Avengers: Infinity War is currently in production, and promises to be the biggest Marvel movie to date. It's directed by the Russo brothers, who helmed the last two Captain America movies, and they have now tweeted a new image from the set.
It's unclear what it is exactly. One of Tony Stark's gadgets perhaps? Or maybe the vault where the villainous Thanos keeps the Infinity Gauntlet? We'll find out next year, but for now, here's the picture:
It follows a behind-the-scenes promo that was released in February. The video provided a brief overview of the Infinity Stones, revealed some of the film's sets, and featured interviews with stars Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Tom Holland (Spider-Man), and Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), plus Joe and Anthony Russo. You can watch it here.
Marvel boss Kevin Feige also recenty revealed that the movie will have a surprising main character--Thanos himself. "In a movie that has a lot of characters, you could almost go so far as to say he is the main character," he said. "That's a bit of a departure from what we've done before, but that was appropriate for a movie called Infinity War."
Microsoft's Xbox One X console was one of the biggest talking points around E3 this year. We learned its final name (it was previously known as Project Scorpio) and Microsoft confirmed a price point, $500, as well as a November 7 release date. A number of developers have already chimed in with their thoughts on the console, and now Paul Bettner of Super Lucky's Tale developer Playful has spoken about the system as well.
Speaking to GameSpot, Bettner--who created Words With Friends before making Lucky's Tale and now Super Lucky's Tale--said Xbox One X is incredibly powerful. Not only that, but the system is also very developer-friendly, Bettner explained.
"From a developer's standpoint, [Xbox One X] is the most developer-friendly console we have ever worked with," he said. "Not just because the hardware is super over-powered--which it is. I don't understand how they ... it's like a high-end PC crammed into this tiny little box."
Bettner added: "The tools and support we had developing the game is the most advanced it's ever been. And I think that's because Microsoft hasn't necessarily been reinventing [with every new console], they've been refining and making it more powerful. This is the best version yet of the Xbox."
The power of the Xbox One X allows Super Lucky's Tale to run at 4K/60FPS, which Bettner told us is a big deal for platformers.
"The fact the game is running in 60 frames per second is probably actually the most impactful thing for a platforming game," Bettner explained. "It gives you this precision and it really benefits the game like this that's a lot about timing and about controlling this character--and it just feels great.
Super Lucky's Tale launches alongside the Xbox One X on November 7. It's a "shorter" game, and has a $30 price point. The game is also playable on Xbox One S and Windows 10.
Square Enix has completed the sale of Hitman developer IO Interactive. The developer said in a statement today that it is now fully independent after "successfully conclud[ing] negotiations with Square Enix." IO said it agreed to a "management buyout," and importantly, the developer retains the rights to the Hitman franchise, which is good news indeed.
The full statement from IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak follows below. While we now know IO will get to keep the Hitman series, it remains to be seen what the studio plans for franchise going forward; it previously talked about three seasons' worth of content.
"In its 19 years of history, Io-Interactive has brought you original and exciting entertainment; from Mini Ninjas and Freedom Fighters to gaming's most notorious criminals Kane & Lynch and of course our beloved Agent 47. With our latest game, we have not only transformed Hitman, but also moved our entire studio into the AAA digital era. Our live product has disrupted the video game business and has received recognition and praise from press, community and our fans.
There are many tales of hope, dreams, hardship and joy within these walls. We have never strived for the expected or predictable. Instead, we are always in pursuit for what feels original and real. Our passion and determination has never been greater and so that is why we have decided it is not the time to stop as we have many more exciting and original tales to tell.
Therefore I am proud to announce today that IOI is now officially an independent studio. We have successfully concluded our negotiations with Square Enix and have agreed to a management buyout. Crucially, we will keep all of the rights to the Hitman IP.
This is a watershed moment for IOI. As of today, we have complete control over the direction for our studio and the Hitman IP--we're about to forge our own future and it's incredibly exciting. We are now open to opportunities with future collaborators and partners to help strengthen us as a studio and ensure that we can produce the best games possible for our community.
I would like to say a big and sincere thank you to all of our players, community, friends in the media and everyone else connected to the studio for the messages of support that we have received in the last few weeks. I would also like to thank Square Enix; it has been a great family to be a part of and we are proud of what we have achieved together in the last eight years. IOI started as an independent studio and we will now return to those roots with an extremely passionate and talented team.
We are counting on the continued support of all our players; simply by having fun with everything we've released so far for Hitman--and we want to encourage more of you to try our game. We have more details to come on our plans for that next week.
The upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming will be the sixth Spidey movie to hit screens in the past two decades. However, it marks the character's first film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and early box office estimates are predicting a strong opening.
According to Deadline, the movie is on course to make $90 million - $108 million in its first three days when its opens in July. As the site notes, if it does clear $100 million it will immediately be one of the summer's biggest movies, following the disappointing US performance of such films as The Mummy, Alien: Covenant, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
However, in terms of superhero movies, the success of both Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and DC's Wonder Woman has shown that there is still a huge audience for the genre.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is a co-production between Sony and Marvel. Sony own the movie rights to the character, but following the commercial failure of 2014's Amazing Spider-Man 2, a deal was agreed to allow the character to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In related news, Spider-Man star Tom Holland this week revealed that Homecoming would be the first part of a trilogy. "There is still a lot of room for Peter Parker and Spider-Man, especially, to grow in the next two movies," he said. "He's definitely not the finished article by the end of Homecoming and I really look forward to exploring the different ways he can grow up. It's going to be an exciting couple of movies."
Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives on July 7 and also stars Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr, Marisa Tomei, and Donald Glover. A new trailer was released last week--check it out here.
With E3 wrapping up, here's a nice way to keep the fun going. Xbox Live Gold members can now pick up even more free games as part of the Games With Gold program. On Xbox One, Ubisoft's open-world action game Watch Dogs is now free, while Dragon Age: Origins is the freebie on Xbox 360. Note that the BioWare RPG plays on Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
On Xbox One, Speedrunners is free all month long, as is the multiplayer DLC for Phantom Dust. You can see the month's full Games With Gold lineup below; click any link to start your download from the Xbox Store's website.
July 2017's free Games With Gold games have not been announced yet. We will report back with all the details as they're announced.
