Earlier today, Microsoft held their yearly E3 conference, and oh god did they ever announce a lot of cool stuff.
As always, their production value was top notch, but let’s not forget about some awesome announcements, including the powerful Xbox One X, previously titled Project Scorpio. An absolute juggernaut of a console, this liquid-cooled beast promises the most powerful console in history, in a compact, slim form. It’s also fully backwards compatible, if you weren’t already convinced, and in fact even enhances older games graphically, meaning it’s the objective best choice to play Xbox One games.
Next up, they showed off the beautiful looking Forza 7. While that kind of game isn’t really my thing, even I have to admit that visually it looks absolutely stunning. In terms of gameplay, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference over the rest, but damn does it ever look good. They followed it up with an amazing look at the upcoming Metro Exodus, which seems to boast an unprecedented level of environmental interaction and enemy AI for the series, on top of equally amazing graphics.
Next up we got out first look at Assassin’s Creed Origins, which actually looks like it changes some things in the forumla for once, something that is appreciated. Will it be enough though? Only time will tell, as the saying goes. Perhaps Ubisoft has finally learned though. This was followed up with Deep Rock Galactic, a neat, stylish looking little game that looks like a cross between No Man’s Sky and a game that actually functions. The most disappointing thing about tonight was probably State of Decay 2, which is about as generic of a zombie game as you can possibly get.
They also went to show off a lot of indie games, including the aesthetically cool Last Night, alongside Minecraft stuff, most notably an HD texture pack designed to really make the game shine on the Xbox One X, with its 4K output and all. They also showed us Dragonball Fighter Z, a really cool looking 2D fighting game focusing on the popular franchise. Considering Dragonball games are usually 3D fighters, it’s a nice surprise to be sure. A port of Black Desert Online showed up, surprisingly, alongside confirmation that Namco’s Code Vein will be coming to the console.
The next little bit of the conference focused entirely on Sea of Thieves, Rare’s long-awaited pirate themed MMO. Showing off a lot of cool mechanics revolving around ship battles, hidden treasure, riddles, and epic combat, Sea of Thieves has come a long way since its days as a cancelled N64 game, that’s for sure. In a surprising twist of fate, we also finally got to see more of Crackdown 3, in all its insane, neon action. Stuff was blowing up, Terry Crews was yelling at the camera, and Crackdown fans all breathed a sign of relief.
After that, they brought out a couple games, the former, Super Lucky’s Tale, is an aesthetically nice, if generic looking platformer that could be fun, and the latter, Ashen is an enigma. Despite a trailer with slight Dark Souls lore vibes, not much was shown of it, which is a shame, because what they did show looked pretty neat. Middle Earth: Shadow of War got a neat spot too, showcasing the updated Nemesis System, as well as a cool recruitment system that lets you build an army out of those same foes you fought tooth and nail against earlier.
Finishing up the conference, they displayed Bioware’s awesome-looking Anthem, their new IP. We wrote an entire article on that one, but basically think Xenoblade Chronicles X but good.
And that wraps up Microsoft’s conference. Overall, some cool stuff was shown, but there were definitely some games that rose above others. What did you think of their conference? Let us know in the comments section!
