Bethesda's 2019 Conference: C-
Just as I predicted, Bethesda played it ultra safe and primarily talked about their main upcoming games, Doom Eternal and both Wolfenstein games, and some content for their existing games. The best was the pathetic attempt at reviving interest in Fallout 76 by adding content, including what else, a Battle Royal Mode *roles eyes heavily* and making the game free for a week. Someone please tell Bethesda that ship sank a while back. And of course there were the many mobile games they've shoved down people's throats every E3 for the past three years, with even more new, lame mobile games around the corner. While none of this stuff interested me, there is one game I really want to discuss; Doom Eternal.
I absolutely LOVED Doom 2016; I've played through the whole thing twice and can confidently say it's the best FPS I've ever played and is one of my favorite games of all time. I am completely serious. However, when Doom Eternal was first announced there was something about its gameplay and just overall feel that didn't quite feel or look like a Doom game. Those feelings were validated even more by the additional content they showed off at their conference tonight. I guess having a heaven setting is original for this series, however it just feels wildly out of place in this franchise. On top of that, all the platforming, acrobatics, and grappling hook gameplay was just sort of unnecessary imo. After all was said and done tonight, I actually wanted the game less and didn't really care that much that it was coming out the end of this year. It is possible that my feelings might change before it actually drops, but at the moment my hype has really cooled off, and I honestly could see myself waiting for a $30 or more price cut before purchasing this one.
My favorite part of the conference was the reveal of Ghostwire Tokyo. Even though we just got a trailer and there is currently no info on actual gameplay or anything else, the fact that Shinji Mikami is working on this gives me faith in its quality. I also really liked the concept and art style in the trailer too. I actually got pretty excited about this game, and it reminded me how much I miss when this would happen to me at E3s past. But for what it is I'll definitely anticipate more on this game!
One more thing I wanted to bring up was Bethesda making a deliberate point to show off their cloud streaming tech Orion. I don't think it's any accident they're mentioning this now, as they certainly have the scoop on Sony's and MS's new consoles and how they will deliver games. While I do see game streaming as being an option for these devices rather than their primary mode of playing games, I see this as where gaming is inevitably headed, especially since the tech is at the point where you can play a very hardware intensive game on a lightweight device like a phone or tablet. The game is running on an ultra powerful server in a datacenter so there is no need for your device to be as powerful, or even relatively close. This really puts a damper on my hope for the future of gaming and how involved I will be in that future.
So yeah, this conference left me in a worse place then it started, and if not for Ghostwire, Doom Eternal (I guess...), and Wolfenstein Youngblood this conference would have been terrible, but it was at least passable on those grounds, if only barely.
