Everything That Happened During (Not) E3 [24/07/2021 - 30/07/2021]

Over the last year and a half, the pandemic has put a halt on a great deal: large gatherings, my social life (more than it already was) and consistent video game releases. However, one part of the video game industry it seemingly hasn’t been able to put an end to is the rampant consumerism and unsustainable pre-release-hype-cycle that inevitably leads to disappointment and harassment of developers and/or journalists. Yes that’s right E3 took last summer off (or it had an excuse to hide for a year while the ESA tried to mend the sinking ship) and in that time most developers and publishers realised, “Hey we don’t need to pay a six figure fee for the pleasure of being lost in the shuffle of a million other announcements. We can just hold our own livestreams”.

As a result E3 season this year is, to put it politely, an absolute mess of conferences, livestreams and presentations. So to help keep you up to date, we here at startmenu are going to be doing a weekly round-up of all the biggest events until they quietly stop or I turn into a heap of dust and press releases.

Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary Event

To celebrate Dragon Quest being old enough to start its midlife crisis in earnest Square Enix held an event at noon on the 26th (which was 4am BST). Announcements were plentiful as too were slimes. So what was shown?

Dragon Quest X Announcements

Dragon Question X, the Japan-only MMO, was announced to be getting its sixth major chapter of content. Little time was spent on this, probably because the stream was broadcast live with English subtitles and there was still no word of the game releasing in the rest of the world.

The second Dragon Quest X announcement was of Dragon Quest X: Offline. This remake of the MMO will turn it into a singleplayer game more in line with the rest of the series. The game features a redone art style which series creator,  Yuji Horii called a "cute" take on Dragon Quest X. It was also confirmed that there will indeed be character changes and balances that you’d expect to be needed for such a dramatic remake. A 2022 release window for Japan was given, however, one has to suspect that this version of the game will likely see a worldwide release eventually… Hopefully.

Video games really did just impossibly pretty at some point.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake

Square Enix has carved out a unique spin on the “nostalgic 8-bit but modern” genre with its HD-2D games. Seen first with the success of Octopath Traveller and now confirmed as a new series at the company with the announcement of Project Triangle Straragey. The next game in this spiritual series will be a remake of the 1988 classic Dragon Quest III which, in short, looks stunning. However, it remains to be seen if this 33-year-old game will stand the test of time even with a new coat of paint? No release date or consoles were mentioned.

Other Bits

A spin-off of DQ11 was announced, called Dragon Quest Treasures. Which will follow Mia and Erik “on an RPG treasure hunting adventure in another world”, before the event of DQ11.

A mobile game called Dragon Quest Keshi Keshi was also announced. This game will be a free-to-play puzzle game for iOS and Android. It will star characters and monsters from across the franchise as they take the form of erasers (yes, for like pencils) as they erase graffiti… Wait, are DQ characters cops?.

I’m not surprised Dragon Quest fans are scared by this logo. Look how edgy and intimidating it is.

Dragon Quest XII

The final announcement was the big one. Having been confirmed to be in development by Yuji Hori in a New Year’s message in January of 2020, we now finally have a name for the latest mainline entry in the series; Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate. No platforms or release dates were mentioned but it has been confirmed that Square Enix is aiming for simultaneous worldwide launch for the game. However, long time fans are already somewhat concerned already after Hori mentioned in the stream that they are looking to change some aspects of the turn-based combat and that the game will be more adult orientated. With the Dragon Quest franchise basing a lot of its tone off of Akira Toriyama’s iconic feel-good art for so long it remains to be seen what this means for the DQXII.

Sonic Central 

The next” not E3 thing” was a celebration of Sonic’s 30th Anniversary by Sega. And it wouldn’t be a Sonic event if it wasn’t somewhat disappointing for fans and embarrassing to watch for everyone else. The first bit of news came before the show when long-time Sonic voice actor, Roger Craig Smith announced he would be returning to the role. This comes after he announced he was leaving the character he had voiced for the best part of a decade behind… in January.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!

Sonic Crossovers

The celebration stream itself certainly showed the marks of being somewhat hampered by the pandemic with much of the stream being dedicated to showing off Sonic crossing over with other Sega games. The Blue Blur will be added to Two Point Hospital on July 22nd (proving the only thing scarier than Dr Baby Wario is the idea of Sonic treating your haemorrhoids). The [not very] good Sonic the Fighters arcade game will be fully playable in Lost Judgment when the Yakuza spin-off launches on the 24th of September. By far the most terrifying crossover announcement was that when Sega releases Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game on the 24th of July you will be able to force your athlete to wear a full-body Sonic mascot outfit… You sick bastard! That swimmer could drown in that!

Me: I hate consumerism.
Also me: I’ll take 4 of each!