One of the more puzzling and odd announcements from Nintendo about the Switch is that voice chat will be handled through a smartphone app, not via the console itself. Speaking to Kotaku, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime talked about why the company chose this approach and discussed why he thinks it's in the best interest of Nintendo gamers.
"We actually think that the phone is going to deliver a better, more robust execution," Fils-Aime explained. "In terms of the APIs that we can build into an app, the fact that phones are ubiquitous, the fact that it allows us to do much more rapid improvements and updates to the service, that's why we think a phone execution--and specifically a mobile app execution--is going to be better for the consumer."
The interviewer suggested that using a smartphone for voice chat could feel cumbersome, but Fils-Aime said what we've seen so far is just one example of how voice chat will work. "What you've seen is the execution by one particular supplier," he said. "That is not going to be the only solution."
In every case, you will need a smartphone to use voice chat on Nintendo Switch, Fils-Aime confirmed. "It's going to require a mobile device and be delivered by an app," he said.
The Kotaku interview touches on a number of other interesting topics--read it here.
The one smartphone-enabled voice chat solution for Switch that we've seen is for Splatoon 2--and it looks clunky. Here is what that looks like:
Bandai Namco showed off 12 more minutes of gameplay for the next installment in its long-running Ace Combat series, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. As you can see from the footage above, the aerial combat sim has never looked better.
Ace Combat 7 is a return to roots of sorts for the series, trading the real-world settings of the more recent installments for the"strangereal" universe of classic Ace Combat games.
The biggest news to come out of developer Psyonix from E3 2017 is that Rocket League is getting a Nintendo Switch release. With regard to how it'll look and perform, Psyonix VP Jeremy Dunham stated in an interview with GameSpot that the Switch version will run at 720p with a consistent 60 frames per second whether the console is docked or undocked.
Even with two-player split screen undocked or four-player split screen on a TV, Psyonix is aiming to maintain a solid frame rate. There will be other graphical compromises to maintain proper performance on the Switch, though the exact visual changes have yet to be determined. However, the Xbox One X version won't be making any compromises; Dunham said it'll run 4K and HDR.
Switch owners can play across platforms with Xbox One and PC players. However, Sony isn't allowing PlayStation 4 users to connect with Xbox One and Switch players. PC gamers can connect to all the other platforms, but the matchmaking pool will be split between PS4 and Xbox plus Switch.
During E3, GameSpot spoke to Destiny 2 Project Lead Mark Noseworthy about the game's big changes. Check our roundup of all the Sony press conference news for more on Destiny 2, and catch up on all the week's announcements on our E3 hub.
You've previously mentioned that the weapon categories are different in Destiny 2. Rather than Primary, Secondary, and Heavy, Destiny 2 has Kinetic, Energy, and Power--how are the existing weapon types categorized now? How is this changing your loadouts?
Mark Noseworthy: Both the Energy slot and the Kinetic slot pull from the same archetypes, so it's not the same weapon--there'll be Solar Scout Rifle [for example]. That's an Energy weapon, and it'll have a sweet name and do certain things. But then you can have another Scout Rifle in your Kinetic slot. But it's a Kinetic Scout Rifle, with a different name.
And the Kinetic rifle will be good at just doing damage to regular [enemies]. And then the Energy Scout Rifle will be especially good at taking down shields, whether that's a shielded combatant or another player who has their Super.
I mainly use Scout Rifles. So I can put two Scout Rifles in my loadout at once?
I think you won't. Because I'm Mister Scout Rifle as well, but once you've got one Scout Rifle you kinda don't need another Scout Rifle. And one of the things that we really like about this design is that it encourages you to experiment a lot and try other stuff. We're still trying to find different combinations that are like, "All right, this combination totally sucks." It seems like almost any combination you try is interesting in its own way.
One of the things that we really like about this design is that it encourages you to experiment a lot and try other stuff.
And I'm using weapons now that I wouldn't have previously used. I've always gone Scout Rifle, [but now I can equip one] either in my Kinetic or Energy. So now you [can use the other slot for] Sidearms or Hand Cannons or ARs, or whatever, because you know you've always got your Scout if your combination isn't working out.
So now it means you're actually changing up your weapons a lot more than you've ever done before.
How so? I never use Hand Cannons, for example.
Yeah, and now you will, because you're like, "Well, I've got my Scout Rifle, so might as well use the Handcannon that does the [a different kind of damage]" Especially if you've got an Exotic in that slot. If you have your Scout Rifle, and then your non-Scout Rifle--you're gonna use a different Exotic for that. Instead of just always using the Exotic Scout Rifle just because [you have it].
Which weapons are classified as Power weapons?
You've got the Grenade Launcher, the Rocket Launcher, the Shotgun, the Sniper Rifle, the Fusion Rifle. Those are the ones in that slot. They've all been beefed up. They do more damage.
Then segueing into enemies from there--are we seeing similar enemies in Destiny 2? We've seen Cabal in the trailers.
There are definitely a bunch of new combatants. We're not really detailing any of the changes we've made to the Hive, the Vex, or the Fallen, but they've each evolved. They've all been touched in some ways. The Cabal Red Legion [is] where we've spent a bunch of the time, they're the primary antagonists in the campaign of the Red War. They've got the War Beast, the Incendiary, and then the Gladiator as the brand-new Cabal units.
We figure the Cabal are like the Navy Seals or the Special Forces. But we've taken a good hard look at the design of all the existing races and tried to make improvements across the board. Just more fun to fight and make it so that when the Fallen soul escapes his body and that the animation effect is just a little bit more dialed in.
Whether it's a brand-new combatant or a combatant that previously existed, we're going to change it up a little bit. Like, what if these guys take cover differently now? Or what if he jumps? So there's been a lot of enhancements across old enemies.
One of the big differences in Destiny 2 is the addition of in-game clan support. Could you give us more information on how that works?
We've introduced two really important systems in Destiny 2. Clans are the first half of that. And clans are, as you know, basically groups that you can join [consisting] of like-minded people who've said, "I want to play Destiny with other people." And it's like an extended friends list essentially.
