We Talk Over the E3 2019 Bethesda Conference

Wouldn't be E3 without Lock Down.

Best thing about the Bethesda conference was dude trippin balls in the coffee shop.

And so many people thought Bethesda would not mention Fallout 76 in this presser.

The game has a poor image, and GB certainly didn't help, but it's still hours of fun for people in which the Fallout 4/76 gameplay loop clicks. The userbase might be smaller, but it's no anthem and it's as friendly as Todd says. I think my base was attacked only twice in 60 hours of play.

Glad to see they're still working on content, although I might skip Nuclear Winter, battle royales have never been fun to me.

So there's this other Commander Keen game out on Android. According to Google Play it was released on May 28, and the latest update was June 9. It has 100+ downloads and 4 user reviews.

Gallery

This seems too weird to be a coincidence, but it also doesn't look like it has anything to do with the game that was shown at the conference.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phonegap.keen

@rollout: They turned around ESO into what I think is a really good MMO. I have faith that Fallout 76 will be good as well.

@toxicantidote

That looks like a level from Commander Keen 6. Maybe this guy made levels based on those assets? I bet he flew under the radar, but now that Bethesda is doing their own Keen thing i bet that will be the end of this.

That said, man what a bummer that announcement is. That game has nothing in common with those old games. I always thought it was pretty cool that you had this overworld that sort of let you choose in which order you complete the levels, but some require an item from a specific level so it's kind of like a metroidvania in that way. And the pogo jumps were very satisfying.

YEAHHHHHHHHHH

WOOOOOOOOOOOO

This fakely enthusiastic audience is completely distracting. And Fallout 76 is still going to be garbage, just a bit more polished garbage.

Ben poking himself in the face with an eraser is one of my new favorite trends on giant bomb.

loved watching Jeff pop off right at the doom embargo lift XD

The phony-ass obnoxious paid audience members actually put me off even more than I already was on a lot of this shit. Especially with Fallout 76.

Also, regarding FO76 specifically: don't stand there and basically boast about all this shit being free when it's actually just a reasonable amount of content finally being added into the barebones trash you initially sold people. Shit ain't free, it's been paid for, it's just late.

Really dig the atmosphere of Ghostwire Tokyo.

Commander Keen looks like typical F2P mobile garbage. I'd literally rather play an emulated original Commander Keen on my phone.

Commander Keen fucked.

You absolutely cannot play ESO as a single player game. You have to deal with people playing the same quest you are constantly which means you have to wait for the boss to respawn, all the chests are empty and if you stand in one place to long the enemies respawn. I hate that they made this garbage instead of a single player game and they did it for that fucking subscription money they think they can get by making the game your social life.

Todd Howard does not deserve a standing applause after the Fallout 76 crap.

Fuck it I'm reinstalling Doom. Can't wait til November

Doom Eternal looks great but the first half of the show and crowd were the biggest negatives of Bethesda's conference.

As if Youngblood hadn't hooked into my interests enough, they use Carpenter Brut in the trailer. Very hyped.

I know these things are basically big rallies to show off how awesome your company is, but this one seemed REALLY manipulative. Like Jeff said, they laid shit on REALLY thick over a lot of it and it felt like they were treating their audience like idiots (hey, killing Nazis is REALLY, REALLY FUCKING COOL RIGHT?! HUH?!)

Doom Eternal looks great at least.

@rollout: Ye, as someone else who also enjoyed Fallout 76 quite a bit it was a bit off-putting to see them slam so hard on it. The whole human NPCs thing just sorta blows my mind. Is that really the thing that's gonna change that game for you ? Does the fact that instead of a robot NPC or a pre-recorded message there's an animated human NPC spouting the same lines really change what the game is ? There are many other big issues you can have with the game, but the fact that there's no human NPCs is so surface level. (also, as a reminder, one of the best story-lines in Fallout 4 is the one that's all based on pre-recorded messages with very little NPC interaction.)

You can criticize the poor multiplayer activities, or the bad enemy design, or the minimal amount of cool storylines, or the technical issues all day long, but none of it will be noticeably improved purely by the fact that there are now human NPCs in the game.

Jeff's enthusiasm for Doom Eternal gives me life.

@machofantastico: Absolutely with you on this. I can't stand that fake ass enthusiasm.

This conference just makes me want to play Doom again.

@rocketskates: I thought that was Carpenter Brut! The stand out band amongst the unholy amount of synthwave bands that all sound the same.

Jesus, the Bethesda audience continues to be the absolute fucking worst and make their press conference near impossible to watch.

The cheering is bloody unbearable!

