E3 2021 isn’t over yet, but the big video game conferences where big announcements are expected are certainly over. This year’s event was disappointing for many but that does not imply that there were not good announcements throughout all the conferences. Of course, there were few that we did not already know.
The first big one to go on stage was Ubisoft on Saturday, (since Koch decided not to show anything on Friday) with an event called “Forward”. The French developer presented well-known titles and generally received criticism for the poor pace of the conference but ended it better with two announcements, one that seems more important than the other but both equally good.
Avatar and little else
We are talking about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, the first one promises a lot in the section of AAA titles. Ubi announced its existence a long time ago, but we had never seen it in action and the truth is, it looks great, but we will have to wait to see if it will be worth the wait. For its part, the Mario title is Ubi’s second collaboration with Nintendo, it was the second most important announcement of the night for the French developer and certainly the title promises a different kind of fun than the typical Ubisoft game.
For its part, the Devolver conference did not leave big announcements, but we did not expect it since it is an indies publisher and these games hardly generate hype because they are unknown. However, Galvanic’s Wizard with a Gun did not look bad, while the rest of the announcements did not either, although we already knew them as Shadow Warrior 3. Of course, it is advisable to see the conference only for the parody and satire of the industry in the conference script, it is not a great announcement but the laughter does not look bad.
Shortly after came Gearbox who did not announce anything new and did the entire conference on the set of Borderlands. We saw Kevin Hart, Eli Roth and Edgar Ramírez talking to Randy Pitchford and little else, although they were certainly curious images. The next day Xbox arrived with Bethesda who simply took the non-existent award for “best conference”.
Microsoft saves Sunday
Microsoft’s biggest announcements were Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, Psychonauts 2, STALKER 2, A Plague Tale: Requiem and Halo Infinite multiplayer. In addition, the best of all is that all the aforementioned reach the Xbox Game Pass from day one, not bad for what could be the best conference in Microsoft’s history, it was time for Spencer to take a victory.
It is advisable to see the Microsoft conference if you want to regain hope at E3, it had a good rhythm and even the games that we already knew, like Hades, come with news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YnVzOA2wNs
Then came the Square Enix conference that few liked because they expected more. However, we learned that Eidos is developing a Guardians of the Galaxy game that looks much better than Marvel’s Avengers, which will be remasters of Final Fantasy 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 on Steam and mobile. In addition, Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin was announced, which as a concept is something very striking and we will have to wait to see how big it is since it is in charge of Team Ninja and not SE.
Monday and Tuesday dull
From then on, E3 was declining until the arrival of Nintendo that took the silver medal of this E3. Before Nintendo, there was Warner who confirmed that Back 4 Blood will have a private and an open beta, then the PC Gaming Show and the Future Games Show disappointed by not showing anything new and indies that do not look bad, but they are still bets of which we don’t know too much.
Take-Two showed absolutely nothing and dedicated its panel to talk about diversity in the industry, Limited Run Games announced physical deliveries of several indies but nothing we did not know and Capcom closed on Sunday with its worst conference by simply confirming that Resident Evil Village it will have DLCs and show images of titles that had already been announced several months ago.
In the end, Nintendo arrived, which did not have its best presentation, but this year it was not enough: Metroid Dread, Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp, Shin Megami Tensei V and WarioWare: Get It Together! they are the announcements of novelties. There are many games but each one targets a very particular niche in the industry and, with the exception of Metroid Dread, they are not the most popular franchises.
These were the best announcements of E3 2021, as you can see, there is not much for the general public but there are several announcements that attract the attention of fans of various sagas. This is how another E3 goes and thus begins the preparation for the next one that we hope will offer better things.