But we're going further than that. We're allowing the clans to have an identity, like a name and a motto that you can type in and describe. Also, [we] have this banner that has rewards with it. And then you can join a clan. And in fact we want everyone in Destiny 2 to join a clan ideally, with no commitment. Joining a clan does not mean you have to raid on Tuesday nights. It just means, "I'm just a part of a group of other people."
And we think everyone should want to do this because doing so is gonna give you rewards. But [playing] on your own is going to benefit the clan. And the clan playing when you're not on is going to benefit you. So it just makes sense for everyone to be a part of that experience.
This is going to help clans when they're short one or two people on Tuesday nights when they play the Raid, but also give the opportunity for people who don't have a lot of friends playing Destiny.
But then we have this system that we're calling Guided Games. They're essentially a mechanism for everyone in Destiny to play the pinnacle, highest challenge of competitive content. Whether that's Nightfall Strikes, Trials, or the Raid. And so those in Destiny 1 did not support matchmaking. They still don't support matchmaking because they require communication and strong coordination. And we just don't think that's gonna work well in matchmaking.
But if we can take clans, these like established social groups where people with identities and social norms, and match them with solo players or maybe a pair of people and put them together ... If we give the seekers--the solo player--the agency to say, "Hey this clan, the way they describe themselves, their identity, seems pretty different than me and the way I want to play. These guys seem pretty hardcore. Or they speak German or whatever. I'm not going to play with them."
But then this next group [could] be like, "Look, we're cool, friendly people. We're open to noobs." …. You're going to temporarily join this clan for a session. You're not actually joining the clan, but you're gonna agree to participate in a clan in that activity. And so this is going to help clans when they're short one or two people on Tuesday nights when they play the Raid, but also give the opportunity for people who don't have a lot of friends playing Destiny to play some of this great content that they haven't experienced.
[UPDATE] Rockstar Games confirmed in a statement to GameSpot today that its parent company, Take-Two, did send a letter to the mod group. The statement explains why it took action against the OpenIV tools, saying they can create a nasty environment for some players "interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody."
"Take-Two's actions were not specifically targeting single player mods. Unfortunately OpenIV enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody," Rockstar said. "We are working to figure out how we can continue to support the creative community without negatively impacting our players."
The original story follows below.
A popular Grand Theft Auto modding tool program has shut down after the group behind it claimed it received a cease and desist order from Take-Two Interactive.
The OpenIV group said in a message today (via PCGamer), "We feared that this day would come… And now it's here. The day, when GTA modding was declared illegal."
The organization said it complied with pertinent rules related to modding GTA content, including not "messing with online [play]" and only using "clean-room reverse engineering," among other things.
On June 5, OpenIV said it received a cease and desist order letter from Take-Two, the parent company of GTA V developer Rockstar Games. The letter reportedly that the modding tool "allow[s] third-parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two's rights."
OpenIV said they could go to court to demonstrate that modding is within the coverage of fair use, but the organization decided not to.
"Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we'll get absolutely nothing," it said. "Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can't compensate the loss of time."
With that in mind, OpenIV said it decided to comply with the letter and stop distributing the mod tools. "It was a hard decision, but when any modding activity has been declared illegal, we can't see any possibilities to continue this process," it said. "Unless top management of Take-Two company makes an official statement about modding, which can be used in court."
You can read the full statement here. We've contacted Take-Two in an attempt to get more details, and we'll update this post with anything we hear back.
The biggest surprise to come from Nintendo's E3 showing was Metroid: Samus Returns, the first proper Metroid game in seven years--and the first side-scrolling installment since 2004. Described as a reimagining of the Game Boy installment Metroid II, Samus Returns sees the bounty hunter travel to the Metroid homeworld of planet SR-388 to exterminate the alien species.
We got to go hands-on with the game in a behind-closed-doors demo. We also got a chance to speak with Metroid producer Yoshio Sakamoto through an interpreter as well as MercurySteam's Jose Luis Márquez about the project's inception, new features, and more.
GameSpot: How long has Metroid: Samus Returns been in development?
Yoshio Sakamoto: About two years.
Did Nintendo seek MercurySteam out for this project or was it the other way around?
There was a very fateful meeting, so we'll tell you that to start off with.
I just wanted to start out by saying I've been wanting to make a 2D Metroid game with today's technology for quite a long time. It wasn't only my personal desire, but also because I know there are a lot of people out there in the world who have been clamoring for a 2D Metroid game.
For myself, I've been wanting to revisit that fundamental, basic, core essence of Metroid, that 2D gameplay, and I was considering ways to go about taking on that challenge. That was more than two years ago.
Then I heard of MercurySteam and they were looking to take on the challenge of remaking a Metroid game. It wasn't Metroid II, but again I'd heard about this desire from the MercurySteam team.
I knew MercurySteam from their development work on Castelvania. I thought, "We've got to meet with these guys," and so we flew out to Spain [where MercurySteam is located]. Over the course of that meeting, obviously we had a great time. It seemed like, wow, there's a lot of potential here, and basically that's really how it got started.
Jose Luis Márquez: Like Sakamoto-san said, we approached Nintendo to make a remake of a classic game. We are also a fan of the series, so we were happy to know that they wanted to collaborate with us.
Was this project always specifically going to be a remake of an older title? Were there ever ideas for a new game?
First of all, you know, we have heard from them that they were interested in doing a remake of a classic Nintendo title. And personally, for myself, I didn't work on Metroid II. Of course it's a great game on its own, but it's a bit different than the Metroid titles that I've been involved with and I just saw that there's a potential within that title for me to take a look at it as well.
As you know, within Metroid II there's the really vital portion of the story that's very important to the entire Metroid storyline and that's Samus's first encounter with the baby Metroid.
So we had this sort of amalgamation or this sum total of all these different parts, the idea that I wanted to go back and work on 2D Metroid, I wanted to revisit a title that wasn't really a remake for me because I wasn't involved in the first one so there's this great source of inspiration in a Metroid game that I wasn't involved with but I could go back and take a look at and really explore that 2D, that fundamental gameplay, and then on top of that I had this amazing new partner to work with, so it all just sort of piled up together and became this project.
How challenging has it been to revisit that game? It's fairly old by today's standards, and there are a lot of features that have been added into later Metroids that weren't available in that title. Has a lot of it been redesigned around the more modern features?
