Bethesda E3 2017 Showcase: Bethesdaland

Short and to the point, but what is worth seeing?

Bethesda held its 2017 E3 showcase press conference on Sunday night. On the east coast, the show went live at midnight, technically making the show a Monday morning press conference.

The show lasted about 38 minutes, which is much shorter than most other press conferences at conventions in the past and even this contemporary E3. Although there were a couple new offerings, nothing was really a surprise.

Virtual Reality finds a home in Bethesdaland:

Starting out with a bang, Bethesda showed off two games coming to virtual reality later this year. The first game they showed, Doom VFR, looks like it will be more Doom for fans of the 2016 game.

The trailer showed about what people might expect from Doom. There are lots of demons and shooting. The problem I have with this, is even from the footage we saw on stage, is that the action seems to be just too much. The constant flipping around seems like it would just be absolutely nauseating in VR.

Also, it looks like they took out traditional movement in favor of teleportation. Take a look:

The second VR game Bethesda showed off is Fallout 4 VR.

This seems like a bad idea for a different reason. Fallout is too large for virtual reality to be engaging for any real amount of time. I hope I am wrong about that and the game proves fun and immersive. Take a look below:

Into Tamriel:

A large portion of the show was spent showing off new and recent additions to the varying worlds of The Elder Scrolls series. We saw a trailer showcasing Elder Scrolls Online’s new Morrowind addition. Aside from seeing a Dwemmer city, this isn’t enough to get me to get back into the game just yet. The trailer can be seen below:

Bethesda also showed off an upcoming expansion to Elder Scrolls Legends, the digital card game.

The new expansion is centered around Skyrim. It is tough to speak to the merit of an upcoming expansion when I haven’t played the base game. Fans of the game should look forward to a neat new set. The set drops on June 29, 2017. Check the trailer!

The next thing is a bit of a retread, but for someone who has been waiting and waiting for a chance to play Skyrim on the go, this is what I was really waiting for.

Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch got a new trailer. Aside from the strangely fitting “Take a Walk,” the reveal showed basically what we expected. The epic 2011 role playing game appearing for the first time on a Nintendo console.

Something else we saw is that the game will have Amiibo support. We saw a Breath of the Wild Link amiibo being scanned in and a Hyrule style treasure chest appears. The dragon born dons the symbolic clothing and weapon, and dang, the Master Sword looks great in Skyrim. We also saw some motion controls, and honestly, if they work like they look they work, it could be a fun novelty. Check out the trailer below:

The last thing in the RPG universe of Bethesda we saw is the Creation Club. Basically, this boils down to tiny paid mods. Blech.

ESPORTS:

No presser this year would be complete without a ridiculous focus on esports, it seems.

Bethesda is attempting to throw its own name into the ring with this one, as they showed Quake Champions at the show. The PC exclusive shooter has an open beta right not, so if you’re at all interested, it is probably more worth your time to download the beta and jump in rather than weigh pros and cons.

Take a look at the trailer:

Single player goodness:

The last of the announcements from Bethesda’s show all point to single player games.

Something Dishonered fans have been clamoring for, more single player action, was revealed. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is set to release on September 15 2017.

Bethesda announced the next in its horror series, The Evil Within 2. This one looks genuinely creepy. I didn’t play the first one, but that may need to change by the time the next one comes out. This launches on Friday October 13, 2017. Just in time for Halloween and on Friday the 13th.

The last and the best: Wolfenstein II: The New Colosus. BJ Blazcowicz is back and leading a rebellion to take out the nazis in America.

This is pretty incredible, because the most recent game was set in Europe. It will be pretty neat to see a Wolfenstein game set in what is essentially Phillip K Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle.” Tonally, it will be different, but I can pretend.

The full trailer is a work of art and worth a look:

 

The biggest takeaway from this conference is that everything Bethesday showed, from Skyrim for the Switch to Wolfenstein, is releasing in 2017. Not many other publishers, if any can say that. It would have been neat to see some more info on upcoming projects, but I find it hard to complain.