Common Loot

It is that time of year again where I order a bunch of food and eat it while game companies shovel my mind with a myriad of titles that I might never get to. My body is a temple and I am willing to shove it with a bunch of chicken wings and useless information.

I’m not going to bore you with a breakdown of everything that has happened during E3 2021. I will give a couple of thoughts about the show up to this point. Within the last several hours I caught up on every conference from Ubisoft to the PC Future Show, and from what I am feeling after all of these events is a sense of melancholy.

Ubisoft

I am indifferent about their presentation. Year after year, I become slowly disappointed in their conferences because they don’t quite hit the mark in what myself and others are looking for when it comes to their titles. Plus, the random digital events made to catch us up tend to remove any excitement from their presentations. Ubisoft starting with Rainbow 6 Extraction didn’t excite me, as this type of gamestyle is starting to come back in full force within other games.

Riders Republic seems rather interesting but I don’t know if it screams to me. We had a highlight on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla which seemed awesome and perhaps interest me enough to jump back into the game. WatchDogs Legion also coming out with additional content excites me even though I didn’t find the game to be so enthralling. I will revisit it soon.

The biggest talking point was the Avatar game, which I couldn’t give a shit about. We are so far out from the movie that any sort of excitement from the title is just gone, and I don’t think I will end up playing it unless I am forced to review it. It might have looked cool for others, but to me, I just don’t see myself playing this game, Avatar is over, lets just get on with our lives here. Also, no Splinter Cell or Beyond Good and Evil 2. Again.

Gearbox

The absolute worst conference because it wasn’t one. It was begging, it was an attempt to drive interest in Gearbox with a reassurance from Randy Pitchford that they weren’t going to screw up the Borderlands movie. Each moment he was on set with Eli Roth, talking over him, my head hurt.

But hey, we got Godfall on PS4 coming, which means I do not have to suffer by myself when the expansion comes out in August. A lot of people are using Godfall to dunk on the power of the PlayStation 5 without understanding how it isn’t a dunk at all. Godfall is not the game you want to use as your main reason to not invest in a PS5 because it just doesn’t live up to itself.

The mentions of Homeworld 3 were nice, but they were speckled within every few minutes to remind you that this game is coming and you should be interested, but they didn’t show anything remotely interesting about the game.

My heart goes out to the editor of this video, because I can’t imagine having to produce something this uninteresting and chaotic while keeping the interest of the players. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands seems cool, and happens to bring some of the best content from the Borderlands 2′ Assault on Dragon Keep DLC.

Devolver

Being super woke about corporate greed is hip and cool. We are all gonna die. Don’t buy loot boxes. I get it.

Microsoft

Perhaps the breath of fresh air Microsoft needed. The last several years they have been hard at work on several titles within their 23 studios. After the acquisition of Bethesda and related developers; it is only a matter of time before we get something. While there is a lot to discuss, I will sum up three things about this conference that made me happy.

1 – Starfield looks cool and I can’t wait to play it. I hope it is as fluid as I hope it is, and seeing that it is on the Creation Engine 2 instills faith. It looks like it will release November 2022, so we have a lot of time till then, meaning next year we might see some solid gameplay of this game.

2 – Halo Infinite looks like it will bring back the fun that their multiplayer needed for quite some time. This grappling hook looks amazing and I can’t wait to use it to grief other players and steal their vehicles. The armor looks slick, the guns look amazing, and the customization options look to be so vast that it brings faith back to the franchise in a big way. I am also hoping that the beta starts soon.

3 – Forza Horizon looks really pretty. Drop-dead gorgeous of a game. Granted they pulled out a new car, there wasn’t quite a stage for it. That being said, I look forward to traversing Mexico in cars that I can’t even afford to test drive.

The Microsoft conference started out very strong but teetered out a bit towards the end, and wrapped up with a game we only got to see a cinematic trailer for. Besides that, the next best thing I can say is that the conference has interested me in Sea of Thieves and Fallout 76. Time to get that expansion drive now.

Square Enix

Did they just announce Final Fantasy 1 through 6 on Steam and Mobile while ignoring the console market completely? Not even Nintendo Switch? I find that to be quite odd. Either way, I felt that this conference was quite boring. We got to see Guardians of the Galaxy in full gameplay demo, and none of it piqued my interest at all. My faith in Square Enix handling anything related to the Marvel IP has dropped to an all-time-low.

Speaking of Marvel, The Avengers is getting more content and hopefully that means it will be substantial. Right now as it stands, The Avengers has gotten worse over time with updates taking longer and we still don’t have Spider-Man. The Wakanda expansion pack will be included for free, and even though as gamers I don’t feel like we are owed anything, at the very least I am happy they are doing that. I reviewed this title and I will never get my time back for it, so I am happy I don’t have to buy this. Additionally, I hope it is substantial enough to be good, but that is high hopes there.

There was a bunch of more Final Fantasy-related bullshit that didn’t interest me at all. From the mobile gotcha game to the prequal where the dude wants to find Chaos; none of it seemed good or attempted to put effort into separating themselves from the dull grey color schemes that we gave away back in the Xbox 360/PS3 generation.

There was no updates on Final Fantasy 16, nothing about Final Fantasy 14 coming to Xbox, no new info on a Just Cause, Tomb Raider, or even a Deus Ex. It seems that the Square we knew from the past is nothing but the shell of a former company wearing the face of a dear friend.

Conclusion for Day 1 & 2

If I am privy to anything it is the feeling of animosity towards this industry on a consumer level. Everything in the past that has been brought to us has seemed to slowly diminish and become nothing but fractured memories of the past. The games that we were introduced to have no future at all, and instead we see companies fixated on attempting to bring the broken Ghost Recon back into the spotlight when it has no right to have the support it has while Ubisoft continues to ignore the biggest, most requested IP of their library.

Microsoft stands currently as the most interesting company out there with a presentation that made me super happy to be a fan of theirs. Their fixation on Game Pass will only help them in the long run, and while we know nothing about what Sony is planning (as they are absent from this all), I can’t help but feel appreciative in what Microsoft has for the future.

I saw a lot of dates ending in “2021” and that makes me very happy. The next several months from these companies will prove to be fun and interesting. I’ll be playing some of these titles as I fill out the rest of my time with the games I love to play now. I can’t wait to see what else is brought to this table because I am still hungry.