As you said, of course, there's a lot of new elements that we felt that we needed to add, things that were core to Metroid gameplay, so that would be some of these new abilities that we're looking at.
In addition to that, not only are there things that you would normally expect, again like new abilities, but we wanted to add something that was above and beyond that.
Again, above all the things that I knew we would have to do to remake this title, the other sort of big challenge was, who are we going to make this with? Who are we going to collaborate with that's going to bring in the right ideas, the right sensibility, and that was sort of like the beginning of the challenge, and also the beginning of the project.
Thanks to that collaboration with MercurySteam we were able to incorporate new stuff that is in line with what the series would expect, but on top of that, brand new stuff that is above and beyond that, and we were able to create what I think is a really wonderful installment in this series, and a large part of that is in thanks to this collaboration that we have.
Does MercurySteam have a lot of creative input, or is there oversight from Nintendo as far as what can be added to the game and the direction it takes?
One thing I think it's really important to focus on, and I'd like to strongly reinforce that idea, we are one team during the course of this game. It's us working together.
It wasn't a case of, "hey, you take care of this and we'll take care of that." It was, you know, we're throwing all our ideas on the table and we're asking you to do the same and they brought forth all of their creative energies and we melded that all together.
Most of the new abilities that you're seeing in the game are things that came, they were inspired by the ideas and suggestions that came from Mercury Steam.
Márquez: It's like Sakamoto-san said, we were a single team so the ideas were coming back and forth between both companies, so we finally say we did it together.
What was the reason you went with polygonal visuals for this game as opposed to the traditional pixel style of older 2D Metroids?
For myself, my answer would be, of course, we wanted to incorporate a lot of varied animation. We wanted to make it look as good as we could and we thought really the polygonal art style was much more suited toward what we wanted to be the look of the game.
I think another merit of using polygons was that, because the games in 3D, we wanted to be able to look at things from a variety of different angles and we wanted to create what we think are these very dramatic and cool cut scenes.
Along with the new Aeion abilities, are there going to be a lot of other new features on top of the traditional Metroid arsenal that you can normally expect?
I think what you're seeing is an incorporation of familiar elements from throughout the Metroid series, so you know, you're incorporating things from the original through other games thought the series until we hit now, and now we're adding, of course, the Aeion abilities, the melee counter, so it's a compilation of maybe all that's best.
The melee ability's obviously new for 2D Metroid, but it reminded me a lot of Metroid: Other M and how that was more combat-oriented. Was it directly inspired by that game?
In relation to the melee counter, that's a MercurySteam idea, so it's good to ask them where the inspiration for the melee counter came from.
Márquez: In our previous title Mirror of Fate we introduced these mechanics to parry enemy attacks at the same time you are going to be attacked. We thought that this could work quite well in this game, so we tried and it worked really well and it led to the feeling of exhilaration when you fight enemies.
Were you ever kicking around ideas for a 2D Metroid game for DS before this project?
I always thought that the use of the two screens, one for gameplay and one for sort of a submenu or map screen was a really special feature of both the DS and the 3DS.
By the time we were ready to start development on this project, the 3DS was the platform, so it came out originally intended for the 3DS. Not just because of the timing, but we also were like, wow, this 3D feature is something we really want to use.
There's something else the DS couldn't do, the incorporation of an analog stick allowed us to incorporate the free aim mechanic.
Do you think we'll ever see a 2D Metroid on Switch?
We are always, always thinking about ways that we can excite the fans of the series and come up with stuff that they will want to see and play, and we love that challenge, but there's nothing we can discuss in terms of Switch at this point. Yeah, we'll discuss it. (laughs)
Are there any games being shown here at E3 that you are really interested in checking out?
To be perfectly honest, we've been so focused on getting our stuff in line and ready for this show that outside of what Nintendo is showing, I have no idea. I have no idea. (laughs)
Márquez: Same for me, I have been walking around but I have not been able to play anything new. There are so many interviews.
What would you like to say for the people who've been really looking forward to a new 2D Metroid for so long?
Thank you for waiting. (laughs)
I have a lot of confidence in saying that we've come out with something that will go above and beyond their expectations, so we really hope that they will look forward to getting their hands on this title.
There's a little bit more time for us to work on this before it's ready to launch, but again, we hope that people wait patiently for it. We really want people to be surprised by like, wow, look what Nintendo and MercurySteam have done with this collaboration.
Márquez: Of course, we are also looking forward to knowing what people think of our game. We put all of our heart and all of our passion for this game to be great and to make all the fans really proud for years to come.
I've found virtual reality a tough sell. Nothing I've played yet seems particularly amazing; I've certainly had fun shooting things in some of the many shooting galleries there are, and I enjoyed looking around beautiful worlds, like Bound's, in VR. But, at least from the admittedly limited games I've played, VR has always seemed more like window dressing than any sort of fundamental shift in the way games are played.
A four vs. four, zero-gravity competitive game changed that for me. Echo Arena, the multiplayer spinoff of Lone Echo, gave me a chance to see the full capabilities of room-scale VR, and--more than a year after its consumer release--I finally get it.
In Echo Arena, you have several tools at your disposal to move, fight, grab, and throw. The developer describes it as zero-G ultimate frisbee, but I found it to be more like rugby, or even Quidditch from Harry Potter, than anything else. You grab a disk, fly as fast as you can at the hoop at the other end of the arena, and attempt to score.
You have three ways to move. First, you can grab objects in the environment and literally throw yourself forward. I was playing in an Oculus Rift, so I flailed wildly with the Touch controllers to catapult over a railing or a box. You also have a boost mode that lets you use your character's exosuit jets to rocket forward in a specific direction, with no ability to change trajectory unless you break. Finally, and most usefully, your hands have smaller, directional jets on them. Simply point in the direction that you want to go, hold down the jet button, and you'll go there. These jets allow you a much greater level of control, and finding a way to make constant, small adjustments to your motion is essential to playing the game.
It's not as easy as rocketing over to the disk, picking it up, and sprinting for the goal, though. When I had the disk, I felt like I was back in middle and high school playing a contact sport--the feeling of having control of the ball while an entire team is looking to get it away from you by any means necessary, is both exhilarating and slightly frightening. And in Echo Arena, the main means of defense is to punch the disk carrier. Clocking another player in the face--in the safety of the VR arena, of course--will stun them for a few seconds and force them to drop the disk.
