs claim to be his greatest adventure yet. It’s expected in 2019.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps trailer

Sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest, this one has a lot of great additions and new features (like side quests!), while remaining the sweet little adventure game you’re used to with Blind Forest. It’ll be arriving in 2019.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice trailer world premiere

Made by the people behind Dark Souls, I’m expecting this to be a brutal, dark, and rich experience that leaves us wanting more. The graphics and gameplay in the trailer look absolutely gorgeous.
Coming 2019 to PS4, PC, and Xbox One

Todd Howard from Bethesda showed up in the middle, talking about bringing Fallout universe to Xbox Game Pass, with Fallout 4 launching today!
Fallout 76 is a prequel to all the other games. Biggest one yet. 4x the size of Fallout 4, set in West Virginia, you’re one of the first to emerge into the wasteland. It’ll be an online, shared-world experience. I know a lot of us have our doubts about how this will work out, but I think, if executed properly, this could be a very cool experience!
Preorder June 15th in the Xbox Store, PC, and PS4

World premiere trailer for The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

Set in the Life is Strange Universe, it follow suit with the LiS games by having your choices impact the world you’re in. Be careful how you act and react in Captain Spirit, as your decisions have weight in both the immediate game and in future games, like Life is Strange 2. The best part? This stand-alone is FREE.
Available June 26th in the Xbox Store, PS4, and PC.

Crackdown 3 trailer
The super-powered agent is back with a harsh dose of justice for all you bad guys out there! This time in 4k! It looks just like the other Crackdowns, but those were a blast. And hearing Terry Crews yelling crazy stuff is pretty fun no matter the setting. Coming February 2019.

NieR: Automata: Become as Gods Edition trailer

The action-RPG finally makes a debut on Xbox One in a couple weeks! The Become as Gods Edition also includes the expansion and a bunch of cool skins. Available June 26 2018

Metro Exodus trailer

Metro games are usually pretty great stories, and very action-packed FPS. This trailer didn’t give away much in the way of actual story or plot, but it did show a lot of gameplay, and a ton of different guns.
Find out more on Inside Xbox Monday 3pm (PST) mixer.com/xbox

Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer
Features Frozen, Wreck it Ralph, Tangled, Hercules, Toy Story, among others on January 29 2019. I’m among the many fans who will believe this date when it hits the shelves.

Sea of Thieves trailer.

Cursed Sails expansion releasing in July, and Forsaken Shores in September

Battlefield V trailer
Microsoft introduces one of the war stories in Battlefield V: “Nordlys is the story of a young Norwegian resistance fighter during the German occupation. You must pay an unthinkable price to save not only yourself, but your family.”

Forza Horizon 4 trailer

Ralph Fulton from Playground Games comes on stage
Forza set in Britain, features dynamic seasons in a shared open world. New quick chat feature on the d-pad. Seamlessly enter coop in the game world. World events are signalled by the appearance of a blimp, and everyone in the world works together to accomplish the goal for big rewards. New seasons add new danger, open new areas, and bring new challenges.
Xbox One and PC on Oct 2nd

Brand new Microsoft studio: The Initiative, in Santa Monica, will be an Xbox-exclusive studio, churning out games for only Microsoft, hopefully with the awesome quality we’re used to having. Microsoft also announced acquiring Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games.

We Happy Few trailer

Tired of living in a bleak and disgusting world where everything gets you down? Have a little Joy and everything will be great again! In this game of paranoia and survival, you try to give up a life of ignorant bliss in a world where, if you don’t blend in with the “norm,” you’re considered a threat.
Aug 10 2018

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
PUBg now has a War Mode, new ways to play, and new environments, releasing this winter!

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition

Remaster of one of the best Japanese action RPGs of its time, back in 2008 during its original release, and we’ll get to enjoy it again this winter!

