E3 2016: Bethesda

As usual, Bethesda gave us a lot to write about with their E3 show. The company brought a much cleaner and more engaging pre-game show to the table, a show complete with fan creations, industry trivia, and more Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb. After a cute, DOS-inspired opening, the show got down to business, and as always, it kept us on our toes from start to finish.

Quake Champions

The show began with Quake Champions, the return of the franchise that birthed the arena shooter. A competitive arena shooter for PC, the game is designed for all skill levels with multiple playable champions who each sport their own abilities. id promises a fast and responsive experience at 120 Hz with unlocked frame rates that will support the most powerful hardware you can throw at it. The game was also designed for eSports play from the start, with Bethesda expanding their efforts in competitive tournaments and leagues. A pre-rendered trailer was screened for the audience; no gameplay was shown.

No release date for Quake Champions was given. More info will be revealed at QuakeCon in August.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends

We got some more information about The Elder Scrolls: Legends, the free-to-play collectible card game that’s more or less gunning after a piece of Hearthstone‘s wild success. Unlike many other card games, Legends contains its own campaign, told from the perspective of a moth priest. The campaign’s opening cinematic was shown and fully voiced, but featured no character animation – not unlike the cutscenes from Secret Rings and Black Knight. Bethesda promises multiple ways to play both the single-player and multiplayer modes,  More beta invites will be going out, so hit up Bethesda’s website if you want in.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends is coming to iOS, Android, PC, and OS X later this year.

Fallout Add-ons & Skyrim

Fallout 4 will continue to receive additional DLC as the months roll on. Players will get additional settlement items in the Contraptions pack, which drops next week. Complex vault-building features, new quests, and dweller experimentation will all arrive in the Vault-Tec add-on this July. Finally, a story-based content pack with new areas to explore serves as the final piece of DLC for the game when Nuka-World launches in August. Additionally, new updates for Fallout Shelter, including new enemies, quests, combat systems, characters, and a PC release, will all arrive in July.

If that wasn’t enough, a special surprise dropped in the form of Skyrim Special Edition, which will feature new lighting and graphical effects while also bringing PC mods to consoles a la Fallout 4. This version of the game will launch on October 28th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Prey

What’s dead is alive again. Prey is, in some form, a revival and rebooting of the long-awaited and ultimately cancelled Prey 2, though it looks nothing like that sequel would have. Players assume the role of Morgan Yu, the subject of questionable experiments meant to forward humanity in some way. As he endures this testing on board the Talos 1 spaceship, the ship gets overtaken by aliens, and Yu must rely on resources and his own wits to survive. No gameplay was shown, and we don’t know much about the game beyond the brief pre-rendered trailer and its official description, though that will change in the coming months.

Prey will launch in 2017 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. More information about the game will be revealed at QuakeCon in August.

Doom 

Doom has enjoyed critical and commercial success since its release last month, but the product isn’t standing still. There will be many free updates to the game’s SnapMap mode – new modules, props, objects, items, and logic options are all on the way. In addition, new multiplayer modes are on the way, including more free-for-all modes, a new take on capture-the-flag called Exodus, and a territory mode called Sectors. On top of that, the game’s first premium DLC pack is coming in the form of Unto the Evil; there will be three new multiplayer maps and new weapons within it, among other things. Finally, for those players who have yet to give the game a whirl, a free demo of the game’s first level will be available for all players for the next week or so.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Bestheda’s fantasy MMO got some stage time as well. After a review of a few impressive in-game statistics, including the fact that over half a billion mudcrabs have been killed, a few new pieces of information were revealed. On June 23rd, the game will be launching in Japan, thus making it available to even more players. In addition, the Dark Brotherhood DLC pack launches on consoles this Tuesday, allowing non-PC players to experience that content. Finally, the new One Tamriel expansion arrives this fall; with this, all characters will be leveled to content with no restrictions on playing – essentially, the entire game will be open to play once you complete the tutorial.

Bethesda VR

Interestingly, the show put a bit of emphasis on Bethesda VR, the company’s new virtual reality initiative meant to put their best games out there in a whole new light. At the show, they revealed that Doom and Fallout 4 will be playable in VR, and one can imagine that future titles will make the leap to VR as well. For now, Fallout 4 is coming to HTC Vive in 2017.

Dishonored 2

To wrap the show up, we got a very in-depth look at Dishonored 2 via ample in-engine gameplay footage. The game takes place in the new world of Karnaca, which Arkane wanted to imbue with a strong sense of place and a well-realized culture. A new game engine was built to support the desired level design and general sense of atmosphere. History of world taken into account – water marks, peeling paper, etc.

Set fifteen years after the first game. Dishonored 2 lets you play as Emily Kaldwin and Corvo Attano, both of whom are fully-voiced. The developers placed more emphasis on themes in missions to generate uniqueness, and this shows in the Dust District area they showed in the demo; it’s an industrial part of town ravaged by dust storms. Levels now feature more verticality, and in this area, dust storms provide cover at the expense of visibility.

In addition, Emily’s new powers let you do some pretty crazy stuff. Stupor can mesmerize enemies and let you avoid combat altogether. Far Reach can be upgraded to grab enemies as well as environmental objects. Domino lets multiple enemies share the same gruesome fate all at once. In another mission, something called the Timepiece will let you explore the past and present of a level at the same time, allowing you to keep track of a guard’s movement in the past while staying undetected in the present.

Dishonored 2 will be released for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 11th. Pre-orders and pre-purchases will get a free copy of Dishonored: Definitive Edition.

What did you think of Bethesda’s stage show? Let us know in the comments below, and join us as our coverage of E3 continues all day tomorrow!