Selective Comments on the “E3 Month” Press Conference of Various Manufacturers

Original link: https://markonreview.com/2022/07/04/summary-of-showcases-in-traditional-e3-month/

Paying attention to the E3 video game exhibition in June every year and receiving the bombing of the latest game information may be a habit that many players have established in the past ten years. With the development of the global epidemic, “pre-show conference + offline trial play” “The offline E3 mode has not yet returned, but the inertia of a wave of publicity since June seems to be still passed down in the industry. After sorting out the various press conference schedules in the past month, the author will summarize the relevant content that is most interesting and worth discussing. I hope this article can help you access the information you need.

Notable releases

Sony State of Play

State of Play is a new video program launched by Sony in 2019. Its positioning is somewhat similar to the “face-to-face meeting”. It is generally used to reveal the latest software and hardware information of the PlayStation ecosystem. The latest episode of the program was released on June 3. The “Summer Games Festival” kicked off. The author believes that there are at least a few of the most memorable points of this conference:

• PlayStation VR2’s new round of early momentum. According to the information that began to be released at the end of last year, Sony submitted a new patent for PS VR2 as early as early 2021, and suddenly exposed the shape design of the second-generation hardware in February this year, confirming that PS VR2 has many performance indicators. Upgrades: new controller, 4K HDR, 90 / 120Hz refresh rate, 110° field of view, eye tracking, inside-out tracking by surface camera… This State of Play still hasn’t disclosed the price and release Window and other more critical information, but Sony has made some positive promises about the content ecology of PS VR2, such as Horizon, Resident Evil, The Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead are expected to debut. A large number of 3A-level IP escorts such as No Man’s Sky may be able to win a better start than a generation of VR.
• Best Away Guest Capcom. Taking advantage of Sony’s platform, Capcom has brought out two heavy secrets: one is a completely remade version of “Resident Evil 4”. After so many years of howling in the community, it is finally the fourth generation’s turn to withstand the RE engine and more mature production concepts. The other is “Street Fighter 6 (Street Fighter 6)”, which wants to step out of a new way. In addition to the adjustment and upgrade of the audio-visual style, this work can be described as a heart-to-heart expression to attract more players. The desire to enter the fighting category, innovatively adding a novice-friendly operation mode, and trying to enrich the experience of single-player stories, I wonder if these measures can make players more comfortable and immersed in the world of “Street Fighter”, especially those because of Those who are discouraged by the operating threshold.
• The new trailer for “FINAL FANTASY XVI” is stunning. The producer of this work, Naoki Yoshida, revealed the news that the new trailer was coming out as early as the beginning of May (and was later complained by his own public relations), and a month later, we saw the new console exclusive work on State of Play as scheduled. The screen, especially contains a large number of hot battle scenes, there are demonstrations of the protagonist’s action and gameplay, and there are also a series of classic summoned beasts fighting each other, which can indeed arouse the community’s expectations. In addition, according to a related interview issued later this month, Yoshida Naoki and his team said that this game is not an open world, no longer staying behind the command system (FFXV:?), the current development progress is good, and it will be seen in 2023.

Netflix Geeked Week 2022

Netflix Geeked Week is an announcement column with a clear target audience. Last year’s first Shangguan announcement included “League of Legends: Battle of the Two Cities (Arcane)”, “The Cuphead Show!” and “The Cuphead Show!” A large number of ACGN adaptation projects such as The Witcher live-action series are released around a specific label every day, covering IPs of various themes such as medieval, sci-fi, fantasy, etc., especially highlighting that Netflix wants to be as soon as possible in the past two years. The attitude of cutting into the game field. Previously, IGN published an article to sort out important releases throughout the week . Readers who need more detailed information are welcome to read it. This article will briefly summarize, focusing on the fifth day with the most game-related content:

• The first day – “Series” , introduced the development progress of “One Piece”, “Resident Evil”, “Sandman”, “The Umbrella Academy” and other series.
• The next day , “Film,” released information on numerous Netflix-produced films, including The Gray Man, directed by the Russo brothers, starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, and (John Wick)” vampire film starring Jamie Foxx, Zack Snyder’s sci-fi film “Rebel Moon”, and more.
• The third day – “Animation” , the author is very concerned about the “Cyberpunk 2077 (Cyberpunk 2077)” derivative animation “Cyberpunk Edgerunner” created by Trigger led by Imaishi Hiroyuki It is confirmed that it will be launched in September this year. The story takes place during the same period as the game’s main mission “The Pickup”. In addition, the new work “Masters of the Universe”, Ito Junji’s new work, “King Kong: Skeleton” were also released on the same day. New news on Kong: Skull Island spinoff series, episode four of The Dragon Prince and more animated series.
• Day 4 – “Stranger Things” , a special card for a special IP, to carry on the show’s fourth season hit, Netflix for the upcoming second half of the season (Volume 2) After warming up, I took stock of the contents of Volume 1, and then broadcasted a live D&D running of the main creators.
• Finally came the fifth day ─ “Gaming” , the content released on that day can be simply divided into three categories, the first category is “game change drama”, the IP displayed on the spot includes “Dragon Age”, “Tea Cup” “Head”, “Tekken”, “DOTA”, etc. The second category is “drama-to-game”, Netflix film and television IP such as “The Queen’s Gambit” like to mention gamification, and the third category is more Many non-adapted games that will be included in Netflix’s mobile game subscription service, including new and old titles such as “Reigns: Three Kingdoms”, “Poinpy”, “Terra Nil”, “Spiritfarer” and “Raji”.

Summer Game Fest Main Stage + Day of the Devs

Summer Game Fest is an online game promotion brand founded by game media person Geoff Keighley in 2020. The Sony and Microsoft conferences mentioned in this article are all part of this loose game festival, and the broadcast on June 9 is The “Main Stage” event hosted by Geoff, the information density of the more than two-hour press conference is not particularly high, and the author mainly picks out these highlights worthy of review:

• “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” is the second work after the restart of the “Modern Warfare” sub-series (“two” uses Roman numerals), and the development team is still responsible for the original version Infinity Ward, tentatively scheduled to be released in October this year. A newly released trailer for the event showcases new looks for Sergeant “Soap” and Lieutenant “Ghost”, the two remaining characters from the Modern Warfare franchise – Captain John Price, “Gaz” Shi – Although it has not yet appeared, it has also been confirmed that it will return in this work. I don’t know what the fate of these most famous characters in the history of “Call of Duty” will be this time.
• Bloober Team has released an early preview of its new first-person psychological horror series “Layers of Fears” . This work has the same name as the first generation of the series. It will be developed using Unreal Engine 5 and will absorb the experience foundation laid by the previous three series of works. , extending the experience of the old game, not a simple remake.
• “Marvel’s Midnight Suns” , which is determined to be released in October this year, has announced a new trailer. This work is produced by Firaxis Games, the developer of the “XCOM” series, and is a turn-based strategy game. , adapted from the comic book “Rise of Midnight Sons”, heroes from organizations such as “Midnight Sons” and “Avengers” will face off against the demons who ended their slumber and pulled the “Hydra” from the grave Lilith, Mother of Demons, in this preview we can even see Lilith transforming powerful heroes such as Venom, Hulk, Storm into her own thugs .
• The Callisto Protocol, which was first revealed at The Game Awards 2020, will finally be released in December this year. This game is developed by Striking Distance Studios, led by Glen Schofield, the original producer of Dead Space. , and Krafton, who owns the studio, is in charge of publishing. After the debut of State of Play, this work released more real machine demos at this press conference, probably because it was the same producer, the demo clips showed the shooting feel, which is highly similar to “Dead Space”. Factors such as the degree of bloodshed and the shaping of the environmental atmosphere, I don’t know whether the final product can fulfill the Haikou that Schofield boasted – “the most terrifying next-generation game”.
• The “True DLC” “The Delicious Last Course” of the side-scrolling barrage game “Cup Head” is once again on stage to promote, this work with wonderful hand-painted retro animation as one of the core selling points, presented The number of drawings in an animation is comparable to the expansion of this article. It was officially released on June 30. It’s time to suffer.
• Naughty Dog has announced a slew of The Last of Us IP. The first is “The Last of Us Part I”, which was tragically destroyed at the last moment before the press conference. It is no longer a high-definition re-engraving, but a new generation with the concept and technology of the second generation. The title suffix is ​​also unified with “Part” at the beginning. This work not only greatly improves the audio-visual effect of the original game, but also greatly adjusts the image and temperament of many characters, making it closer to the development team’s conception of this apocalyptic world view, looking at thecomparison In thevideo , the author can’t help but sigh at the passage of time and the rapid progress of technology, and I really did not expect that memory can decorate the level of the original picture to such an extent. In addition, early information on the multiplayer battle game “The Last Survivor” and HBO’s live-action drama under development was also disclosed at the press conference. After the main stage event hosted by Geoff, the live broadcast of Day of the Devs started immediately. This is an event focusing on the announcement of independent games. This year also happens to be its tenth anniversary, and it will be introduced in less than an hour. There are 16 works, and I will not list them all here. Welcome to watch the live broadcast or read the text record compiled by Polygon . One more thing to mention, the one I personally like the most is “How to Say Goodbye”, which debuts at the end. It has a concise and lively illustration style and seems to tell a story related to “accepting death”.

