For its second edition, the conference linking Microsoft and the publisher Bethesda unveiled a line-up of games whose highlight of the Showcase was logically the highly anticipated “Starfield”. Selected pieces.
2021 was a bit of a special year for publisher Bethesda, which was hitherto going it alone at E3, with its own conference to announce the line-up of its upcoming titles. Bought by Microsoft for 7.5 billion dollars, the publisher had presented a line-up together with the manufacturer of the Xbox last year. The overall content of this Showcase was also of a solid level.
What about this year? The result is rather mixed for once, even if the finding obviously depends on what was expected. No new Gears of Warsome of which were awaiting the announcement of a 6th installment.
No images for example from the horror game Overdose on which would work Hideo Kojima, whose rumors however announced that the title would be unveiled yesterday. The Game Director was present at the Showcase, but the time of a video announcing an exclusive partnership with Microsoft to develop a game for the Cloud.
A small teaser on the game Indiana Jones, announced in January 2021 and developed by Scandinavian studio Machine Games, owned by Bethesda? Not even. The game STALKER 2 planned for the end of the year? No more. Although the title, developed by the Ukrainian studio GSC GameWorld, has extenuating circumstances, given the dramatic news of the country, heavily impacting its development. The game is now expected for 2023.
As there is no question of sweeping all the titles, here are the selected pieces.
Starfield
Last year the game Starfield furiously whetted appetites and put stars in their eyes. It must also be said that the title is to be marked with a white stone, in a way: it is indeed the first new universe created by Bethesda Game Studios in 25 years. In this next-gen RPG – which the publisher calls itself a “Han Solo simulator” – you can create the character you want and explore the world in an Open World.
Todd Howard, the executive producer at Bethesda, dropped the Telegram last year only for him, “Starfield was like NASA meeting Indiana Jones meeting the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. We are not necessarily much more advanced with that. But it gives at least a bit of a guiding idea of the spirit wanted for the game.
This year, Starfield was logically THE star of the Showcase, revealing himself at the very end. In this case, long gameplay images, evoking the exploration of planets, the customization and piloting of ships, etc…
The game is set in the year 2330. Humanity has ventured beyond our solar system to settle on new planets and explore outer space. After beginning the adventure as a simple space miner, players will join Constellation, the latest group of space explorers in search of rare artifacts across the galaxy. Starfield is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023, provided of course that its release is not postponed…
A Plague Tale – Requiem
Released in May 2019, after showing off sparingly since 2017, A Plague Tale was a masterstroke orchestrated by the French studio Asobo, based in Bordeaux.
A cruel tale set against the kingdom of France ravaged by the Black Death in 1348, but also by the Hundred Years’ War leaving a bloodless country, A Plague Tale: Innocence followed the painful destiny of a duo of children from nobility. Amicia de Rune, 15, and her puny younger brother Hugo, 5, who was suffering from a strange illness.
Driven by an extraordinary artistic direction often staggeringly beautiful, which could largely hold out against productions with budgets twenty times higher, benefiting from a hypnotic and sublime soundtrack by composer Olivier Derivière, who signed one of his most beautiful scores, it is an understatement to say that A Plague Tale: Innocence impressed the player’s retina and heart in a lasting way.
Announced at E3 (virtual) in June 2021, A Plague Tale – Requiem, the sequel to the misadventures of the two children, unveiled its first real trailer in December 2021. Expected for the end of 2022, it was also present at the Showcase, with new images. A good appetizer while waiting for the still distant TV series in preparationunder the leadership of Mathieu Turi, announced in March 2022.
Ark 2
Vin Diesel and video games are a somewhat upset love story. If the actor was the star of a fantastic license-centric game Riddick with Escape From Butcher Bayand to a lesser extent its sequel, Escape from Dark Athenathe actor had also tumbled in December 2019 on the Game Awards stage to present to the audience a (very, very) forgettable video game opus, Fast & Furious: Crossroads.
In 2020, the actor was honored with a game called Ark IIFollowing Ark: Survival Evolved; an online survival game from (more or less) prehistoric times. In this sequel, still developed by wild card studioVin Diesel plays Santiago, a tribal leader.
Following this presentation, a animated series based on the license was announced, with a luxury VO voice cast: Vin Diesel, Madeleine Madden, Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Butler, Jeffrey Wright, David Tennant, Zahn McClarnon, Devery Jacobs, Ragga Ragnars, Elliot Page, Karl Urban, Malcolm McDowell, Deborah Mailmanand Russell Crowe.
Ark II has once again been unveiled, for a release now expected in 2023. If you will have to watch the animated series to learn more about the character played by Vin Diesel, you can always take a look at the king of asphalt dressed of an animal skin and riding a T-Rex.
red fall
As a sort of unlikely crossover between the cult game Left 4 Dead who would have met a derivative of the series Umbrella Academy, red fall is a cooperative open-world first-person shooter, developed by Arkane Austin, the American branch of the brilliant studio from Lyon to which we owe the great games Prey and Dishonored (to name a few).
Redfall is actually the name of the small town besieged by an army of vampires who have blacked out the sun and cut off the island from the outside world. Trapped with a handful of survivors, you’ll have to choose from a diverse cast of heroes and team up with other players to put together your team of vampire slayers.
It is still difficult to get excited with the images of a game that tries to dig a vein already overexploited for years; and most recently with Back 4 Bloodreleased in October 2021, developed precisely by the studio that was behind the first game Left 4 dead… Not to mention an artistic direction that seems even less inspired than, at random, the excellent death loopthe latest production from Arkhane Lyon.