I only played about half an hour of Echo Arena, but I felt like it gave me a level of agency over the game that I've never experienced before in a competitive multiplayer game. Having a one-to-one representation of myself--well, at least my arms and head--made me more invested in what I was doing. Once I got acquainted with the movement, I didn't feel like I was struggling with mechanics. If I did something wrong, it was because I, myself, did not move fast enough or well enough physically. In other words, I was actually playing a physical sport.
One of the biggest challenges that this game faces is how to ensure that flying around in zero-G, spinning around, and flinging your arms around while trying to keep track of seven other people and a disk, won't make you sick. That would be the deathknell of this game, and I've heard anecdotally that some people get very sick from playing this game. I found myself unsteady a couple times, as flying rapidly in three-dimensional virtual space while standing upright isn't completely easy. But besides moments of slight imbalance, and one time actually punching a wall by accident, I never experienced motion sickness. Thankfully, Echo Arena keeps your legs always beneath you, so you won't be cartwheeling through the arena. That would make me sick.
Believe it or not, this game is in development at Ready At Dawn, the studio behind The Order: 1886. From what I could see, there are very few parallels to draw between the two games. Lone Echo, the single-player component of the game, is completely different: it's more along the lines of Adr1ft, and The Order's influence is clear. But it is both surprising and encouraging to see Ready At Dawn try something risky and completely different, and from my short look, I came away more than sold that a four vs. four game can work in VR. And, even better, Echo Arena will be free when it launches on Oculus Rift on July 20.
My favorite part of my demo with The Crew 2 wasn't racing, drifting, or doing any of the activities. Nor was it even roaming around the streets of Manhattan. What I enjoyed most was messing with the new vehicles in ways that Ubisoft probably didn't intend, but were nonetheless terrific.
The Crew 2 includes new vehicles, such as boats and planes. No longer are you restricted to the road. Now you can take off and explore the game's strange facsimile of the United States. The process for changing vehicles actually involves a pretty impressive technical feat: you bring up a selection wheel and choose whichever vehicle you want, whenever, wherever, and the game will switch you to that one instantaneously.
So I flew up high in a plane, switched vehicles, and parked a boat on top of a New York skyscraper.
It was quite a nice view from up there, sitting behind the wheel of a speedboat while perched on the precipitous edge of a hundred-story-tall building. I could look out over the city and see the Empire State Building and the entire breadth of Manhattan. I revved the speedboat's engines a little bit. It sounded nice, but I didn't go anywhere. Speedboats still need water to move in The Crew 2, even though you can get them onto skyscrapers. Some things still necessitate a bit of realism, apparently.
Then I changed back to flying a plane, soared straight up in the air, and switched to a motorbike. It was a long way down, so I obviously attempted to nail as many cool backflips as possible. I only managed three before slamming into the ground, but I immediately drove off. My character was completely unharmed by that drop.
This part of The Crew 2 is hilariously enjoyable, and I didn't want to stop messing around with the vehicle-switching mechanic. Why do actual races when you can see how impressively you can launch your car into a river and then switch to a boat? All I wanted to do was to make challenges for myself, like flying low and acrobatically through the streets of Manhattan and then ending with a smooth landing onto asphalt in a car.
The fun did end eventually, and I tried out a couple of the mission types Ubisoft had playable. Largely, the gameplay feels very similar to the first game, and the races are similarly paced. I played a street race and saw a boat race and an off-road time trial, and noticed a few things: it looks better than the first game, but it plays almost identically.
Obviously boats and planes are new, but even the boat does not actually feel that different from the cars. I had no trouble transitioning directly to it; it didn't seem as floaty as boats should. It was nice to cruise across the water at high speeds, but I didn't find the boat races particularly compelling.
One major change coming to the activities that I am excited by is that Ubisoft is designing them to be much more open. In my opinion, an open-world driving game undermines its sense of freedom if it features extremely restrictive races within that open world. The Crew 2 solves this problem by allowing you a lot more creativity over the path you take to your objective. When I completed a race in Manhattan, I often peeled off from the main path to careen through buildings or tunnels that served as shortcuts. It made these races a lot more fun than some of the more limited ones I played, and I'm hopeful that Ubisoft will build upon this in the main game.
I'm still unsure about The Crew 2, since a lot of it struck me as unremarkable and not much of a change from The Crew. But, I will say, sticking a boat on top of a building in a racing game is one of my highlights from the show. I'm definitely looking forward to messing around with that mechanic more and trying to break the game by getting boats stuck in strange parts of the country. It's shaping up to be a very weird playground--hopefully it ends up being a good racing game, as well.
The E3 show floor is stacked with eye-catching booths where people can play games and take in the atmosphere of the year's big gaming show. If you didn't make it to the show or want a closer look of what was on display, we've snapped photos of the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo booths.
Sony's booth had a huge helicopter, caught in a web, to promote the new Spider-Man PS4 game. Microsoft was pushing the Xbox One X at its booth and Nintendo turned its booth into New Donk City to promote this year's wonderful-looking Nintendo Switch game Super Mario Odyssey.
We broke out galleries for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, and you can find all of them linked below.
Thursday marks the final day of E3, and with the press conferences now in the rearview mirror, the game reveals and big announcements have slowed down. But there has still been a lot of news from the event, with Bethesda revealing new details about Creation Club, Nintendo confirming the details of Super Mario Odyssey's multiplayer mode and more.
Super Lucky's Tale, an adorable-looking platformer from Words With Friends creator Paul Bettner, was one of the surprise reveals at Microsoft's E3 2017 briefing this week. A non-VR sequel to 2016's Oculus Rift game Lucky's Tale, Super Lucky's Tale had a major presence at Microsoft's show, something that Bettner was initially apprehensive about.
Speaking to GameSpot today at E3, Bettner said people understand the appeal of Super Lucky's Tale when they get their hands on it, but he wasn't totally sure if this would come across in the trailer alone. Now that people have played the game and experienced its novelty, he's been blown away by the positive reaction to the game--even on NeoGAF.
