by Eben Griger
With the release of “Bethesdaland” almost a month prior, Bethesda didn’t exactly keep it a secret what was coming in their E3 press conference. Pete Hines, the developer’s VP of Marketing, took the stage just long enough to give it up for the video presentation, which did the bulk of his work for him.
Virtual Reality was a hot item for Bethesda, with both Doom and Fallout 4 getting adaptations to the HTC Vive. Doom: VFR seemed to be a standalone, almost minigame-like, entity based off the 2016 reboot of the franchise, rather than a port of the game. Fallout VR seemed to be the opposite, with the full game able to be played in the Vive.
Bethesda made sure to remind us the Elder Scrolls Online was still in fact a thing, with a lengthy video about the game’s newest expansion Morrowind. The expansion was released a few days ago, and nothing new was shown about ESO as a whole, apart from quick cuts to concept renderings of what expansions are still coming in the future.
Next, Bethesda revealed the Creation Club, a mod aggregator. The menus seemed to be accessible even when in the games (Fallout 4 and Skyrim), and Bethesda noted that the mods featured in the Creation Club would be backed by Bethesda itself, not just modders, and compatible with saves, load right into the game, and would not disable achievements if used. These are all pretty great features if you like playing with mods, provided you don’t mind spending some new “credits” on these mods. No further information was given, but after the backlash paid Skyrim mods received on Steam back in 2015, the inclusion of this feature seems questionable at best.
Elder Scrolls Legends, the virtual card game based on the Elder Scrolls universe, is getting a Skyrim expansion, and is now coming to mobile devices.
Stealth-action game Dishonored makes its return in 2017, with the Death of the Outsider DLC for Dishonored 2. We see the return of Daud, one of the original game’s antagonists, and the possibility of a new protagonist Billie Lurk, as neither Corvo nor Emily Kaldwin were featured in the cinematic trailer.
The port everyone was waiting for was confirmed, Skyrim is coming to the Nintendo Switch. It was shown to offer some sort of Amiibo compatibility. The Link Amiibo was held up to the Switch, and the character in game received a Hyrule makeover, complete with tunic and Mastersword. No word on whether or not the Switch version supports mods, but if it wasn’t shown, I wouldn’t count on it.
We got more information on Quake: Champions, in that Wolfenstein protagonist and dual-wielder extraordinaire B.J. Blaskowitz is a playable character in the game, and that a $1 million tournament is being held at Quakecon this year.
The Evil Within 2 made both a cinematic and a gameplay debut during the conference. It looks to be just as creepy as the first one, complete with zombies, goo monsters, and an oh-so tortured protagonist. Slap on a release date of Friday the 13th, coupled with it being released in October (the spookiest of months), and you’ve got yourself one of the most intriguing reveals of the conference.
And finally, Bethesda revealed their piece de resistance, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. Taking place after The New Order, we see the return of B.J. Blaskowitz (who is quite tired from the Quake world championships) and a Nazi-run America. Also returning in the sequel, robot dogs, over-the-top weapons and a whole lot of ultra-violence. I won’t give too much information, because honestly the reveal is something worth watching for yourself, especially if you’re a fan of the first game. If you’re not a fan, but are still interested enough to want the run down, America has a Nazi problem, and it’s your job to turn that into the Nazis having a you problem.
Bethesda ended the conference saying that everything shown will release in 2017, but with the exception of Morrowind (already out), Death of the Outsider (9/5/17), The Evil Within 2 (10/13/17) and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (10/27/17), no exact dates were given.
Source(s): The Twitch stream