There was also a bunch of physical merchandise announced but really the only notable thing you can hurl your money at are these amazing (awful) (but also kind of amazing) bit of Sonic inspired jewellery.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate

One of the bright spots of Sonic Central was the confirmation of the already leaked Sonic Colors: Ultimate. This remaster of the fan-favourite 3D platform will drop on September 7th with a two-part animated series being released this Summer to build excitement. 

Sonic Origins

The other two games announced also felt like they had been affected by COVID. A 20-second trailer was shown for Sonic Origins, a collection of all four Megadrive/Genesis(+Sega CD) games. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD will all be collated with “new content”, however, no gameplay was shown and Sega asked fans to “stay-tuned” till later in the year for more news.

I managed to decode this! It says, “don’t get your hopes up that this will be any better than Forces”…

Sonic: Rangers… Probably

The final trailer shown was for the new mainline 3D Sonic game. The trailer was again exceptionally short, only showing Sonic speed through a forest, followed by a pretty much unreadable bit of alien-looking text. The game has been given a 2022 release date and some dataminers (and one of the Sega press releases) have hinted at the game being called Sonic: Rangers.

Me when I find out I have to work weekends for the seventh week in a row.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human

Bar reports of bleeding talent and a  bad working environment, Techland has been almost radio silent since Dying Light 2’s announcement in 2019. After issuing a short developer update in March confirming the game was still planned for a 2021 release, we finally have our first new gameplay since E3 2019. Techland released a seven-minute gameplay trailer showing off combat, a branching narrative, more zombie types and post-apocalyptic factions. Overall the successor to one of 2015’s most underrated games still looks really promising. However, with lead writer, Chris Avalone leaving the project amid sexual assault allegations and the aforementioned report of which framed the game as being in development turmoil it remains to be seen if the game has survived the night.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is slated for release on the 7th of December on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

(side note: I really hate that there is no colon in Dying Light 2 Stay Human)

Sony’s State of Play for Horizon Forbidden West

Probably the biggest stream of the week was Sony’s State of Play for Horizon Forbidden West (HAVE WE ALL JUST DECIDED THAT COLONS DON’T MATTER ANYMORE!?). The 11 minutes of gameplay was introduced by the game director of the first game and the upcoming sequel, Mathijs de Jonge.

If you are wondering why Aloy looks so worried it is because this guy just told her about all the incoming bad takes about her character model.

This is a case where we can only urge you to watch the full thing. It speaks for itself, the game looks stunning, especially the motion capture for Aloy. There was a focus on new movement mechanics with the highlights being a new grappling-hook-like contraption and a glider to help Aloy get around, while some swimming was also shown (one imagines in the hope of elevating fears of fans that the game’s underwater sections might be as bad as we usually assume underwater levels will be).

Several new enemies were shown including swimmy-swimmy-fellows, robo-raptors with chainsaws for their bottom jaw and A GIANT ROBOT OLIPHANT! The final thing that stood out was the focus on a revamped melee system, which will hopefully be more engaging than the somewhat spammy spear-whacking of the previous game. There was also a very cool tease of what looked like finishing/super moves for Aloy when in combat. However, somewhat unexpectedly, there was no release date mentioned beyond 2021.

Far Cry 6 Gameplay Reveal

Before we talk about Far Cry 6 we really have to direct everyone’s attention to the investigation by French newspaper, Le Télégramme, which reported that following numerous allegations of abuse at the company last Summer that there had been “minimal change” at the company.

The livestream itself started with a cinematic trailer that showed off plenty of new tidbits. There was an introduction to the new protagonist, Dani Rojas - who is much more talkative than the marshall from Far Cry 5 and can be played as a man or woman. The fictional post-and-on-the-brink-of-a-new revolution country of Yara was shown, which Ubisoft really wants you to know isn’t Cuba. And some [as always] really good acting from Giancarlo Esposito as the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo.

The following gameplay trailer went a fair bit more in detail and the game seems to be having much more success balancing its comedy and drama than the previous instalment. There was over the top, ramshackled guns, backpacks with different overpowered abilities (like rockets and we think we spotted a jetpack) and a big old tank. Hopefully, the game itself manages its two contrasting tones better than 5 did but Ubisoft sure do have a knack of excellent prerelease tone-setting followed by… a fake Donald Trump pee video side mission. 

Giancarlo is unimpressed with your poor messaging Ubisoft.

There was some controversy when the game’s director, Navid Khavari, again claimed that this game did not want “to make a political statement”. Many were worried that (at best) this bait for easy publicity and (at worst) a dogwhitle for toxic-rightwing-pundits-and-costumers reassuring them that Far Cry 6 isn’t against any of the politics they support. However, right before publishing Khavari posted to the Ubisoft blog stating, “Our story is political”. With confusion apparently stemming from him stating the game was not a political statement on Cuba.

Far Cry 6 release date was confirmed to be October 7th with all the usual ludicrously expensive special editions Ubisoft loves so much arriving then too.