Bethesda E3 2019 report card: Orion, Doom Eternal and more
Bethesda made big announcements for Elder Scrolls Blades, updates for Fallout 76, Rage 2, and an all-new take on a classic PC action game, along with a big Doom Eternal announcement.
Presentation
After a start featuring multiple Bethesda game developers talking about how they’re just like us followed by a montage of clips from various Bethesda games, Senior Vice President Pete Hines took to the stage to start off Bethesda’s presentation. Here’s how it went.
After reiterating how much their fans mean to them, Hines introduced director and executive producer of Bethesda Todd Howard, who came out onto the stage to talk about Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Blades. The latter will receive a brand new dragon questline, new jobs, and custom jewelry. These updates will be coming out tonight.
An arena mode was announced, featuring PvP combat and, perhaps the biggest announcement of all, that Elder Scrolls Blades will be coming to Nintendo Switch this Fall, and will be free. It will feature cross-play with the mobile version, so users can pick up their games on their Switch seamlessly.
Sticking with mobile games, Bethesda announced an update for Elder Scrolls Legends titled Moons of Elsweyr. Rage 2 also had an expansion coming called Rise of the Ghosts that will feature new enemies and weapons.
Two Wolfenstein games were also announced at this year’s E3. Wolfenstein Cyberpilot is a VR game that will be available this July. Wolfenstein Youngblood will see Wolfenstein introduce co-op, with the option for solo play, along with the option to buddy up and kill Nazis with a friend.
Bethesda announced some new cutting-edge game-based technology, Orion, which Bethesda says is a breakthrough on game streaming technology. Orion will stream game content with 40% lower bandwidth, and 20% faster. Bethesda claims that it will cost less and that Orion will allow users to stream games at max settings, regardless of how many people are on the network.
Games Quality
Bethesda showcased the quality of the Orion technology with Doom on a mobile phone. The game looked almost as good as advertised on the phone, running seamlessly through all off the action-packed gameplay.
Human NPC’s are coming to Fallout 76, with full dialogue trees, along with new questlines. Fallout 76 will have a free trial from June 10 – June 17. During that trial, players will be able to try the all-new Nuclear Winter Battle Royale game mode.
Bethesda also announced some Elder Scrolls Online news, which just a few days ago, saw the Elsweyr expansion go live. They announced a new fourth story, Dragonhold, and a dungeon DLC called Scalebreaker, which will be released in August. The release trailer featured an epic but far too long live-action clip of a Khajit on horseback battling a dragon.
The Best and Worst
The big news came when Zenimax Online announced a new Commander Keen free-to-play mobile game. For those not aware, Commander Keen was one of the first PC action games that came out in the early ’90s. Now we are receiving a mobile modern take on this classic game.
The game will star Billy and Billie, two twins who are following in their Father’s footsteps of saving the world. Commander Keen will be releasing this summer. You can visit gokeen.com to sign up for early access, and receive news regarding the new mobile game.
A new game called Ghostwire Tokyo was announced, with the platforms still being a bit of a mystery. People are vanishing in Tokyo, as spirits both peaceful and dangerous have taken over. You can watch the reveal trailer for Ghostwire Tokyo here, and read about the game further here.
The best news about Doom Eternal came for those in attendance at E3, who were given a chance to play the game, while the release date for the game is set for November 22. Bethesda also announced a Collector’s Edition of the game, featuring a helmet that players can wear. That doesn’t really excite me, but had some in attendance going nuts.
Doom Eternal’s big announcement was the new multiplayer mode, featuring one slayer and two enemies. The mode is rightfully called “Battle Mode.”
B+. Bethesda’s presentation started out hot with the surprise announcement of Elder Scrolls Blades coming to Switch, but the time spent on discussing rather minor updates to games like Rage 2, Elder Scrolls Legends, and the three-minute video given to the Elder Scrolls Online update, drew away from the excitement surrounding their other announcements.. . . Bethesda E3 2019 Conference
The videos of developers talking about how great Bethesda is and how they’re “just like us” was a bit cheesy and unnecessary. Other than that, Bethesda’s E3 event was a success, and Bethesda fans can look forward to the new multiplayer game modes coming to Fallout 76 and Doom Eternal.