We’re just two days away from Microsoft’s E3 briefing and we’re ready for incredible game demos, insight into forthcoming updates and hardware for Xbox One and Windows 10 and that all important shock value, a few surprise announcements.
The full complete times for the various conference briefings at this year’s E3. Source: USgamer/online
Microsoft’s E3 conference is reported to be two hours long starting at 10pm CAT at the Microsoft Theater, opting out from hosting at the Colliseum. Don’t expect a mass load of new titles from Microsoft as we know they can be relcutant to announce new titles this early (RIP Scalebound). What we are expecting is some form of a roadmap to give players an idea of where Xbox will be in the next 12 months alongside updates on existing products.
What is rumoured to be at E3, in terms of gaming, is the next installment of the Forza franchise, Forza Horizon 4 which will be announced by Playground Games. The Forza Horizon series has taken players to the snowy covered mountains of Colorado to the beautiful European landscapes of France sand Italy to the land “Down Under”, all we want to know is where is out passport going to next?
Crackdown 3 is delayed once again which could spell bad news for Microsoft. Source: Twitter/@crackdown
Microsoft have announced Crackdown 3 is being delayed once again to 2019 (which could be really bad news) but what we do know is that the game isn’t cancelled. They will address the delay of Crackdown 3 as they will most likely reintroduce audiences to the title, alongside changes being made to the game but an update is on the cards.
Sequels for the Gears of War and Halo frachises have been long teased since we can remember. 343 Industries released the real-time strategy spinoff, Halo Wars 2 last year, so much so that the studio have been working on Xbox One X enhancements for the Master Chief Collection and the Halo World Championships proved to be a roaring success. However, we think it’s about time we know whether to expect the next entry in the game’s main franchise. As for Gears, The Coalition took control of the franchise since Epic Games sold the rights to the franchise in 2014 to Microsoft, so they may have had more than enough time to develop a new Gears title or three.
On the indie front, we’ll be expecting plenty of news, developments and exclusive partnerships from ID@Xbox at E3. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and Frostpunk were surprise hits for both the Xbox and Windows 10 platforms this year and Cuphead became a global smash hit last year for the brand. Rumours are that they could be major indie Steam titles coming soon from ID@Xbox so a major showcase from the brand is expected.
Studio MDHR’s Cuphead proven to be a runaway success last year for ID@Xbox. Source: Microsoft Store/online
But it will be third-party titled that will carry the showcase for Microsoft as we could get a glimpse of CD PROJEKT RED’s blockbuster title, Cyperpunk 2077 in a demo session at the briefing. Other titles we could be seeing at the briefing includes (the delayed) Metro Exodus, Code Vein and Anthem (all revealed at last year’s confernce) as well as Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Below, No Man’s Sky, Age of Empires IV and Ashen. New summer content for Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 will probably be a part of the conference and we might be seeing some more in-game footage for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield V and other titles from third-party publishers like Bethesda and Ubisoft.
On the platform side of business, Xbox’s new Avatars will most likely debut at E3 alongside their new capabilities. This new system was built for cross-platform capabilities in mind as this will extend beyond the dashboard in games, Windows Mixed Reality like AltSpace VR and HoloLens.
However, no word as to whether we’ll expect any new developments on the rumoured “Careers” feature. This will give players another opportunity to progress beyond the Gamescore which displays what achievements were made in various games. The “Careers” feature, instead, rates players based on how you play, whether its smashing those achievements or dedicating your time on a specific game or games.
Xbox Game Pass will one of the main talks for Micrisoft as the subscription service having recently celebrated its first anniversary. Microsoft could be looking to bring more third-party studios and publishers to the program and could be looking to extend the service to additional devices which we could be looking at something along the lines of cloud streaming play. We also could be expecting new feature announcements for Microsoft’s streaming service, Mixer alongside some enhancements of other Microsoft features and products at E3.
As reported a few days ago by Windows Central, we know that Microsoft has partnered with Amazon to work on integration between Xbox and Amazon Echo products which eeplaces the voice-enabled integrations from the Kinect. As whether it will be discussed at E3, we won’t know until this Sunday. Anither hardware feature Microsoft will be debuting are the Xbox V2 controller and the Adaptive controller for accessibility needs. The Adaptive controller aims to make gaming mire accessible and inclusive for persons with various kinds of accessibility disabilities. More on the Adaptive controller will be revealed at E3.
We will be covering what other publishers and developers like Electronic Arts, Bethesda, Square Enix and Ubisoft will covering and what will be excluded from their E3 briefings in the coming days.
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