"I came into [E3] with a little bit of apprehension because ... this is the thing about Super Lucky's Tale ... People who experience the demo, and you can see this on Twitter, Reddit, and even NeoGAF--NeoGAF has a thread that's like 600 posts about Lucky's Tale!"
"And when I first heard about the thread, I was like, 'I don't wanna' ... but I went and looked, and there's so much love for it there. It's like, Wow. I was a little apprehensive, because it's easy for hardcore gamers to make fun of things that are cute. We all do that. There's a little snark. But apparently, we conveyed the right things in the trailer and when people go hands on the demo, they feel like this is a game made for me. It's not just made for kids. And clearly it is also made for kids.
Also in our interview with Bettner, he confirmed that Super Lucky's Tale is a "shorter and lightweight" game that will be sold for the lower price point of $30. The game is coming to all of the Xbox family systems, including Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and Windows 10.
Bettner told us about how the Xbox One X version of the game benefits from the power of the system, which Microsoft says is the most powerful console ever made. He mentioned how frame rate can be especially important for platforms, and confirmed that Super Lucky's Tale will run at 60fps on Xbox One X.
"The fact the game is running in 60 frames per second is probably actually the most impactful thing for a platforming game," Bettner explained. "It gives you this precision and it really benefits the game like this that's a lot about timing and about controlling this character--and it just feels great.
"There is also a lot we can do with how beautiful the world is and you can see this in the demo. There is breeze blowing, particle effects, these clouds that are building around. We're able to bring this fairytale world to life in a fidelity that hasn't been seen before in this genre yet. And I think that's one of the reasons people are responding well to it, especially Xbox gamers. It's one of the most beautiful, cute games you've ever seen."
"The Xbox One X is such a beast that literally almost the first time we got it running it was almost running at 4K, 60 hertz."
E3 2017 ends today, June 15, and as expected, it was a big show in terms of attendance. Attendance for 2017 was 68,400, a figure that includes the 15,000 public tickets that were sold this year for the first time in the event's history. This is up from 50,300 at E3 2016.
E3 2018 will be held June 12-14, 2018 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The show will stay in Los Angeles through 2019, but it remains to be seen what will happen after that.
ESA CEO Mike Gallagher said in a roundtable interview attended by GameSpot this week that the organization may pursue other options if the Los Angeles Convention Center does not modernize and upgrade the facility. In particular, Gallagher said he hopes the convention center will undergo renovations to increase the floor space and make the hall more contiguous. There are two main halls--West and South--and they are separated by lengthy hallway.
The ESA did not mention in its press release if it will sell public tickets in 2017. At the roundtable interview, Gallagher said the ESA will gather feedback about this year's show from attendees and publishers before making announcements about the format for 2018's event.
Although E3 is closing down today, GameSpot's coverage continues all day with more news, previews, videos, analysis, and more. Keep checking back today and throughout the weekend for more from the year's biggest gaming show.
We covered all the big press conferences and have now weighed in on how all the big companies did in their press conferences, including the highlights, the things we'd wish they'd done better, and the biggest games.
If the Cars series is Pixar's stab at making sports movies, then Cars 3 is the Rocky 4 of the franchise. Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) makes for a good Rocky Balboa stand-in: an ageing champion, past the peak of his powers, struggling to stay relevant as younger athletes rise up the ranks. There's even an Ivan Drago equivalent here in the form of Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer), a smarmy new competitor whose speed leaves Lightning in the dust. And while Ivan Drago in Rocky 4 used steroids and the overwhelming power of Russian surliness to beat his opponents to a pulp, Storm uses the latest in vehicular technology to dominate the racing circuit in the Cars world. It's old versus new, the pure versus the enhanced. You can guess where this is going.
Or at least you think you can guess, until Cars3 swerves and breaks free of the sports movie template and reaches its sweet, heartfelt climax. Fans of Pixar have long thought of the Cars franchise as one of the the animation studio's least interesting efforts, and while Cars 3 doesn't reach the heights of a Toy Story 3 or an Inside Out, it's the best the series has ever been.
You could take that as faint praise, given that the first Cars was Pixar's most mediocre early effort, with the sequel taking a strange detour to become a middling spy comedy that focused on the redneck pick-up truck Mater. The Cars franchise has always been more of a merchandising force than a critically revered one, something which Cars 3 addresses in its own way. After McQueen finds himself continually losing to Storm, Sterling--the new owner of McQueen's sponsor company Rust-eze--wants to make a change. Instead of focusing on racing, Sterling wants to capitalise on McQueen's legacy, primarily through plastering his face on a wide range of products. Any loss tarnishes that legacy, so Sterling gives McQueen an ultimatum: if he doesn't win the next big race in Florida, then he has to retire from racing altogether.
McQueen, ever an optimist, readily agrees, and is partnered with Cruz Ramirez, a trainer at Rust-eze who specialises in the modern methods Storm utilises to get an edge over everyone else. A lot of the film's humor stems from the clash between the old school McQueen and the modern Ramirez. McQueen, the ultra-capable racer who honed his craft on dirt tracks, does so poorly in his high tech training that he crashes through the Rust-eze simulator. Ramirez, whose background in racing is purely virtual and theoretical, finds herself bogged down in the sand when McQueen makes her race on a beach. It's fish out of water times two.
More doesn't necessarily mean better, though, with the first half of Cars 3 feeling rather flat, and every joke, gag, and reference feeling a little strained. Things pick up midway as the film subtly shifts its focus more towards Ramirez, who we learn has long dreamed of being a racer, but never had the confidence to feel like she belonged in the sport. Cars 3 is never overtly political, but its message of girl empowerment and the struggles women face in being recognised as being capable is traditionally male-dominated fields is clear. By its end, Cars3 becomes a redemption story for both McQueen and Ramirez, and it results in some heartfelt emotion, a first for the series which has so failed to deliver that emotional punch the best Pixar films deliver. Cars 3 isn't on par with the studio's best, but if this is McQueen's last race, then it's a great end to this otherwise uneven series.
In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, the sequel to the original Pillars from 2015, Obsidian Entertainment has returned to the world of Eora to show off a new side of the lands of encompassing the Dyrwood. With more of a focus on adventure and freedom of movement in this isometric role-playing game, Pillars II is looking to be far more ambitious than its predecessor. During a session with the game on the E3 show floor, we talked with some developers from Obsidian Entertainment about their plans for the follow up to one of bigger surprises from the studio in recent years.
