E3 2015: Bethesda

 ChunkySoup:

Let’s address the elephant and the 800 lb gorilla in the room first. Yes, Fallout 4 was cool! Yes, it is releasing this year! Yes, that PipBoy in the collector’s edition is beyond amazing!
 
 We good now? If you hadn’t noticed, Bethesda had a couple other games to show, and one happened to have a pedigree dating back 22 years to one of the most important, if not the most iconic game in history. No other game has been more revelled and reviled. It spawned not only a new genre of games but essentially created an entirely new way to play them. That game is Doom, and next spring we will play the 4th iteration of the classic on our PCs, our Xbox Ones and our PlayStation 4s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NteAPGprDJk[width=650,height=366]
 
 Marty Stratton, from id, demoed a lot of single player, a bit of multiplayer and a new level building tool called SnapMap.  The multiplayer had different modes and some different takes on the genre that the original created. That’s all well and good but I would love to see the old mano a mano deathmatch come back. Yeah, I am sure you could setup a custom match like that but I want that option right in the menu. A buddy and I used to play for hours on end over a 9600 baud modem. He usually got the better of me but every now and then I would get to the rocket launcher first and blow his ass up in a bunch of pixelated chunks. Best…day…ever!
 
 I had many a best day ever’s playing Doom and Doom 2. Sadly, looking back my hopes were exponentially high for Doom 3. While it managed to scare the crap out of me I can’t think of one time where I stopped for a “holy shit” type moment. I have fond memories of it but nothing really sticks out. Fast forward ten years to me watching the single player gameplay of Doom 4. There were moments where my jaw dropped or I could not stop myself from grinning. Hearing the classic Doom door sound made me smile ear to ear and if I can pull of those finishing moves (snapping necks, shoving grenades down throats) or just chainsaw a demon or two in half…well that sounds like a new Best Day Ever to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7g6BfvU6A8[width=650,height=366]
 
 It can’t all be sunshine and roses though. As I watched the demo I became conflicted. The one mechanic I am torn on is the whole “monster in the closet” type of scare Doom seems to hold onto. What was new and groundbreaking in 1993 gets old fast nowadays. On the other side of that coin, that is what Doom was and is. Why mess with it? The demo that Bethesda produced had plenty of monsters in a number of closets but in different areas they were all over the fricking place. I could recognize design elements in the levels from the first game that had turned up to 11 and running at 1080p 60fps. At the same time there were newer elements such as climbing and the slow mo’ weapon select. Touches like that say to me as a fan, this is not just Doom 1 for the 4th time. Instead Doom 4 is respectful from where it came from but evolved where it needed to in order to compete in today’s FPS market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_XbtE6g3GM[width=650,height=366]
 
 Another added touch is SnapMap. ID is bringing map and level building to the masses. Powered by the new Bethesda.net, all platforms will be able to build and play on user generated content from around the world. The first thing I thought of, in terms of a comparison, is Forge Mode in Halo. I will hold to that comparison as it is not far off with the exception being that SnapMap will be platform agnostic. From the sounds of it I could create a level or new gameplay type on my PC or PS4 and have friends play it on their Xbox consoles or vice versa. If that actually works we could be witnessing a paradigm shift in it’s infancy. Like deathmatch over a 9600 baud modem paved the way for Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and Call of Duty

Jones:

 Battlecry was featured briefly. Chunky says it reminds him of Team Fortress 2 and reminded Jones of Borderlands.

 Dishonored 2 was kind of a surprise. Corvo will once again be a playable protagonist but can be substituted with a young female assassin, who I initially thought to be the youngster from the first Dishonored, but may be someone entirely different.

 TESO and some imminent DLC/additions were talked about....yeah.

 There’s going to be a free to play Elder Scrolls  card game for mobile platforms.

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 With Bethesda’s very recent release of the Fallout 4 trailer, it was no surprise that they saved the best for last. We were treated to a bit of pre-war Fallout universe gameplay that centered around the character creator and fiddling around with shit in a house just before the bombs fall. The protagonist and his family head down into the vault, but only our hero emerges two hundred years later as the sole survivor of Vault 111. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2CCmkm0s9o[width=650,height=366]

 Bethesda, not Obsidian, is back in the developer role for this Boston-based sequel and gave us a fair amount of details about the new game. The character creator is considerably more advanced than its predecessors, and the characteristics assigned to the parents will determine what the baby looks like. Customization has also been deepened for weapons( 50 base weapons with over 700 mods), the new layered armor system, and the environment. Players can now rebuild a house from scrap, expand it into a community, then fortify and defend their own town. Todd Howard stated that the player can start several communities and run Brahmin caravans between them. Postapocalyptic communities are magnets to raider types and Super Mutants: managing and defending custom built communities could give Fallout 4 a deeper and more personal way to play, like Sim City or Minecraft, by giving players a feeling of ownership and creativity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8HGslrINU[width=650,height=366]

 This one certainly sounds like pre-order material, which is fortuitous since the collector’s edition come with its own functional Pip Boy. This peripheral serves as a second screen device that interacts with the game. This second screen feature will also be available for tablets and phones if you can’t get the Pip Boy thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJ0VnIbM94[width=650,height=366]

 Speaking of phones, a brand new Fallout Shelter is available now and is a Sims type touch screen game. Inspired by a game called Progress Quest, players assume the role of a vault overseer whose mission is to keep the vault healthy and strong. This one is free to play and not one of those always online headaches like Sim City.

 The last bit of info from Todd for the night was the release date of Fallout 4: November 10, 2015. That’s right, we’ll have a new Fallout game by Christmas.

 Bethesda knocked it out of the park for their very first showing at E3. It’s going to be a hard act to follow.

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