Life moves pretty fast…
This whole Summer Games Fest and Not-E3 thing has kind of surprised me. Well, it’s mostly me, I think. It seems to have come and gone with very little fanfare that I can tell. But, again, maybe that’s me just not paying attention. But it feels like the hype train was little more than a hype trolley, I suppose. I’m not sure, but it feels like there was very little leading up to this (it came kind of out of the blue for me thinking it would be later in the summer or AFTER the Microsoft thing), and there was also very little to come after it.
This isn’t a call for E3 to return, even though I know it will. Just…something felt off about it this year. Lack of leaks, lack of big reveals and more just giving us extra information of things we already knew were coming. It’s not a disappointment, really, because I had no expectations, but what we got seems…slim. Small. Nothing has built up hype.
That isn’t to say we didn’t get some looks at some interesting titles. There were a ton of games thrown at us over the course of a few days with more to come, and what I’ve seen so far is some great stuff. Most of that comes from the indie side of things with the smaller games showing off some big swing for the fences type of innovation or creativity. I’ve seen quite a large number of puzzle games and platformers along with a whole slew of life sims (Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing type games) that have all caught my eye. Not so much with the AAA titles. Yes, they look good and are sparking my interests but you’re not showing me much of the game it seems, and by that I mean actual gameplay.
We’ll likely be back here again next weekend saying more of the same depending on how next week (and specifically today, Sunday, goes with the Microsoft presentation). I guess the good thing about not having an E3 means it doesn’t contain itself within a few days of one single week in June. Now, we have all summer for ANYTHING to pop up. Companies can do their own thing whenever they want.
In that way, it’s almost always E3.
E3 or not, we’ll still be disappointed because…Ubisoft, it’s been 3,217 days since the last Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, or VR exclusive).
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