Devolver Direct 2022

Devolver Digital’s publicity program still maintains the familiar self-healing style, interspersed with a large number of exaggerated and grotesque live-action performances between several trailers, incorporating complaints about popular concepts in some industries, intentionally or unintentionally. Unique distribution taste. This year’s “theme” is “Countdown”, because the “leader” pointed out that the countdown before the start of the main film has attracted a lot of popularity, so today I will do a pure countdown and do nothing else. The countdown turned out to be Goichi Suda (??) in a bipedal multifunctional robot, watching the portal here . In short, between the chaotic performances, Devolver introduced several new works to the players:

• “Cult of the Lamb” , from Massive Monster Games, an independent studio formed by veterans of the Flash era, is a top-down work with a screen style similar to “Don’t Starve”, which combines simulation management, dungeons Action-adventure and other elements will be released in August this year;
• “Anger Foot” , a new masterpiece from Free Lives, the developer of “Broforce”, a first-person action shooting game, one foot, one gun, all the time, tentatively scheduled to be released in 2023, currently Demo is already online;
• “The Plucky Squire” , tentatively scheduled to be launched in 2023, the developer All Possible Futures is a new army established in 2019, this is their first production, the gameplay combines 2D and 3D Platform jumping, according to the information that has been disclosed so far, the game first starts from a fairy tale book. The protagonist moves in the scene depicted on the page. As the process progresses, the protagonist will be able to move to other adjacent surfaces (such as mugs). spray painting on the top), and even step into three-dimensional space and continue the adventure in the room;
• “Skate Story” , also expected to be released in 2023, from independent developer Sam Eng, looks rather odd, according to the promotion, the player plays a “glass” and “pain” demon, in the underground world Glide incessantly until you swallow the moon, and you’ll be liberated, passing through a variety of bizarre and fantastical scenes.

Microsoft Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase

After accepting Bethesda, on June 13, Microsoft held a press conference jointly titled by Xbox and Bethesda for the first time, replacing the Xbox Showcase before the previous E3 exhibition. Phil Spencer promised that the specific works mentioned at the press conference will be within one year. The release allows us to have a glimpse of the development of Microsoft’s game business in the next period. Here, I will only summarize some of the key content that I am more interested in. Here I mainly summarize the content of five sections:

