sisslethecat
E. THREEEEE. It’s one of my favorite times of the year (this and Halloween), and as always I am hyped off my rocker about it. E3 is often referred to as “gamer Christmas”, which considering the amount of excitement and sheer joy that gets generated by it, isn’t so far off. From long-awaited returns and shocking new titles from beloved developers to attention-grabbing looks at smaller titles that might have otherwise flown under the radar, there’s something for everyone at E3. So much so in fact, I’ve made a list! Here’s every title that’s confirmed and rumored coming to the show this year. Obviously, the rumors are only that, and there’s easily only a 50/50 chance of them happening (possibly even less), so bare that in mind. This is actually the most titles we’ve ever had on this list before, so let’s GO!
CONFIRMED
DOOM: Eternal
Yeaaahhh, rip and tear! Doom: Eternal (Doom 5, because it’s the fifth god damn game) was announced last year with just a wonderfully badass teaser, showcasing DoomGuy on a hell-ridden Earth loading up. That was followed by a first look at gameplay last August — with a tease of drop-in drop-out invasion gameplay was coming (note the DOOT demon, clearly these devs know what they’re doing). Doom 2016 was incredible, and believe you me, I am salivating over the chance to play Eternal. No word on a release date yet, but I bet that changes. My hope is for a fall release, but a Q1 2020 release is probably more likely. Look out for Doom Eternal during Bethesda’s E3 showcase on Sunday, June 9th, at 17:30 PDT/20:30 EDT/ 1:30 BST.
Dying Light 2
While Deep Silver’s Dead Island was a pretty mixed bag, I adored their second try at the zombie open world thing, Dying Light. You can imagine my surprise and joy when Dying Light 2 was announced on the Xbox stage last E3. Featuring an all-new location, DL2 will be focusing on an adaptive choice system that purports to physically change the world around you based on your actions. It’s an ambitious concept, so I’m a bit skeptical to see it in practice no matter how excited I am. That said, we have yet to see *any* zombie aspects really, so I’m hoping whatever we see this year focuses on that — at least a little bit. Dying Light 2 will most likely be shown during Xbox’s press conference, Sunday, June 9th, at 13:00 PDT/16:00 EDT/21:00 BST.
Gears 5
You might be surprised to see Gears of War here, but if we’re going to talk about Doom, we might as well talk about Gears. The series has always walked a thin line between horror and action (and was even billed as having survival horror themes back in 2005), and based on last year’s Gears 5 (yes, they really have dropped the ‘of War‘ from the title) reveal this will be no exception. The Locust are a horrifying memory — replaced by the somehow even worse Swarm in 2016’s Gears of War 4, and now that line of mutation appears to be going even further. Playing as stranded turned Gear Kait Diaz, we find ourselves estranged from the family we built with JD Fenix (son of the original trilogy’s lead, Marcus), we’ll be diving into the depths of Serra on a personal journey to discover the truth about her mother — and the apparent link between Human and Locust (something that has been being built up since Gears of War 2). I uh, I love Gears of War if you can’t already tell, and cannot wait to see more. Presumably Gears Tactics and Gears POP will also be shown along with it during Xbox’s show (again, that’s Sunday, June 9th, at 13:00 PDT/16:00 EDT/21:00 BST), but I suspect that the horror aspects will be fewer and further between with those two.
The Sinking City
I admit I know almost nothing about this game other than it looks freaky. This was shown off last year and it looks like a mix of Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth and Resident Evil. Being an open world explorative horror game, we’ll be piecing together the mystery of Oakmont Massachusetts and the horrifying events that lead to this. The game is releasing super soon too, on March 21st — although I can’t say if it will have a stage presence at the show (Xbox would be the most likely bet, though, unless it ends up in one of Sony’s State of Play …things, which will no doubt drop at some point during E3).
The Walking Dead: Onslaught
Onslaught was announced just a few weeks ago with a very short (like 30 seconds short) teaser. E3 will presumably be showing off full gameplay, which is VR by the way. Walking Dead as a brand has a pretty… rough, to say the least, history with video games. While the Telltale series was beloved (despite technical issues and the company coming apart around it), other releases have been a bit… how should I put this… shit? 2013’s Survival Instinct was an uninspired mess, and last year’s Overkill’s The Walking Dead was so bad parent company Skybound pulled the rights away from the developer halting all future development and the (at the time) upcoming console ports. I’m wary of any more games in this brand, but obviously, a new developer means a new approach, so I’ll try to stay positive. This title is most likely to show up at the PC Gaming Show, which is Monday, June 10th, 10:00 PDT/13:00 EDT/18:00 BST.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood
I didn’t have any idea this was coming, which makes me feel kind of ashamed. Set in the World of Darkness (yes, the same world as VTM: Bloodlines) series of RPGs, this is based on the pen and paper series of the same name that White Wolf produces. This game barely seems to have any information online, although it isn’t due out for another year. In fact, I can’t even find a trailer. From White Wolf’s blurb (via RPS):
“Become Cahal, a banished werewolf, forced to return to the aid of his endangered clan and master the devastating Rage within him to punish all those that would pollute, destroy, and corrupt our Mother Earth, Gaïa. On his bloody quest for redemption, Cahal will play a pivotal role in the Great War of the Garou against Pentex, a powerful corporation whose activities are upsetting the balance of nature.”