Set sometime after the original game, Deadfire pits The Watcher--the player character from the last adventure--against some tough odds in a new region of the world of Eora. When the god of light Eothas awakens, it destroys The Watcher's stronghold--the main player base in the original game--leaving the main character for dead. After recovering, and reuniting with the party, they set out on a massive ship to sail the high seas towards the Deadfire archipelago in search of the God of Light, and find out what its plans are for the rest of the world.
As the first sequel they've made for their own series, Obsidian Entertainment was committed to making it one that was worthy of the last game, while focusing on the strong foundations of the original. In our talk, executive producer Adam Brennecke from Obsidian spoke about the challenges of making a sequel, and how the follow up will improve on what they built in the first game.
"It's a pretty big deal for us," said Adam Brennecke. "We usually do sequels for other developers games, so it's refreshing to work on a sequel to our own thing. We learned a lot from the first game, all the stuff learned we implemented here in Deadfire. We rewrote a lot of the systems from the ground up, and just looking at the game you can see we improved it visually. [...] The technology has been improved hands down from the last game, it's so much better and we're using state of the art technology."
In keeping with the original's focus on storytelling and role-playing, Deadfire will continue on with The Watcher's story, and also marks the first time that Obsidian is developing a save import system, which will carry over all decisions, faction choices, and companion set-ups. However, if you're interested in just jumping into Deadfire--or wanting to start fresh--the game will allow players to essentially make decisions on what happened in the last adventure, essentially filling out the story on the quick so you'll be able to jump into the new adventure.
While many of the same systems and mechanics are returning, the one thing that Obsidian wanted to add in for the next title was more freedom in how you explore the space. With your new ship, which also doubles as your base of operations, the Watcher and their crew will be able to move freely around the seas, either following the main story, or checking out every opportunity they could find elsewhere. This level of freedom in exploration was important for the developers, and they even used past experiences on games like Fallout to help design the world traversal gameplay.
"With the open world, we'r using a lot of our experience from working on Fallout: New Vegas," said Brennecke. "In Pillars I, we realized that it wasn't one of our strengths, specifically the factions, so we have four factions you can ally with or betray, so you either go it alone or team up with others. That's a big part of the narrative story for Pillars II."
One aspect of the game I enjoyed seeing was that there's a stronger focus on the freedom in letting players explore the space at their leisure. Not many isometric RPG titles let players do their own thing and explore, and it's quite refreshing to see Obsidian's next title focusing on the same strong level of storytelling from the original, while throwing in a strong open world aspect, complete with a crew of sailors to manage. Pillars of Eternity has a strong world backdrop, and seeing this way to present it should make for an even more engaging time.
For more info on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and all other things E3 2017, keep up with our E3 2017 hub page as new content rolls out.
Rebellion's Strange Brigade might not be coming to Nintendo Switch, but another one of the publisher's games is. Rogue Trooper Redux, a remaster of the 2006 shooter, is headed to Nintendo's hybrid console. And now, Rebellion has confirmed that it's hoping that the Switch version will have all the same major features as the Xbox One, PS4, and PC editions.
"We're aiming for complete feature parity with those versions," a spokesperson for Rogue Trooper Redux told GameSpot at E3 this week. "As of now, we don't know what extra features [the Switch version] will have, if any. We're still experimenting with the Switch platform. It's still pretty recent that we got our kits. So we don't quite know what that will be."
One thing is for sure, though: Rogue Trooper Redux will have online multiplayer for the Switch version, just like on other platforms. Another important note is that Rebellion is aiming to launch all versions of the game at the same time. This is Rebellion's hope at the moment, though things can always change.
For those just catching up, Rogue Trooper Redux stars the character Rogue, from the comic series 2000 AD, who is a super-soldier bred for killing. The new version of the game has been "remade from the ground up with current-gen-quality materials and higher resolution geometry." Rogue's new look in Redux takes him back to the classic style of the comics.
Rebellion, the developer of the original Rogue Trooper, has partnered with UK studio TickTock Games for Redux. It's the first time a non-Rebellion team has worked on a 2000 AD game.
A release date has not been announced, but Rebellion has said fans can expect it "soon." Today is the final day of E3, but GameSpot is not finished reporting from the show, so keep checking back all the time for the latest.
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom will be a lot more fast-paced and action-oriented than the first entry in the series. Dennis Lee from publisher Bandai Namco stopped by GameSpot's E3 2017 Stage show today to show off some of the first real gameplay video for the game, which launches in November for PlayStation 4 and (unlike the original Ni No Kuni) PC.
Showing off the game's combat, Lee said publisher Level-5 has taken it in a new direction. Gone are any mid-combat menus, a hallmark of traditional JRPGs. Instead, players focus entirely on real-time action. Level-5 took inspiration from western action and adventure games; timing will now play a role. When defending, for example, hitting the defend command at just the right time shields you from a lot of damage. It's not just about stats and levelling, said Lee.
Also gone is the system of familiars in Ni No Kuni. Instead, our hero Evan and his teammates fight alongside Higgledies; the little sprites, which have elemental powers, lend you those powers throughout your adventure to make you stronger. At times during combat, they'll gather together and jumping into the middle of them rewards you and your party with a buff.
As you can see, Ni No Kuni II retains a lot of the Studio Ghibli-esque charm of the first title. Yoshiyuki Momose, a former animator from Studio Ghibli known for his work on Grave of the Fire Flies and Spirited Away, designed the characters. Lee says the art style and the character development retains the spirit of Japanese games and anime, just with faster-paced action and more customization.
The game will also feature a Kingdom Mode. Once you reach a certain point in the story, hero Evan needs to build his own kingdom. While we didn't see this in today's gameplay video, Lee said players would end up creating their kingdom as they want it, recruiting townspeople to build buildings and do research on new features.
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is due out November 10, and you can follow our full coverage of the game here. For all the features and game announcements from E3, check out our E3 news hub for a full recap of the week's events.
