E3 2017: We Talk Over the Bethesda Press Conference

Wolfenstein 2 definitely is my top highlight of E3 so far, though there's a lot more to see this week. Hilarious, charismatic, weird, and downright chilling (and sadly relevant), this game's personality, world building, and look are so strong. I haven't been this intrigued by a video game in a long time.

Random thought: It was cool to hear a Duran Duran song in a video game trailer, though it was a somber cover. I was hoping we could make it through E3 without a somber cover, but Bethesda really poured it on during their presentation.

I think there's a LOT of value in saying "this is all coming out this year." And they showed a broad array of games from multiple genres, and none of them could be confused for the other. So in these ways Bethesda did a very good job. I liked the conference a lot.

But... There was no knockout punch in my mind. If they had ended it by saying, "All of the games we've shown will be in your hands this year. But before we go, here's something to look forward to for 2018..." cut to trailer for whatever space game Brad was hoping for, that would have been a better cap.

Also considering the success of the Fallout mobile game last year, I'm a little surprised that they didn't hold back the Elder Scrolls: Legends go-live for Steam/Mac/Android to coincide with the conference as a "GO GET IT RIGHT NOW" moment, with a special E3 booster pack or something.

Saw the Skyrim Switch stuff and wasn't interested (played through that game twice now)... than I saw the Amiibo support... if there a Waluigi costume, am in (Yoshi Woolly World did this, and well... Yoshi amiibo costumes are great, and scary(in a way) at the same time).

The Wolfenstein trailer saved this from being a massive waste of time. I'm glad I decided to go to sleep instead of trying to watch this live. The games look great, and I'm happy that Bethesda is making them, but nothing here deserved a "press conference."

I couldn't help but notice that the Dishonored 2 expansion trailer reused the "Drunken Sailor" song from trailers of the first game. The Evil Within trailer also reminded me of the movie Nuovomondo, which I also found kind-of creepy back in 2006.

oof. dat wolfy's stein.

Dan asked what the controversy about paid mods had been. The controversy is easy to understand. (Talking about the first attempt.) They took something, using the then-current space for it (Steam Workshop), did absolutely nothing to improve the service in any way, and started charging for something that had traditionally been free for decades. (The price and whether there would be a price at all was up to mod authors, sure, but you get the jist.)

At least with this new attempt, it's a completely separate service/platform and they're not invading what's already been established. I wouldn't be surprised if in, like, a decade, after a few more games of theirs come out and use this mod service, it becomes the ONLY officially supported way to mod their games and you have to do underground hacky stuff to mod in the old way. Once they phase people into the idea.

They didn't have enough there to hold a conference. Even Wolfenstein as amazing as it was, had huge issues. The montage of scenes was cut together poorly and saved only by individual scene being amazing.

There was nothing there that could not have been shown on the show floor as a series of videos. Wolfenstein being amazing (maybe the hottest game at e3), does not forgive wasting an hour of people's night at 8PM PST. People's time should be handled as if it precious as a sign of respect.

When you don't have enough to announce, DON'T hold a press conference/stage show.

@monkeyking1969: GB crew covered this in the past but i think they need to maintain their spot by holding the conference every year even when it's thin like 2017 has turned out to be. Personally I liked it, short and to the point. Not the biggest catalogue this year but I'm fine with that. Better than shitting out another assassins creed or tower climbing simulator like other publishers.

I like Bethesda and everything, but like... I dunno, it seems really unnecessary for them to have their own press conference.

Kind of a lame duck presentation if you ask me. I didn't make it more than 2 hours into The New Order so another Wolfenstein gets a shrug out of me unless I go back and finish it for real. Still don't have VR, another shrug. Didn't play Evil Within, Fallout 4, or Prey so that's more shrugs. I was never good at Quake multiplayer and back in the day my ping was horrible, I just don't know how this classic deathmatch format can compete in a market where Battlegrounds is running wild. I put like at least 100 hours into vanilla Skyrim and spent a little time on the expansions....like 4 years ago on 360... As fun and goofy as the mod scene looks from the outside, at some point you're turning the game into a toy and that's not what I like about those games. I'll take clean faces, big booties, and Macho Man dragons, but at the same time I don't want to start over on a seemingly busted console version of a game I've long since beaten. If anything this conference is indicative of my feelings towards Bethesda games in general, which is to say I'm running out of steam on just about all of their properties except for Doom. Give us more Doom.