So yeah, that’s kinda all we know at the moment. I expect this to be another PC Gaming Show dig (Monday, June 10th, 10:00 PDT/13:00 EDT/18:00 BST) but there’s no way of knowing since it is coming to consoles as well.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
Recently confirmed to be getting a full gameplay reveal during the PC Gaming Show (which is, again, Monday, June 10th, 10:00 PDT/13:00 EDT/18:00 BST). We’re super stoked here at Rely, and Bloodlines 2 is easily one of our most anticipated games of 2020. We’ve seen a few snippets of gameplay at the end of each clan reveal, although it’s basically the size of a thumbnail and all adds up to about a minute or so of footage. A full gameplay reveal sounds like just the thing to get my blood pumping!
RUMORED
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (Remake)
I mean, I think we can safely say that this is happening, regardless if it shows up during the show. Rumors have been pointing to REmake 3 having been in production for a while now, being outsourced and coming “sooner than expected”. Personally, that feels like a 2020 release (especially considering those same rumors point to there being a plan for RE to go somewhat annualized — although it has been to a degree since 2015). That said, I also wouldn’t be surprised if this was a no-show. REmake 2 was speculated to show up at E3 2017 and we got nothing — although to be fair, signs point to REmake 2 having been delayed a year. It’s possible the E3 2018 trailer was intended to be the E3 2017 trailer, based on the huge difference between its visuals and the final game, only 7 months later. There’s just no way of knowing that it’ll be there this year, though. I have no doubt that we’re getting REmake 3, probably before the end of this console generation, but I’d say it’s 50/50 on showing up at E3. If it does, I can only imagine it’ll be on Xbox’s show floor (again, that’s Sunday, June 9th, at 13:00 PDT/16:00 EDT/21:00 BST).
Dino Crisis (Remake)
Uh, yeah. So this is probably the farthest reach we’ve had in a while, considering basically nothing substantiates it. If I’m being honest even I have –zero– faith in this, but might as well list it on the offchance. There’s been hope from fans that Capcom (who have previously pledged to be reviving dormant IPs and producing more remakes), and recently a “leak” (which I have way less faith in than the source for the REmake 3 rumors) points to a Dino Crisis remake/reboot being on Xbox’s itinerary this year. However, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier all but completely shot this down on Twitter a few days ago, so yeah, not taking much stock in that. As much as I’d love DC to make a return (being effectively a harder sister series to Resident Evil), it feels like it would be pretty low on Capcom’s to-do list, but never say never I guess. About the only thing that gives me pause (and hope) is a comment from RE7 producer Jun Takeuchi late last year that they have an unannounced project that will make fans go “wow, they’re making that?”. Dino Crisis would indeed be a title that would make me think that, although Power Stone, Clock Tower, any number of other untouched IPs would too. While we can all keep our fingers crossed, I recommend not holding our breath.
The Evil Within 3 (or whatever Shinji Mikami is there for)
So a few days ago we got some news that Shinji Mikami (creator of Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, The Evil Within, etc) would be attending E3, which left us with the question: why? Now admittedly, The Evil Within 2 sold very poorly (at least as far as I can find), which puts the whole IP in jeopardy presumably. At least TEW2 ended on a pretty definitive ending (unless you take into account the events of the Evil Within: The Interlude mini-series), so a sequel isn’t necessarily needed outside of just enjoying the series. If he isn’t there to promote Evil Within 3 though, what is he there for? A pretty long trip to just hang out. I speculated that he could be involved with either REmake 3 or the rumored Dino Crisis remake, but that requires him to come back to Capcom to some degree (although he did say he could be interested in doing so, so who knows). There’s every chance it could be a new IP as well. Hell, Shadows of the Damned 2 is as likely as anything else speculated here. We just won’t know until we know, which is a frustrating sentence to type out.
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Now, this title was obviously already announced, but whether we’ll be seeing it during Nintendo’s Direct stream (which is Tuesday, June 12th, 9:00 PDT/12:00 EDT/17:00 BST) is up for debate. I expect much of Nintendo’s presentation will be dedicated to Animal Crossing (or at least it better be), the Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake, Pokemon: Sword/Shield, and probably capping it off with the new DLC challenger for Smash Ultimate. There could for sure be some room in there for Weegi though. It’s also like, coming out this year, so that’s probably as good a reason as any for it to show up.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood
Mmff gimme that Nazi killing action baby. Announced last E3, Youngblood sees the twin daughters of BJ Blazkowicz (Jess and Soph) working to save their missing father in Paris. The game will also feature an optional co-op mode as well, which is a first for the series. I’m stoked. We don’t know if it’ll show up this year, which is why it’s down here, but I’d be very surprised if it didn’t have some sort of presence during Bethesda’s showcase (Sunday, June 9th, at 17:30 PDT/20:30 EDT/ 1:30 BST) Especially since it releases next month.
The Aliens MMO
Earlier this year it was confirmed that an Alien: Isolation sequel was not in production, but instead an Alien MMO. I uh… don’t really know how you make an MMO out of a series that’s literally about being trapped in small rooms with a space lizard but hey. Other than it being developed by Cold Iron Studios, who were purchased by Fox in order to develop this game, we still don’t really know anything else about it. I’m not really a fan of MMOs (having tried WoW and ESO), but I am a big fan of the Alien franchise, so maybe that’ll be enough to hook me in. It remains to be seen, though.
That’s it, at least all I know, for now. E3 always has a few tricks up its sleeve, so I’m sure there will be at least one thing that comes completely out of left field. It’s just such a very exciting time. I’ll, of course, be streaming my reactions to the whole thing, so I hope to see you there!