• Industry cooperation of the Xbox brand : Two major highlights in this game, one is the cooperation with Riot Games, “League of Legends” PC and mobile games, “Legends of Runeterra” “Legends of Runeterra” Online games such as Teamfight Tactics and Valorant will be added to Game Pass, and Game Pass subscribers can also enjoy free unlocked heroes, decks, appearances and other benefits; the other is in rumors Years later, Hideo Kojima finally stepped on the Xbox speech stage and confirmed that he would cooperate with Microsoft to develop mysterious new products.
• Xbox Game Studios camp : INTERIOR/NIGHT, established in 2017, will launch a unique interactive film “As Dusk Falls” in July this year, and Obsidian Entertainment will launch the anticipated experimental sketch “As Dusk Falls” in September this year. Pentiment, Microsoft Flight Simulator’s 40th Anniversary Edition coming out this November, and the latest generation of Forza Motorsport’s immersive racing series, co-developed by Mojang and Blackbird Interactive Minecraft: Legends will be left for 2023.
• Activision Blizzard camp : The output from Blizzard IP was in full swing at this conference. For example, we brought us the latest information on “Overwatch 2” and “Diablo IV”, confirmed The PVP mode of “Overwatch 2” launched Early Access in October this year and adopted F2P mode of operation. Although “Diablo IV” will not be released until 2023, the fifth professional “Necromancer” was announced at the conference. “, gave more thoughts.
• Bethesda faction : Bethesda has come up with updates for older titles such as The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76, as well as a more detailed introduction to Redfall and Starfield. ” and other new works, especially “Starry Sky”, which debuted at the finale of this conference, the majority of players finally don’t need to look at the logo, concept painting, background introduction text to confuse this Bethesda with great concentration, accompanied by producer Todd Howard magnetically. Commentary, “Starry Sky” gave a nearly 20-minute real machine demonstration, “diarrhea-style” showing the first-person gameplay, process advancement, character creation and growth, building bases, customizing spaceships, managing NPC team members, exploring boundless space, etc. , enough to let players intuitively understand what kind of game “Starry Sky” will be.
• Third-party camp : There are two super-heavy announcements in the third-party IP that Microsoft chose to stage this time: one is the Three Kingdoms-themed hardcore action game “Wolong: Fallen Dynasty” from Team Ninja, and the second is The third, fourth and fifth generations of the “Persona” series, which have been long-awaited, will be launched on the Xbox and PC platforms one after another.

Square Enix FINAL FANTASY VII 25th Anniversary Celebration

SE hosted Final Fantasy VII’s 25th anniversary livestream on June 17, announcing the IP’s follow-up development plans:

• The second chapter of “Final Fantasy VII Remake” is tentatively scheduled to be released at the end of next year, and it will still land on PS5. The subtitle is replaced by “Remake” with “Rebirth”. The final chapter is under development; “Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade” will be available on Steam from now on. , the official also specifically explained its good support for Steam Deck.
• “Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis” will be launched on the mobile platform, basically free, and the test will be launched before the end of the year. The works in the “Final Fantasy VII Completion Plan” multimedia project will be gamified or re-interpreted, providing a convenient way to find out A good way to network the entire story of Seven Generations, after all, it’s a CG movie and a platform game.
• CORE CRISIS-FINAL FANTASY VII- REUNION (CORE CRISIS-FINAL FANTASY VII- REUNION) was finally officially released. The original game was released on the PSP platform in 2007 as a prequel to Final Fantasy VII. The refurbishment is expected to land on all platforms this winter.

Blizzard Overwatch 2: Reveal Event

After the grand unveiling on the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase, Blizzard held a reveal on June 17 to reveal the new form of “Overwatch 2” after the official launch. Also welcome to read the official Blizzard press release :

• If you don’t know it yet, let me remind you: the second generation changed from 6v6 to 5v5, removed a reload slot (and changed Doomfist to reload), so there are also a series of big changes for the location .
• The economic system of the second generation is closer to contemporary competitive games. In addition to changing to the F2P mode, “Overwatch 2” also canceled the mechanism of opening boxes and randomly obtaining props, and changed it to a pass (including free and paid rewards) that comes with the store. model.
• “Overwatch 2” currently plans to return to the update rhythm (or even more solid) when the first generation was released. New heroes will be released every season (about two months), and there will be three in the first season, of which two There’s a known damage Sojourn, a tank “Junker Queen,” and a silhouetted female ninja rumoured to be a support.