The Division 2 trailer

Followed by in-game footage. Looks pretty good. Good environmental sounds (water footsteps vs ground footsteps). Chat features between friends you play with sound clear.
Sign up now for the beta by going to the Ubisoft Website, choosing your platform, clicking “Register,” Logging into your Ubisoft account, then confirming your email.
The Division 2 will release on March 15th, 2019

We had a brief intermission to talk about Xbox Game Pass, which has over 100 games for roughly the same amount as a Gold membership. It’s a pretty decent streaming service, which offers a way to give gamers the freedom to play whenever and whatever they want. The new Fast Start System uses machine learning to figure out how gamers play, and as a result, is 2x faster than the previous Ready Start System. It launches in the June update later this month, and will release all the new exclusives, like Crackdown, Forza, Halo, etc, on each game’s launch day. The Division, Fallout 4, ESO are all available today.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider trailer

The newest iteration of the Tomb Raider franchise shows Lara Croft getting back to nature as she gets much more intimate with her jungle environment. She skulks through areas with great skill, allowing her to sneak up on enemies, whether they’re snakes or humans. It’s starting to feel a lot more like Batman or Metal Gear, which is right up my alley.
Preorder The Croft Edition to get early access! Available September 14 2018

Session trailer
This game started as a Kickstarter late last year. They hit 50% within 10 hours, and reached their goal 3 days later. Lots of fans are really excited for this game, as I’m sure it reminds them of the much-loved Skate 3.
Coming 2019

Black Desert trailer

Many of us have played the MMORPG Black Desert Online on PC. This trailer shows us an exciting new console edition, coming soon!
Register for the beta now. Beta begins Fall 2018

Devil May Cry 5 trailer

Matt Walker, and Hideaki Itsuno from Capcom on stage!
10 years after DMC4 came out, they finally made a 5th in the series! The devs claim to have a game control system that feels better than any action game they’ve ever created. That claim sounds pretty awesome, and as a big fan of the Devil May Cry franchise, I hope it’s everything they say it is and more. Coming Spring 2019.

Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course DLC trailer

New DLC, new character: Ms Chalice, new isle, new bosses, new weapons, new charms and more, releasing in 2019!

Tunic trailer
Tunic looks like it took a lot of inspiration from Zelda on the SNES, except you play as a fox. There’s a lot more to it, but that’ll be for a game review later on. As for now, it looks super cute, and I’d love to try it out when it’s released sometime later this year!

Jump Force trailer.

This Shonen Jump fighting game featured Luffy, Goku, and Naruto teaming up against Frieza. The end of the the trailer showcases Light Yagami and Ryuk from Death Note.
Coming 2019

Dying Light 2 trailer

Survival horror first person parkour post apocalypse zombie game
First in the genre where choices have genuine consequences in the game from how it looks, how it plays, to the events that occur.

Battletoads trailer
3 player couch co-op. 4k hand drawn 2.5D graphics. And every GameStop employee just cried out at once, then were immediately silenced.
Coming in 2019

Just Cause 4 trailer

There will be blood, there will be tornadoes, there will be chaos. December 4 2018

Gears of War POP! trailer

It looks like the Lego games, but with Pop figures (and for a mature game!) I’m really hoping it does the series justice and doesn’t dull down the violence. At least we know there won’t be cussing! Coming 2019

Gears 5 trailer

This story’s all about Kait, as she says at one point in the trailer before storming off. Kait and Del go on their own mission to figure out what’s going on with her grandmother’s Locust symbol necklace, and her having it at all seems to sow a lot of discord in the team. Coming 2019

MIcrosoft announced new Gaming AI to help make worlds more rich and immersive. Cloud engineers are building a streaming network to unlock console quality gaming on any device. They also announced that Microsoft’s hardware team is working on newest Xbox consoles.

Surprise trailer for CyberPunk 2077

At the end of the conference, after wrapping up with the rousing speech about how expansive Microsoft has gotten, and their commitment to the fans, all the lights on stage went out. When they came back on a second later, they were flashing red, as though the stage were hacked. Then the CyberPunk 2077 trailer played. It was very dramatic, but all in all an entertaining ending to Microsoft’s 1.5 hours of trailers.