But first, he confirmed yet again that the game will happen ... someday. As of "The Elder Scrolls VI will eventually be made," Hines said. "It is multiple big releases down the plan for those folks [at Bethesda Game Studios]." As of August 2016, The Elder Scrolls VI was not in production, and it sounds like it still is, not that Bethesda ever said it would be by this point.
The Elder Scrolls V
In 2016, Bethesda boss Todd Howard teased three "big and crazy" projects that the studio is working on. There is no word yet on what form these games might take or how many are in the works at Bethesda Game Studios between its Maryland and Montreal studios.
Hines told GameSpot today that Howard's team wanted to "work on some other stuff and do some other things" after releasing Fallout 4, which has surpassed Skyrim to become Bethesda's most successful game ever. He added that Bethesda Game Studios did not want to be known as a developer that only made Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.
"Quite honestly, they didn't want to be the developer that was just Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Fallout for the rest of their development careers," Hines said. "And you've got a lot of people in that studio who have been there for a really long time. They wanted to be able to self-determine things they worked on next, whether it was existing stuff whether it was new IP.
"And I think Todd and his team have earned the right, given the quality of this stuff, to be able to say, 'We know everybody really wants Elder Scrolls VI, but we as creative people want to be able to do stuff tat we're really passionate about.' And I think once you see how the next two titles come out and then how Elder Scrolls 6 ties into what those games are doing and about, I think it'll all make sense. But I think it's going to be a while before all those things happen."
While HTC is currently holding sales figures of the Vive close to its chest, we got a chance to speak with HTC Vive General Manager Daniel O'Brien at E3 where he conveyed to us that the company is currently happy with the VR headset's current sales figures and aren't interested in dropping the price of the Vive as a result.
The company was at E3 promoting three upcoming games. One VR game, Duck Season, showed off a Vive Tracker attached to a Duck Hunt-inspired gun that pays homage to the NES classic. Perhaps its biggest twist is that if you shoot the dog this time around, he hunts you. The game comes from Stress Level Zero, the developers of Hover Junkers.
HTC also showed off Sprint Vector, which is a multiplayer racing game where you swing your arms to run. It's from Survios, the developers who created VR shooter Raw Data.
The last game HTC showed off was Gunheart from developer Drifter, which is a studio comprised of former Epic Games employees. The game describes itself as co-op shooter that allows up to three players to play as robotic bounty hunters as you blast aliens throughout the galaxy.
Since being announced during Bethesda's E3 press conference, there's been some confusion over what the new Creation Club for Skyrim and Fallout 4 is, and what distinguishes it from paid mods. Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines joined GameSpot on our stage show today to discuss the subject, explaining that this is intended to exist without impacting how the mod scene already operates.
"Creation Club was a new thing that the team came up with to say, 'We want to continue to make and do stuff for Skyrim and Fallout 4, and we want to create an ecosystem that works across both games, but we want to leave mods the way that they are,'" he said. "And we don't want to change how that works. And we want to actually be able to do this ourselves but to also bring in external developers or even bring in people who are known for making mods, but not bring them in as modders--bring them in as, now you're a game developer with us, not on a mod; whatever we greenlight that you make has to meet certain criteria. It can't be something you've already created that now you say, 'I want to offer this through Creation Club.' That's not what Creation Club is about."
Hines emphasized the distinction between this content and mods, noting that everything from Creation Club will be treated as official content. "It's almost like mini DLCs in some way, although that's probably not even a great point of reference," he explained. "But they are internally created, or internally created along with external developers. They're fully internally developed and work the same across all three platforms. They're guaranteed to work with your save games. They don't turn off Achievements or Trophies, unlike mods. They're guaranteed to work with all DLC. They'll be localized as needed. They will be put out and created as official content from the studio."
As a means of illustrating this, Hines compared the process to outsourcing work on lower priority art while Bethesda's internal studios focus on the bigger stuff. "There's art in our games that people outside the game studio make," he said. "Like, we need a whole bunch of flower pots; we don't just make flower pots all day, [Bethesda developers] focus on the bigger stuff and outsource the flower pots for somebody else to make. This is, in some ways, a lot like that--it's all official content, we don't have any issues with platforms like what kind of things are you or are you not allowed to include in what you do because it's coming from us. It's QA'd by us. It's managed by us as official content and then put up and made available."
Another source of uncertainty regarding Creation Club involves pricing. Bethesda's initial announcement referred to Credits that can be purchased and then used to buy this content. With no specific Creation Club content announced, Hines didn't have any prices to announce, although he did provide some sense for the scope of what you can expect to see.
"Ultimately we'll see the stuff that comes up, but it's not meant to be high price point stuff; it's supposed to be small things you can add to your game," he said. "The price points will vary. We'll figure that out as we go along. Honestly, it's all dependent on what the folks who are working on this want to create. They get to pitch, 'I want to make this thing, I want to make that thing.' And then it gets approved and they start working on it. If they're a modder that's been accepted, they're no longer a modder. They're now a game developer. Once they get greenlit, they're getting paid like any other developer that works on our stuff."
The popular theory that the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises exist in the same universe is a bunch of malarkey. That's according to Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines, who told GameSpot today that he's aware of the talk, but pointed out that Fallout 1 and 2 were made by Interplay before Bethesda acquired the franchise and made Fallout 3 and 4.
"I haven't the foggiest of notion how anybody could make the leap that they are in fact part of the same thing," he said. "We made Elder Scrolls, and a completely different developer and publisher came up with Fallout, which we then acquired. So how did they ..."
Timelines can be wacky; just look at The Legend of Zelda. But Bethesda did not adjust the story after acquiring Fallout to set up a story that the worlds are connected. "No, I don't think there's any universe in which those universes are in the same universe. That's not a thing."
People have found what they believe are references to Fallout and Elder Scrolls existing in the same universe, such as items and elements of one world showing up in the other. But whatever evidence is out there is not the real deal, Hines confirmed to us today.
GameSpot's conversation with Hines covered a number of other topics, including how Creation Club will work, when we'll see The Elder Scrolls 6, and more. Check back soon for more from GameSpot's interview with the marketing boss.
If you're in the mood to play some iconic Capcom titles this week, Humble Store has a sale for you. This weekend, tons of Capcom games are up to 80% off, including many Resident Evil titles.
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