Xbox @ E3 2019

Xbox @ E3 2019

This year, without Sony being at the show, it was Microsoft's E3 to lose. Because very few games were actually talked about, below are more or less my reactions to the trailers. Let's see how they did.

The Outerworlds leads the event and still looks spectacular. There was a shrink ray in the trailer.

Ninja Theory unveiled Bleeding Edge, a team based melee combat game in a blend of Overwatch and For Honor

Ori and the Will of the Wisps got a cinematic trailer and release date 2/11/20

Minecraft Dungeons or Titan Quest with a Minecraft aesthetic

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order got a full, and pretty awesome, trailer

A Blair Witch game (titled Blair Witch). If it lives up to the trailer it looks like it'd be a pretty scary game.

Cyberpunk 2077 came in with a trailer and Keanu Reeves. Needless to say, the crowd went ballistic and progression was slow to get through the marketing blurb. One last gameplay teaser with a release date 4/16/20.

Spiritfarer, a calmer game about managing a houseboat to help spirits pass on.

Fucking Battletoads

The Legend of Wright, a point and click-esque game in hand drawn notebook style

A bunch of indie games coming to game pass in a compilation and they launched Game Pass for PC (in beta form) $4.99/mo [though $9.99 was said on stage as that is it's post Beta pricing]. Game Pass Ultimate (Xbox, PC, Gold) for $14.99. The ultimate seems like a good deal.

YES YES FLIGHT SIMULATOR, IT LOOKS SO SEXY.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition got a quick trailer, does that mean it releasing soon? What about AoE3 and AoE4?

An interesting trailer for Wastleland 3.

Double Fine studios now a member of Xbox Game Studios. Psychonauts 2 also showed up.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. All 9 main films in one game.

Dragon Ball game

12 Minutes = a thriller about a time loop

Way to the Woods = deer exploration game

Gears 5’s intro trailer was weird, 9/10/19 w/ early access with Game Pass ultimate. A new co-op game mode: Escape, was announced. Plus Terminator pre-Order bonus.

An improved Elite controller. Some upgrades that should've been there before... like grips.

Dying Light 2 got a more bleak parkour adventure. Spring 2020

Forza Horizon 4... LEGO Speed Champions expansion. Wut? Launches this week...

Gears POP! mobile app looks like a mediocre mobile game (unless you like the Gears franchise because then it's a new game)

State of Decay 2: Heartland expansion, released today. I hope the trailer's visuals aren't like that of the game's because the textures were of poor quality and the models looked a bit stiff.

Phantasy Star Online 2 comes West... again but remastered and not on the Dreamcast

Smilegate’s Crossfire X comes to Xbox (comment below if you've heard of either the studio or the franchise because I haven't despite it being a "massively popular" franchise on PC)

Bandai Namco unveiled the Tales of Arise (or should've but their entire E3 plans got leaked)

Borderlands 3 "shloots" its way to your home 9/12/19. Also free Borderlands 2 DLC that leads up to Borderlands 3, but only if you have the Handsome collection.

George R.R. Martin and From Software’s new project, Elden Ring, got a cinematic trailer. Didn’t get much details aside from the high fantasy setting.

Project xCloud comes to the public in October. The biggest push they tried to make: you can stream from your own Xbox... you mean like a Steam Link, or the Sony System Link/PC streaming thing, or a Remote Desktop app, or I thought Xbox already had something like that for the One. I know they mostly run off local network connections but it's just not that ground breaking. Maybe focus more on the whole cloud streaming bit Microsoft especially with Game Pass.

Gem of “the power of the SSD and the solid state drive” line, bruh, they’re the same thing. The hardware bit was cringe because they looked like they were bullshitting some of it just so they could throw out jargon or random promotions. “Perfect for Game Pass users because it has faster load times”... A) that helps everyone B) Game Pass is unlimited time use on a game (not like a 10 hour demo) so who really cares. The console sounds great but Xbox was trying a bit too hard with the trailer. Also Halo is confirmed a launch title and got a neat little trailer that made me a bit hyped but I still just fear 343 messing this one up as well. Both launch holiday 2020.

Grade: B | Summary: "Decent but Underwhelming"

My biggest gripe is at the top and bottom of the presentation Phil Spencer mentioned they were going to cover 60 games but only 29 were shown with full trailers/on stage speaker. The other 31 must have been the 5 second clips they showed off during the Game Pass bit (though they didn't even add up to 31 since half were repeated during the ad). Even worse: most games shown were undated 2020 or no date at all. Overall, the lineup wasn't bad but a bit underwhelming for a 1 hour and 35 min presentation and with so few games coming in 2019. Also they didn't really hit that many AAA for their longest presentation ever and showing off "60" games.The Xbox presentation made me kind of thankful that Sony didn't come to E3 this year because I imagine it would've been equally underwhelming.