ELDER SCROLLS 6 YES.
...ahem.
Microsoft was a hard act to follow but nobody would say that Bethesda didn't give it a damn good go. They had gameplay footage, a rock act that didn't outstay their welcome and got the crowd into it, a few well aimed jokes and some major reveals.
The Bethesda conference started off with a nod to the accidental reveal of RAGE2, showing that they aren't going to take everything much too seriously. They began twith a rock performance before showing some scripted gameplay of RAGE 2, which looked as vibrant and colourful as it did violent. If there were some fears that Bethesda has become a bit too corporate after the financial success of Fallout 4, there was no evidence of it here. RAGE 2 is set for release in spring 2019.
Next up was a quick segment for Elder Scrolls Legends, their digital card game, in which it was announced that the game would be undergoing a major visual overhaul and would be released on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch later this year. Progress will be saved to a players Bethesda Net account and will allow progress to seamlessly carry over into the console versions which is a nice little touch.
Following Legends, the Elder Scrolls content carried on with The Elder Scrolls: Online. They talked a bit about Summerset before revealing a new story DLC called Murkmire, which will explore the culture of the lizard-like race the Argonians.
A break then followed in the Elder Scrolls train to make room for Doom: Eternal, a sequel to the critically acclaimed 2016 reboot of the classic shooter. In the same vein is Quake where Quake: Champions will be permanently free if downloaded this week. A nice offer which will surely bring in a lot more players.
Prey then had some new modes revealed in one of the less well received parts of the conference. Gamers had been hoping for more substantial content for Prey so to only have some additional mods for the base game left some disappointed.
Moving swiftly on, the next Wolfenstein game got revealed and was shown to be moving away from previous series protagonist BJ Blazkowicz. The next game, entitled Wolfenstein: Young Blood, will feature co-op and stars BJ's twin daughters as main characters. Wolfenstein 2 is also coming to the Nintendo Switch to add to its impressive roster of games.
Our old buddy Todd Howard showed up next in his 25th year at Bethesda to rib on the progress of E3 over the years. He showed us the pinnacle of Skyrim technology with a surprisingly funny trailer for Skyrim: Very Special Edition to run on Alexa. The crowd was certainly into it and it was a welcome bit of levity. We then launched into a section discussing Fallout 76, which was again claimed to be 4 times the size of Fallout 4 in terms of map space. After showing the cinematic trailer with that wonderful cover of Country Road we will all know by now, the first major gameplay video was shown. Todd bigged up the improved tech and the video seemed to back up the claim of better lighting and detailing. Some new horrors will wait in West Virginia that look sufficiently terrifying.
The major component of Fallout 76 may turn out to be its biggest blessing and curse; it will be always online and be multiplayer focused. The idea of having the entire player based make up the population of a vault is certainly interesting but the lack of any other NPC's beyond robots may end up being a bit limiting. Progression won't be linked to a single server. The focus looks to be on settlement building and survival against other players and monsters. Small groups of 4 or so players look to be the standard for multiplayer and they confirmed that players can fight over and used nukes against each other. Nukes look to change the landscape temporarily and that could be a real driver for player interaction. To finish up the Fallout content, Fallout Shelter is now out on both the PS4 and Nintendo Switch and we had a confirmed release date for Fallout 76: 14th of November this year.
Another low point followed here in which Elder Scrolls: Blades was revealed. This is a mobile game set in the Elder Scrolls universe. While it looks reasonably interesting, the entire crowd and myself were certainly not pleased to see yet another mobile game being pushed, especially as it seemed to be instead of an announcement about the next major Elder Scrolls franchise entry.
To finish the conference, Bethesda dropped two huge reveals of the type traditional RPG fans have been waiting to hear for years; firstly is Bethesda Game Studios' first new IP in 25 years, Starfield. This will be a sci-fi RPG in a more traditional style and absolutely should be worth keeping an eye on. Finally, the big reveal everyone had been waiting for: The Elder Scrolls 6 was officially confirmed. Oh yes.
Unfortunately we've learned since that it hasn't been in development yet so is likely a few years away, but it's still a huge piece of news to know that it will definitely be one of the next big Bethesda projects and is on the horizon.
So that was Bethesda! Extremely exciting news about the next Elder Scrolls and Starfield should be another project to keep RPG fans impatiently exhilarated. A few not so ideal moments didn't mar the overall conference too much and on the whole, there was a lot to be pleased about here. Perhaps less spectacular the Microsoft but this was absolutely a worthy entrant to the E3 lineup.