E3 2016

The monolithic E3 Expo has come and gone for another year, showering us with exciting new trailers as often as it saddled us with toe-curling moments of cringe. We’ve rounded up the very best and the very worst of both for your stern appraisal.

Briefly: Batman: Arkham Knight developer Rocksteady has one last one encore for the series that made their name. The dev will release a VR experience based around their Arkham series in time for the PSVR’s launch.

Hideo Kojima appeared rather dramatically onstage during Sony’s E3 press conference to debut footage from his first game post-Konami. Death Stranding is currently in development at Kojima Productions and gives a rather cryptic glimpse at what’s to come.

Insomniac are no stranger to the superhero genre, having created the very enjoyable Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive a couple of years ago. It’s now returning to the genre with one of the most popular heroes in comics, and on an entirely different console.

Activision’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare remaster will be available to those who pre-purchase Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. If you have a PS4, you’ll be able to jump in sooner than everyone else.

Nintendo have debuted brand new gameplay footage, modes and monsters from their upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon titles during their E3 Nintendo Treehouse presentation this morning. 

Halo Wars 2 is set to launch on February 21, 2017 on both Xbox One and Windows 10. The game was announced during Microsoft’s E3 media event this morning, and was accompanied by a cinematic trailer.

The last time we saw Sea of Thieves, it was when it was debuted at E3 2015. Today, a year later, we finally got a good look at the game in action — a multiplayer title that sees teams of pirates face off against each other on the high seas and on land.

Compulsion Games took the stage at Microsoft’s E3 presser this morning to run through the introductory sequence to their psychadelic thriller We Happy Few. It’s grotesque and disturbing and weird and we can’t wait to play it.

Stardew Valley is on its way to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Wii U later this year according to an announcement by developer ConcernedApe. The news comes following a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance at today’s Xbox E3 2016 press event.

The Xbox E3 press brief answered the prayers of a number of fans this year with the addition of long-requested features, including a brand new competition platform called Arena.

Gears of War 4 is set to launch on Xbox One and Windows 10 at the same time. The news came right off the top of Microsoft’s E3 press brief earlier today. This will mark the first time a Gears game has arrived on both PC and console at launch.

This morning’s Xbox E3 press briefing saw a brief trailer from Ubisoft regarding the upcoming expansion for The Division. Called Underground, agents will delve beneath New York’s streets and tackle randomly generated missions

Confirming leaks from the last few days, Microsoft have revealed that General RAAM from Gears of War is indeed joining Killer Instinct on PC and Xbox One.

Keiji Inafune’s new game ReCore is set to launch on September 13. The news came, along with a new trailer, during Microsoft’s E3 presser.

It wouldn’t be a Microsoft press conference without an announcement for a Forza game. Playground Games are back with another entry in their exceedingly fun Forza Horizon series and this time the series takes its fictional driveclub to Australia.

Microsoft have unveiled a new initiative called Xbox Play Anywhere, a long awaited uniting of their Xbox One and Windows 10 platforms that allows games like Gears of War 4 to be purchased once and played on either platform and will track your progress and achievements across both.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands will launch March 7, 2017. The date was announced at Ubisoft’s E3 press event this morning, before the debut of the game’s latest gameplay trailer.

AMD only recently announced its new Radeon RX 480 graphics card, but have used a spot on the PC Gaming Show E3 press conference to unveil the remainder of its new RX series.

Amid the furore around Skyrim receiving some HD remaster love at yesterday’s Bethesda E3 press event, the publisher has been fielding questions from a curious media about a new installment in their storied Elder Scrolls series now that Fallout 4 is out the door. Their response: Don’t hold your breath.

Boss Key Productions is launching a closed alpha for their new shooter LawBreakers this weekend. The alpha, and a new trailer, were introduced by studio head Cliff Bleszinski during the PC Gaming Show E3 presser.

Being able to pilot Jason Voorhees around a virtual Camp Crystal Lake has been a long-held, deeply disturbed desire of mine. It seems Gun Media had the same thought because the trailer they just released for the game is beautiful as though pulled from my own imagination.

Microsoft closed out their press conference at E3 this morning by ending months of speculation regarding an upgraded Xbox One console with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer calling the machine “the next step change for gamers and developers.”

Microsoft have opened their E3 2016 press by confirming the long-rumoured updated Xbox One console. The Xbox One S is thinner, contains an internal power supply (no more brick!) and supports 4K video.

We all heard the stories, “Sony are working on a a more powerful PlayStation 4”, but now the company have finally appeared to confirm it.

Like last year, this year’s Bethesda press conference at E3 had one specific game it wanted to talk about. Dishonored 2 has been in development at Arkane for a while now and fans itching for a taste of the gameplay have been treated to a buffet.

Bethesda used most of their press conference at E3 last year to show off Fallout 4. This year, the game returned with a host of new features and DLC that set to be released throughout the rest of the year.

DOOM is set to recieve a torrent of fresh content over the next few months. That’s according to Marty Stratton from id Software who announced the rash of “new ways to play” at Bethesda’s pre-E3 press event earlier today.

Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls Legends, a Hearthstone-esque digital card game at last year’s E3 but they were ready to talk about more about it during their press event today. Shown off were a glimpse of gameplay and a trailer for the game’s new story mode.

On-again, off-again for about a decade now, Prey has been revived at Bethesda with Dishonored developer Arkane Studios at the helm. Rather than messing around with numbers or explanations, the game just goes by Prey.