Top 5 Biggest Disappointments at E3 2021

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Only on Steam and Mobile

Square Enix came to E3 2021 and brought the biggest self-own with it. The Final Fantasy series is one beloved by players of all ages, and the first six titles are arguably some of the best the series ever produced. So you can imagine how over the moon fans were when the publisher announced it was remastering Final Fantasy’s 1 through 6 with pixel-art refreshes to both its characters and environments. Seriously, this was a massive announcement.

And then it happened, at the very end of the brief trailer running players through the changes the development team has been busy working on, the title appeared on screen. Each of the six games appeared below it, and ‘Coming Soon’ slowly faded into view.

‘to Steam and Mobile’ then followed. What?! A compilation of iconic and cherished titles lovingly remastered in a way that retains their original charm, relegated to Steam and mobile? A collection of classic JRPGs that’d quite literally be perfect for Nintendo Switch… just on PC and mobile.

There’s been no word of whether or not the Pixel Remasters will make their way to consoles sometime in the future, but for now, we’ve just got to accept that if we want to check out these gorgeous-looking remasters, we’ll need to use our mobile or PC instead.

Nothing from Sony (So Far)

E3 2021 didn’t feel like E3 for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we weren’t at the Staples Center in Los Angeles catching up with developers and other members of the industry, mingling with fans and, on a more personal level, spending time with my colleagues I so very rarely see. But it wasn’t just the digital disappointment that the ESA served up this year (more on that in a moment) that made this year’s show feel very ‘un-E3’, but the lack of one of the big players, too.

Now, before you come at me all angry that, “actually, Sony hasn’t been there since 2018,” last year they held a ‘Future of Gaming‘ event on June 11, helping to fill the gap with a digital showcase akin to what other publishers did last year in the absence of the trade show altogether. The year before, they held two State of Plays sandwiched either side of the typical ‘E3 season’ in May and September respectively.

But as E3 2021 begins to wind down today, there’s been no sign of Sony at all. Granted, they may just be opting to do their own thing when they’re ready, so they don’t have to share the spotlight with every other publisher. But E3 felt very odd without them for yet another year.

I’m confident we’ll get another State of Play in the coming months, but the typical week or two of E3 announcements is such a special time in the industry, and it’d be great to have Sony rejoin the party during those weeks in future years.

The E3 Portal Abomination

This year, the ESA officially announced it would be taking its trade show to the digital realm while the world recovers from the pandemic we’ve just come out of. The digital realm, however, is the most uninspired and bleak portal you’ve ever come across.

What the ESA promised was an online portal where both press and fans would be able to interact with the various developers and publisher who had officially partnered with E3 2021 to check out game previews, interviews and talk to them about upcoming games and their various details.

The reality was a portal that had empty calendars for publishers, a business card system that was pointless, an equally pointless messaging system that didn’t seem to actually send messages to publishers, and a gamification system to top it all off.

In other words, it was a complete mess. There wasn’t really any point in it at all, with each of the digital showcases providing more details about the games than were provided at each of the digital ‘booths.’

It’s clear that the vision for the E3 2021 portal was far grander than how the finished product came to be. Unfortunately, though, this end product does nothing to instill any confidence that E3 really needs to exist in a digital capacity, at least.

Here’s hoping we can return to normality next year.

Gearbox’s Show

The Gearbox E3 2021 showcase had a lot of people relatively excited. Would we get a closer look at Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands — the Borderlands spin-off — or would we get some entirely new game announcements to accompany it? Unfortunately, we didn’t get either, really, in the 30-minute showcase.

Instead, we got a lot of Randy Pitchford walking around the Borderlands movie set, talking about the Borderlands movie.

Aside from Pitchford being left hanging by Kevin Hart, there wasn’t really anything else to take away from the showcase. Homeworld 3 is in production, but there wasn’t really anything to show of the real-time strategy title. A Godfall expansion was announced, to the delight of the 12 people still playing it.

As for Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, we got another look at the trailer we’d already seen, and confirmation we’d be fighting Wyverns in the game, but that was it.

While Gearbox certainly weren’t alone in doing this, it was arguably the most obvious publisher to arrange a digital showcase with very little to show.

Now I know, it’s been a crazy 18 months and I completely appreciate developers have been doing their best to bring us these little digital joys to keep us happy for endless hours. These games will be great, I’m sure, but they don’t need a very brief section in a largely pointless digital showcase to reaffirm that in fans’ heads. Wait until you’ve got something substantial to show, and then blow our socks off!

Lack of Xbox Exclusive Gameplay

The best E3 2021 showcase was by far that from Microsoft and Bethesda. In the space of an hour, we got an absolute ton of game announcements. We got to see more of popular franchises such as Sea of Thieves (Jack Sparrow, anyone?) and Forza Horizon 5 looked absolutely stunning as it took us speeding across the varied terrain of Mexico. Heck, even new game announcements came thick and fast with Replaced, Contraband, Redfall and The Outer Worlds 2 to name a few.

It was more than enough to get us talking –once again– about how ridiculously good value Game Pass is shaping up to be, and I’m feeling pretty darn good about having picked up a Series X in November now.

If I was to nitpick, however, there just wasn’t enough gameplay of these games, to the point where I have no idea what some of these games actually are.

Contraband seemed cool from its trailer, but we didn’t see any gameplay from the co-op title. Similarly, Redfall looked super stylish, but I’d loved to have seen how things will play out when I’m blasting vampires with my buddies.

But the biggest let-down in terms of gameplay reveals ultimately came from Halo Infinite. Following the outcry after its reveal last year, I was hoping to see a heftier chunk of single-player gameplay to alleviate any concerns I or other fans had about the latest instalment in the Chief’s story.

Instead, we got some cinematics and a drone camera giving us a look at part of the Zeta Halo ring we’ll be exploring in Infinite, and a quick cutscene of Chief and Cortana having a natter. It all looked rather pretty, but given that the game’s due to release later this year, it would have been great to see a hefty chunk of gameplay prior to that.

What were your biggest disappointments from E3 2021? Let us know down in the comments below.