E3 2021 has come to an end. This year’s conference was different in many ways from previous years. For starters, like pretty much everything these days, it was hosted entirely online. Secondly, some developers came right out and told us which games they will not be showing. Presumably in an attempt to deflate some of the hype that has always surrounded these kinds of events. In some cases, that kind of hype can be dangerous. In the same breath, speculating and predicting the surprises is half the fun.
That being said, it isn’t like we won’t be seeing anything at all from some games known to be in development. It is becoming increasingly common for developers to host their own conferences and showcase what they’ve been working on.
E3 and beyond
Sony and EA are two examples of such. Sony has skipped E3 for the past three years now, instead opting to hold their own ‘State of Play’. The last of which premiered on 27 May and focused on Horizon Forbidden West. EA is set to hold their next EA Play Live event on 22 July, where we’ll see more of Battlefield 2042 gameplay and, hopefully, more on games like Dragon Age 4 or a possible Star Wars: Fallen Jedi sequel.
Microsoft and Bethesda, who held a joint conference this year seemed to be pushing their new title Starfield and were mum on anything regarding The Elder Scrolls 6 (although that didn’t stop some fans from coming up with some wild theories).
Ubisoft told us not to expect to see anything on The Division: Heartland, their newly announced free-to-play spin-off of The Division series, and they kept their word. However, they didn’t mention anything about Splinter Cell (which fans have been asking for forever), Skull & Bones still doesn’t have a release date despite being first announced in 2017 and Beyond Good and Evil 2 is probably never coming out at this point.
However, all hope is not lost. Along with EA Play Live, Steam’s own Steam Next Fest started yesterday 16 June and will run until 22 June and there’s also the second part of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) running from 19 – 23 June. So, until then, if you missed anything or need to kill around 33 and a half hours you can rewatch the whole of E3 on YouTube.
Source: PC Gamer