The Microsoft E3 Presentation began this morning and featured a whole slew of games from Halo to Minecraft.
Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, led the pack to present new Halo 5 Guardians footage. This footage displays Halo’s newest character Locke leading his team of Spartans into battle. He is accompanied by a familar face, Buck, voiced by Nathan Fillion. Microsoft began the presentation with a beautiful “Warzone” trailer for their upcoming Halo 5: Guardians game.
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Some notable quotes in regards to the new Halo 5: Guardians game.
“This is the biggest and most ambitious halo campaign yet.”
“…seamless drop-in, drop-out cooperative play,.”
“4 times the size of any halo map.”
Then Xbox announced the exclusive world premiere of Recore. The trailer begins in the desert where a girl is walking with her robot dog. They are attached by a group of robots and the dog sacrifices himself to save the girl. The girl grabs the orb left behind by the dog and inserts it into an idle robot nearby. The robot wakes up with what appears to be the mind or personality of the dog. There hasn’t been too much else revealed on this game but I’d be interested in seeing some gameplay.
One of the biggest news drops came from Phil Spencer when he announced the following,
“I’m please to announce backward compatibility.”
I, for one, am excited about this feature. I can now go back and play some of my old favorite titles, and perhaps continue to chase some of those achievements I failed to gather the first time around. This can also be viewed from the other side, as many Xbox One owners have departed ways with their one Xbox 360’s and 360 games. Honestly this is something that should have been announced on day one but if you are like me, and you still kept your favorite Xbox 360 game, in my case Mass Effect, then this is clearly for you.
Todd Howard appeared on stage to display more Fallout gameplay was introduced. Displayed more of the Pitboy and laser musket weapon. We were able to see the character battling a Deathclaw. The scenery in this game looks gorgeous. This is definitely one title I will be picking up in the fall.
Howard also announced PC mods are coming to Xbox One. This is probably one of the best news to come out of the Microsoft presentation. Thanks to PC mods, we have seen lightsabers introduced to the world of Skyrim as well as the option to shoot cars out of a pistol in GTA V. None of these awesome, crazy and hilarious mods have been available on console until now. This is definitely a feature I cannot wait for.
*Titanfall and Dragon Age Inquisition are coming to EA Access. This week EA Access vault will be open to all Xbox Gold members all week long.
Brian Horton of Crystal Dynamics released the World Premiere of the latest Tomb Raider title coming out Holiday 2015. The trailer shows Lara Croft defying death about a dozen times as she is climbing a frozen mountain cliff. I was never a big Tomb Raider fan until I played the last game, which is the prequel to the 2013 game. That game reminded me of the Uncharted series, which I also enjoyed. I enjoyed it and although this trailer didn’t sell me as quickly as the original game did, I’ll still add it to the list.
Another big announcement was Rare Replay, which is an Xbox One exclusive. Rare Replay will feature 30 classic games in one. Some of these games include Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, and Battletoads. This isn’t a game you will want to sleep if you are an old school gamer like myself. There were a few titles missing from Rare’s line-up such as Donkey Kong and Golden Eye but it’s clearly due to licensing issues. Glad I can play Conker’s Bad Fur Day again.
Microsoft announced partnership with Valve VR. With the combination of Oculus and Microsoft Hololens, A new version of Minecraft was displayed. With this combined technology they were able to create a 3d interactive hologram. They literally moved the screen from wall to the table, creating a 3d world. He was able to manipulate this world with his voice and fingers. No longer is a controller needed when you can control an entire world at your fingertips. I am not a Minecraft player, but this is an impressive feature and a huge leap towards something that we can hopefully see with more games to come.
The Gears of War Ultimate Edition was announced. This is the original GoW series remastered. It will be in full 1080p with 60 fps. This was leaked earlier in the week but studio head, Rod Ferguson, officially confirmed today. The public beta starts today. You can sign up on their official site. The trailer for Gears 4 was also released. It was also one of Microsoft’s heavy hitters in the presentation. The game is set to release Holiday 2016, while the GoW Ultimate edition is scheduled to be released August 25th.
Some other notable announcements:
- Garden Warfare 2
- Rainbow Six Siege with a October 13th release date. Will come with Vegas and Vegas 2 for free.
- Tom Clancy’s The Division with the Exclusive beta to be released this December.
- Gigantic – Windows 10 & Xbox One Exclusive coming August 2015
- Ion
- Dark Souls 3
- Forza Motorsport 6
- Fable Legends – Holiday 2015
Overall Microsoft had a strong run. You can check out all the trailers which debuted in today’s Xbox One E3 Presentation on their Youtube channel.