4. Bethesda
Bethesda’s conference for E3 2019 was very hot and cold compared to the steady, safe roll of Ubisoft. Still, the higher highs of the Bethesda conference slightly outranked Ubisoft for us.
The conference was salvaged by a few key moments. First off, to the surprise of no one, Doom Eternal looks incredible. It looks to be a proper follow-up that retains everything people liked about Doom 2016, with new gameplay additions to freshen things up without ruining the core experience.
Also, the multiplayer mode at least on paper seems like something that will stand out far better than the forgettable offering from Doom 2016. Two demons with the power of hell’s army at the side take on a Slayer in an arena, which instantly sounds more interesting than whatever even was in Doom 2016, I can’t remember anymore.
Along a similar vein, Wolfenstein: Youngblood appears to have shaped up nicely and will hopefully play as well as the previous games, while not feeling like it’s just more of the same.
It was also refreshing to see new projects from both Arkane Studios and Tango Gameworks. Both Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo had impressive (CGI) trailers that set up an interesting premise for both games.
Outside of those announcements though, the ice was a bit thin this year at E3 2019 for Bethesda. The Fallout 76 update at the conference felt like a meme with the announcement of a battle royale mode called Nuclear Winter and Todd Howard basically admitting that last year sucked. I’ll be honest though, it does look kind of fun…
Commander Keen revived as some kind of strange puzzle game isn’t very inspiring. I’ll also go out on a limb and say that most gamers have exhausted their excitement for streaming gaming solutions like the new Orion service Bethesda revealed during its conference.