Is the audio stopping for anybody else or is it cause I’m watching on a iPhone over cellular?

You guys should play Doom again. It's still awesome.

I think Blades is pretty good. It hasn't miraculously brought Skyrim to my phone or anything, but it's a pretty good "waiting at the bus stop" game. I check my last chest, finish construction on a building, kill some goblins, and queue up another chest and building for later. I think the problem people run into is that if you want to play it like a regular ES game you'll run face first into the monetization;it's not really designed for long play sessions like that.

If you want a complete Elder Scrolls experience on the go you should probably check out Skyrim on the Switch, if you've got 10 minutes that need filling every couple of hours Blades is pretty good for that.

@ian280291: I’m having the same issue with audio popping in and out, also not synced up once it does pop in. Also on iPhone.

Read this comment and thought - yeah, there's fake cheering every year, it can't be that bad can it?

Then I watched the conference. Fuck...it's so poorly done by Bethesda

Shinji Mikami says something in Japanese - WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Doom Eternal looks beyond stellar but I still can't help but think they are completely off their rocker when it comes to game modes for online multiplayer. Their Doom Slayer mode was a huge wasted potential when everyone just wants to play Doom multiplayer you fucking goons at id how haven't you figured that shit out yet? People still play old Doom because it is one of the fastest paced multiplayer games but noooo let us just shoe horn in this weird ass 2 v 1 mode instead of Oh I dont know a million other modes that have made Doom/Quake what they are today. Let us just ignore the fact all we want to do is frag one another and not have to think about anything else like power ups or whatever.

32 player deathmatch, make it happen id

Oof, that "Yeaaah!!" for the wasteland couldn't have sounded more planned lol.

Yeah, Fallout 76 is what gives us hope lol

Plus grown men getting off on saying fuck like middle schoolers.

Bethesda should not be bragging about game engine technology....

Man, once I really heard that loud motherfucker in the front row, I couldn't stop hearing him for the entire rest of the shitting conference

Feels like the audience shills are way more prevalent this year for them and Microsoft. Probably gonna be like that with the next conferences

@flynntowin: yep - same issue here on an iPad over wifi.

What a completely awful press conference. The whole thing felt like a tone-deaf, desperate, and heavy handed PR damage control with the constant reminders that they're all human like us and how they're not bad people and how it's a "we" instead of "us and them", but at the same time treating the audience like complete idiots and using terribly forced jokes to address all the dumpster fire mess they've been into lately. Bethesda's humor and atitude has always been bad but they somehow managed to be even worse this year.

They often come off as completely delusional, specially Todd Howard acting like it was just a small bump on the road and everything's perfect now. Not to mention the repeat of the obnoxious "Nazis are bad amirite guys" segment they've been using in the last 5 conferences as an extremely obvious way to make people like them again. Of course they are bad! I already know I can kill Nazis in a Wolfenstein game, now move on and talk about what's different with this one!

The announcements for Fallout 76 are a complete joke, everything announced should've been released with the game at launch. Doom Eternal seems cool but it's not really the type of game I'm interested in. Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo were the only things that caught my attention.

Also, that audience was most likely a big amount of Bethesda employees, the different groups of people who stood up for different games definitely felt like the people who worked on each game and were happy for it. Either that or Bethesda paid people to cheer or they turned into a cult. There's no way someone could be genuinely that enthusiastic about such a shitty conference.

Upset that there was no Sisqo appearance at Bethesda.

Nerd crowds are still the worst.

The last thing I want from a Fallout game is good gunplay. That's what was wrong with Fallout 4. That, and the base building.

Bethesda employees ruined this conference.

When GOTY season rolls by, you guys should shoot interstitials to mimic these super-produced conference reels of sentimental gamers and big Just Dance numbers.

Maybe its just me, but all of those people constantly screaming was cringy AF.

spooky

Shouting dude should have been ejected!

Alex's band shirt choices are always on point.

Whilst there are always the paid stooges at conferences Bethesda takes it to a higher level and damn it was irritating as hell, they really must think Gamers are dumb as shit and would buy into it all.

We may know, but the one really loud screaming asshole shouting through THE ENTIRE CONFERENCE was only quiet during the part where they said, "You get to kill Nazis!". Dude took all of less than an hour to milkshake duck himself.

Brad is giving Todd Howard a lot of leeway here. He barely said anything and Fallout 76 wasn't just like a "not so great launch" it was a complete disaster. They kind of just shrugged it off like it's all great now!

Jeff's Nuclear Winter face was fantastic.

Wow, I thought the Xbox conference was bad. This is unbearable.