This year’s E3 provided us with a good look at what the next year and a half or so of gaming is going to look like and overall, we’re optimistic. We’ve already started stashing away money so people don’t judge us for our spending habits. If people ask, we’ll say we’re investing in clean energy startups or something, but really we’re basically being kidnapped by our consoles. But when upcoming games look this good, can you blame us?
Here are the 9 games from E3 we’re most excited about.
Marvel’s Spider-Man
September 7
We can’t think of a game we’ve been this excited for for this long. Everything about this upcoming Spider-Man game keeps us on the hype train. Web swinging looks entertaining enough that we could get lost in Manhattan’s high rises for hours. Combat looks like the Arkham system with decidedly Spider-Man tweaks. The visual set pieces have real weight and power behind them. Even the suit is enough to get us bought into this game. And we’re not getting strung along with in-engine pre-renderings. These are demos and gameplay demonstrations we’re talking about. We’ve been seeing clips for two years now and we haven’t seen anything discouraging in all that time. Only three more months until we actually get to play it. Trailer
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
September 14
Turning Lara Croft from a polygonal sex symbol into a functional, intelligent, self-sufficient, normally proportioned adventurer was one of the best decisions ever made in gaming. Instead of fans playing the game to get some weird fetish out of their system, players once again have a rewarding, engaging series on their hands. The best puzzle and atmospheric bits from the early games has been distilled and mixed with modern action set pieces and technology, and we’re loving every minute of it. A lot of what we’ve seen so far takes place in Latin America, which is cool, and there looks to be ancient Mayan civilizations that survived to the modern age, which is really cool. It’s also a mystery we look forward to piecing together. Trailer
Overkill’s The Walking Dead
November 6
The Walking Dead doesn’t have great a record with video games. Most releases have been shallow attempts to cash in on a waning cultural phase, with Telltale’s The Walking Dead being the main thing that’s keeping the name out of the gaming dumpster. Overkill’s The Walking Dead looks like it’s going to pick up some of the slack though. It’s a four-player survival FPS based on the same comics as the TV show and Telltale’s playable comic book. In fact, anyone who’s played the Left for Dead series will find something familiar about the game. We don’t mean it’ll be a straight up copy, since the developers have definitely played Left for Dead and know what plagiarism is. We just mean it’s similar in core idea. Mostly we’re excited for a more mainstream Walking Dead release that doesn’t make us vomit in our shoes. Trailer
Fallout 76
November 14
We disclosed our full thoughts on Fallout 76, or at least a fuller version of them, in a different post only a few days ago, so we won’t go into a ton of detail here. What we will say is this. There’s a lot to be excited about in Fallout 76 and we think it’s going to succeed is unexpected ways. Everyone’s pulling for this game to succeed, including the developers (obviously), hardcore fans (maybe more obviously), casual players, and people who couldn’t care at all. The last group mostly because all the Fallout fans will finally go back into video game hovels and they can have their real world back. But who knows, maybe those non-playing people will hear the music and come to their senses about massive open world, post-apocalyptic multiplayer games with an obsessively welcoming fan base. Trailer
Maneater
2018
An action RPG where you play as a bloodthirsty shark isn’t an idea we’d ever think of, but we love it now that we’ve heard it. There aren’t a whole lot of details available beyond that idea either, which would normally be worrisome, except this seems too crazy of an idea to be poorly executed. The world’s just not that unfair. And from what we’ve heard, a lot of thought has been put into the customization of the player’s shark. This isn’t a crapped out game that relies on a single quirk. Supposedly, it’s a deep aquatic experience akin to watching Jaws from the shark’s point of view, but where you also get to help the shark not get caught. Trailer
Doom Eternal
Late 2018
Of all the franchises we didn’t expect would age or adapt well in the 21st century, Doom was high up on the list. We figured it was going to be one of those nostalgic series we occasionally picked up when we wanted to see what the modding community was up to. Then Doom came out in 2016 and we never loved heavy metal and gore so much. It was a thrill ride from beginning to end. That bodes well for the sequel, which doesn’t have the element of surprise on its side, but it doesn’t seem like it needs it. The developers know exactly what fans liked about the rerelease, so they’re promising to just do more of that. More demons, more settings, more running, and more gunning. Don’t overthink Doom and you’ll find yourself enjoying it. Trailer
Ghost of Tsushima
TBD (Speculated Late 2018)
There are historical eras we never knew we wanted games set in, and 13th century feudal Japan is one of them. Ghost of Tsushima promises to go there and bring us with it in a big way. The player will follow Jin, one of the few samurai who survived the Mongol invasion of the island of Tsushima. As of right now, the news we have doesn’t seem to point to one specific genre. It sounds like it’s going to mix together action, stealth, RPG, strategy, and possibly supernatural elements to create a game all its own. It’ll be PS4 exclusive and sounds like one of those games that’s going to convert a hell of a lot of people. Trailer
The Last of Us: Part II
TBD
The Last of Us: Part II has some big shoes to fill. The first game in the series consistently ranks among the best PS3 (and PS4) games of all time and for good reason. The game has one of the best written plots of any video game, engaging characters you truly cared for, and a suspenseful setting that will influence gaming for years. Obviously, we’re all in for a sequel. What we’re wary about is that no release date has been announced. We’ve gotten teases in 2016, 2017, and now 2018, but no one’s talking about a firm date. Hopefully this isn’t one of those situations where we get a decade of trailers before the game fizzles out. Trailer
The Sinking City
March 21, 2019
Lovecraftian horror isn’t a phrase normally associated with immediate and widespread success, but there’s enough to love in there that people shouldn’t dismiss it completely. Really, we’d say initial impressions have more in common with Bioshock than anything really fantasy or nerd heavy. The game follows a private investigator who comes to Oakmont, Massachusetts, to find out more about the supernatural horrors of the city. Presumably, you can’t simply shoot your way through the inhabitants of the city, as is the case for most horror games. Instead, it will most likely be closer to an open-world Outlast or Amnesia, where the only way to make the scary stuff go away is to complete your investigation. It’s an approach that sits a little better with us and definitely makes for a more compelling game. Trailer