New Order spoilers.

In true Bethesda fashion, that was one FUGLY link model.

Wolfenstein 2 looks so good.

But the fact that that's the standout game from E3, proves that it's gonna be a really weak year for AAA titles

Glad to hear the Giant Bomb staff find Wolfenstein 2 to be the best game shown at E3 so far. I expected it to be released next year, but I'll take this year gladly!

@mitchuation: That's specifically a spot on the actual E3 show floor they are talking about there, not the conferences. They can hold one of those whenever they like, E3 time or not.

Wished something significant was shown of the Starfield development.

Wolfenstein looks real promising, but disappointed with the conference overall, just kind of seems like more of the same stuff from last year. Also it's being said a lot, but Skyrim is S-I-X years old, can't say I'm still interested in a new playthrough cosplaying as Link

That dude dropping acid and talking to an imaginary lizard as a pregnant woman stabs a Nazi to death sold me on Wolfenstein II.

Bethesda probably could have skipped doing an event this year considering how light it was but the new Wolfenstein is pretty great and their best thing from last night.

@passivespiral: Agree 100%

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...oh was there a conference going on?

That cover of Ordinary World was awful.

This press conference is more of a Nintendo Direct than a Press Conference.

Man that first Evil Within could have been great, if the story and game parts weren't terrible. I really, really hope tEW2 fixes that because it was absolutely gorgeous and had some pretty imaginative design.

@billymaysrip said:

Yeah, and I thought it was odd the crew didn't catch that somber cover. They've caught all the somber covers of other songs so far I think.

Despite not being personally into most of the games shown here, I was really entertained by this press conference.

@Quicklyer: to be fair it's Drunken Whaler

@andrew2696:

Yeah, I don't know man. Nazi Magic.

@chummy8: You thought they were done with Nazi magic in Wolfenstein 2009...

YOU WERE WRONG!

@huckleberrysassacre said:

That's actually pretty cool they changed the lyrics to fit the story/lore. I really need to play that sequel.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus looks crazy. I'll have to keep an eye on that

This was entertaining. I liked most of the games. I liked that it's all stuff coming out this year. I get no joy hearing rumors and watching vague clips of things coming out in two or three years.

Unlike most of the commenters, I really liked that most of it was a video package. The live presenters reading their teleprompters and pausing to wait for audience reaction always makes me cringe. I want to fast forward through the live people (though I don't, I'm always WANTing to). So even though the Disneyland/Bethesdaland thing was just eh as a wrapper, it's still better than any live person stumbling through stilted lines. But I guess I'm in the minority there.

Other than Wolfenstein, Beth didn't show much, or need much in the way of presenting. No wonder Howard stayed home to go to his kid's graduation. However, I do think I need to replay New Order now.

I don't think that afros were a thing until the late 60's and not the early 60's.

Oh man all this talk about hexen and kingpin brought me back to when I got my mom to buy our first computer from gateway and the guy threw in a huge bundle of games. I got hexen, kingpin, quake 2 and a few others. I felt like such a little badass playing kingpin with my headphones on so my parents couldn't hear what they were saying.

Honestly, I feel like they're desperate to have SOMETHING to release - somewhat consistently - over the next 5+ years while they completely redo the engine from the ground up for their mainline RPGs, before the release the next "full" installment of ES of Fallout.

That sucks, but it's VERY needed. I hate waiting that long for their RPGs... but it's better than, for the first time ever, not even being able to stomach my way through F4 - for example. I couldn't take anymore of the sameness. And I played all the previous ES/Fallout games to death when they were released, including most DLC... I did try F4, too, and I tried to force myself to enjoy it... I just never had fun with it over 10+ hours and quit. I watched a buddy play parts of it further in the game, but I could tell, I had run out of patience for the sameness of those games and even the really cool stuff you see later in that game couldn't make up for the monotony of the rest, just due to the factor of "I've already played this game with different textures and a better story 10 times now, for over 1000 hours!"

Dan mentions Matt Hazard far too much. I don't think anyone else uses it as a point of reference the way he does lol.