Nintendo Direct – Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special & Mini

Nintendo has always been famous for being elusive when confronted. No, there were two games on June 22 and 28:

• The previous one was a special event for “Xenoblade Chronicles 3”, which was scheduled to be released on July 29. This game was first released at the face-to-face meeting in February, which caused great repercussions in the global fan community. , this event gave a detailed explanation of the newer and more complex action and gameplay of this game, especially the combination skills and cross-professional skill combinations that are very attractive to fans, and also briefly touched on the rich open world elements of this game.
• The latter one gathered a lot of information about third-party works coming to the NS platform. @Kiririn has already sorted out the important information of this mini-face-to-face meeting . Welcome to watch it. This short face-to-face meeting contains a lot of shocking announcements: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal have just been announced for Xbox/PC. Persona 5 Royal)” will also follow the same pace to land on NS; “NieR: Automata” has prepared a version called “The End of YoRHa Edition” for the NS platform, which will be released in October this year. Another player who challenges the efficiency of NS transplantation is about to appear; the new turn-based strategy work “Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope”, a collaboration between Nintendo and Ubisoft, will be released within this year.

Bandai Namco Summer Showcase

Bandai Namco also held a game publicity event during the Summer Game Fest, revealing the latest information on its many ACGN adaptation series. The author has not yet found a live video or text record of the event. Interested friends can go to The official channel of Bandai Namco North America has collected the game trailers released after the noon of July 2. The author will sort it out a little here:

• “ONE PIECE ODYSSEY” has released a new real machine demonstration, you can see the main promotion methods of the game process, interface interaction design, combat mechanism, etc. This work is responsible for “Pokemon Crystal Pearl” /Bright Diamond’s ILCA is responsible for the development and is expected to be released within this year.
• “Digimon Survive” also showed more real-world graphics. Unlike the “Digimon Story” series produced by the same core team, the gameplay of this game looks more like a text adventure and turn-based battle. The combination of chess, the producer has previously stated that due to the integration of the internal team, the release of the game has been delayed again and again for three years. Fortunately, the ill-fated game will eventually meet the players alive, and the release window has been set. end of July this year.
• “Ultra Kaiju Monster Ranch” is so weird that I can’t help but look at it twice. The basis of this work seems to be the development game “Ultra Kaiju Monster Ranch” launched in 1997 and 1999 respectively. The first and second generation of Monster Ranch, you can accompany the monsters to complete all kinds of games full of family affection, put them together to fight, etc., of course, this work is to change the theme to “Ultraman (Ultraman)” “The monsters in the series, to be honest, although this game looks really rough, but Hu Lai’s theme and gameplay should make certain hobby groups have a lot of fun.

Epilogue

The above is the author’s personal point of view, the compilation and summary of the important game release information in the past month. Of course, due to limited energy and ability, there are still a large number of release activities that have not been covered by this article. In the days when the offline E3 was absent , Sony, Microsoft, Devolver Digital and other large and medium-sized labels that are accustomed to participating in E3 still have independent press conferences. At the same time, various media organizations are starting to build online event brands and seize the high traffic. The Summer event led by Geoff Keighley This is true of Game Fest, Summer of Gaming initiated by IGN, and more non-first-tier launch events including Tribeca Games Spotlight , Freedom Games Showcase , Guerrilla Collective & Wholesome Games Direct , Future Games Showcase have also achieved better results by joining forces with the aforementioned brands. Concentrated exposure.

