Sony comes into this year's E3 as the clear industry leader. They may have spent last year more or less coasting, but the strong work they put it to build a stable of solid first-party studios has paid off in spades, and this years God of War continued the streak. Really, all they had to do was not fuck it up. So, did they manage to not fuck it up?
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| A joke that never gets old, by Alanah Pearce |
Sony's E3 press conference did some... creative, shall we say? things with its format, which were more bewildering than impressive. Much like last year, actually, when Sony used creative lighting and a full symphony orchestra to propel the proceedings, which also left some scratching their heads. Breaking the momentum of their show while they moved people from one room to another was clearly not a good idea, though; and talented as he was, the banjo player was also clearly not as effective as last year's full symphony orchestra. Yes, it's good to see a company of Sony's size take some creative risks, but the poor logistics should have been obvious, here.
Once they finally stopped walking attendees from room to room, though, and started showing them actual games, things started to pick up.
Yes, there was a lot more shown of the upcoming Last of Us: Part Two, which starkly contrasted moments of tender young love with moments of brutal, visceral violence, very much on-brand for the series. There was more detail about the upcoming Death Stranding, too -- enough to sustain interest, but likely not enough to spoil any of the surprises, since Kojima is still playing his cards pretty close to his chest on this one. Both games showed actual gameplay, too: nice.
There were new games, too, like Ghosts of Tsushima -- apparently Samurai are in vogue, or something, although this game does look rather different than Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Control, a third-person sci-fi game from Remedy, looks like a solid combination of creepy, surreal, and action-packed, with strong Prey vibes. And, again, gameplay footage in both trailers, which Sony seems to realize is a good thing; you'd think other press events would include more of it.
There were also surprises, like Nioh 2, which I'm pretty sure nobody saw coming. There was a little more detail about Kingdom Hearts III; and a new From Software game called Déraciné, although few details. They even showed off a PSVR game, Trover Saves the Universe, but otherwise didn't say much about VR, which puts them in step with the rest of the VR industry.
They closed on an high note, too, with Insomniac’s Spider-Man, coming out in September and looking like a lot of fun. All in all, once you got past the failed experiment of the presentation, Sony's press conference appears to have pressed all the right buttons for all eighty-some million of Sony's fans, although the fact that most of what they announced will not make its way out of the PS3 ecosystem will make it less broadly impactful than it might be. Overall, though, a solid performance.
Final Grade: B.
Sony will probably be said to have "won" E3, even though their event wasn't the best of them; they're the industry leaders, right now, and they did enough to stay the industry's leaders, which is probably good enough. I can't mark them down too much for taking a creative risk that flopped, when it comes to their format; at least they tried something different, and they can't all be winners. The format didn't manage to detract too much from the message, which was a tight, focused blast of all the good stuff that PS4 owners have to look forward to, both during 2018 and into the more distant future, which should help continue to sell PS4's. And that is, after all, the point.
So, how did E3 overall fare? With Devolver Digital's savagely satirical take on E3 itself stealing the show (A+), Microsoft's solid presentation and a slew of news which will impact the whole industry for years (A-), and both Sony (B) and Bethesda (B) turning in solid shows, only Nintendo (D), Square Enix (F) and EA (F) truly lowered the bar this year; Ubisoft (C+) was almost exactly average. Overall, there seems to have been more good than bad; at least people aren't walking away wondering if E3 is still relevant, which has happened before.
Overall Grade for E3: C+.
The good ones were really quite good, and the outright manipulation stuff was kept to a minimum, but two F's and a D will bring down your GPA.
I'd say that E3's biggest loser this year, even more than EA, would have to be VR. Only Bethesda are still "all in" on VR; Sony, who still have the best-selling VR gaming platform by far, only showed one new VR title, and nobody else even mentioned it... including Microsoft, which is slightly weird considering that Microsoft-branded VR headsets are a thing.
[Updated: I'd missed Ubisoft, before, and have added them now.]