What To Expect From E3: The Third-Party Publishers Take Centre Stage

Between leaks and pre-E3 announcements, it’s already feeling as though there’s nothing left to surprise us during the numerous press conferences at the show. There will, of course, still be new announcements across the board, but we’ve been confronted at every turn by teasers designed to draw us to the main event.

Except it means that, combined with trends and routines established over the last few years, we can already piece together so much of what will be on show. EA, for example, will naturally have a slightly-too-long segment dedicated to EA Sports somewhere in the middle of their show, but they’ve also held off on showing Star Wars: Battlefront gameplay and just this week revealed Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to be a prequel to the 2008 first-person runner. We can expect to see both of those in action then, and it’s high time that we hear more on what PopCap and Bioware are working on – quite likely to be Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 and the new Mass Effect game.

One unknown at least is Bethesda, who, for the first time, will be taking centre stage with a conference that will have some big hitters in it. The company has a well-known list of IPs it can draw from to woo the crowds, and is likely holding back some surprises that none of us has seen coming – unless it’s all leaked beforehand, of course.

The fact Bethesda confirmed Fallout 4 and released a trailer just two weeks before E3 means that the game will have a large presence during the conference. Some rumours suggest that Fallout 4 will be ready to ship this year, and if that is the case then a winter release date could be announced, though I wouldn’t be surprised if 2016 is the release window.

However, the company’s portfolio has widened dramatically over the last few years, and while the show will almost certainly stretch to include news of the Doom reboot as well as free-to-play game Battlecry, there’s plenty of scope for them to announce a Dishonored sequel. Also, with The Elder Scrolls Online hitting consoles this week, they can touch upon that, but what better way to entice people to join the MMO than to announce The Elder Scrolls VI?

Potentially just as exciting could be Square Enix’ conference, another newcomer to holding their own show – and thus able to be bullied out of their original time slot by Nintendo. Here, at least, we have a lot of known quantities to deal with, with Just Cause 3, Final Fantasy XV, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Kingdom Hearts 3 all vying for attention. Square have also said that they’ll be talking about a new Hitman game some time this year, and E3 is always a good time to announce something of that scale.

Always an expert at keeping something behind, though, is Ubisoft who, with Aisha Tyler hosting the show once more, have settled into one of the most polished routines of all the conferences. Naturally there will be Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, The Division and Rainbow Six: Siege – each of which have been confirmed playable on the show floor – but there’s always one or two brand new announcements that have been kept under wraps. The safe money will be on Watch Dogs 2 and maybe a new Splinter Cell game, but maybe, just maybe, there will be a new IP thrown into the mix.

And then there’s the PC Gamer Show, where you could imagine just about anything happening. A vast list of companies is listed as having speakers at the event, from AMD and Microsoft to Blizzard, Creative Assembly, Cliff Bleszinski and dozens more. Will there be major game announcements here? It’s not all that likely, in my opinion, but I’m sure there will be plenty of news for PC gamers to mull over, with AMD teasing a new generation of GPU for the last few weeks.

Having started with Sony and worked our way through Microsoft, Nintendo and the third party publisher conferences, our gaze into the crystal ball is at an end. However, for you the reader, it’s only just begun, and tomorrow sees the relaunch of our traditional E3 Bingo, where you get to test your tea leaf reading skills and try to predict the future, Nostradamus-style.