When dealing with these newly disclosed information, the author can clearly feel that the situation of drawing “pie” after N years has decreased significantly, and manufacturers have invariably focused their efforts on works that will be released soon. Microsoft At the press conference, it was clearly stated that all works “will be released within a year” are released, which can be regarded as one of the iconic signals of the industry. Weakness in IP development. In the context of the spread of the global epidemic and the turbulent economic and international situation, this kind of conservativeness is very easy to understand, because whether it is investors, development teams or consumers, the public’s uncertainty about the future may be much higher than In the previous historical period, it was a matter of course to be able to shorten the research and development cycle, collect payments as soon as possible, or continue to rely on the classic IP that did not drain the remaining value, and it is not known how long this situation will last. In this situation, the market game between various manufacturers is still very interesting. Since there is no time to study the latest annual reports of several industry giants, let’s briefly talk about three points:

• From the perspective of business quality, I personally think that Microsoft’s game business ecology is the most benign and most potential: on the one hand, it is the factor of its R&D capabilities. The studios are strong and have their own characteristics, and the time for their production has also formed a gradient. , there are those who are good at making “New Year’s goods” and continue to work step by step, and there are creative teams such as Obsidian who are dedicated to tossing, which may make Microsoft more efficient in introducing new products; on the other hand, it is still the subscription service factor, although not as emphasized as “within one year”, However, before most of the notices, there are hints that games will be included in Game Pass. In the long run, this will become an important trump card for Microsoft to suppress other opponents, because subscription services can not only bring convenience to the entertainment experience, but also become a high-quality High stable cash flow. After making so many big acquisitions, Microsoft seems to be paying attention lately to creating a non-aggressive image of itself when it comes to “exclusivity” issues , and what I’ve read from this is that Microsoft doesn’t want exclusivity to cause some players to lose their games due to device limitations Opportunities; but if Windows and cloud technology help Microsoft gain more market share for a while, will the negative impact of “exclusivity” continue to be so great?
• Sony has also taken the pace of mergers and acquisitions recently, and it is likely to be under pressure from rivals such as Microsoft to devour third-party development resources. Personally, I have always believed that PlayStation and Xbox have to compete at full speed, and it is difficult for the former to suppress the latter, because Microsoft’s comparative advantage in software and hardware technologies such as industry standards, operating systems, and IDC is too great, and Sony can give its own games. Business empowerment will be much less. If industry giants such as Xbox and Valve further improve the infrastructure of Windows/Linux desktop platforms for games, even if Sony can maintain its influence in the host field, it may be threatened in the overall situation. In any case, since the advantages of expanding the user base through technical capabilities are insufficient, it is of great significance to control consumers with dead content, especially exclusive content. From the content released by State of Play, it can be seen that Sony is still Consolidate the barriers to exclusive content, and even move Capcom’s masterpieces to the platform (I can’t help but suspect that Capcom is one of Sony’s acquisition targets). I hope Sony can step up its efforts to ensure the quality and vitality of the PlayStation brand, otherwise the first-party games landing on the PC may one day turn into drinking poison to quench thirst.
• New forces are emerging. In early June, we have seen Netflix’s enthusiasm for the game business (after all, the recent release of the film and television business may have given a lot of pressure), we can clearly detect their intention to bring Devolver Digital to partner, maybe this pair can still burst out More sparks. In addition, the author especially wants to mention Embracer Group, a Swedish consortium that has recently “sweeped countless goods” in the M&A market. The company has gathered a lot of gold-colored signs with their own expertise, including Gearbox Entertainment, Saber Interactive, THQ Nordic, Dark Horse Media and so on, and Embracer’s blockbuster IP hardly made any sound in this “E3 month”, maybe we can expect that we will be able to see an “Embracer Showcase” in June next year. When I think about it, it’s really lucky to meet, and then there will be “Killing Out Heavy…

Of course, having said that, the analysis made by the author here is still superficial and is for reference only. In short, let us continue to look forward to the realization of the recent blockbuster information.

(The picture in the text comes from the Internet)

This article is reproduced from: https://markonreview.com/2022/07/04/summary-of-showcases-in-traditional-e3-month/
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.