E3 2015: Bethesda Wrap-Up

Bethesda kicked off the E3 shows with a few known announcements and a couple of tasty surprises. Here they all are.

*Doom* – apparently scrapped totally midway through development and restarted from scratch, the new *Doom* seems to ignore the creepy gameplay of *Doom 3* and basically makes a shiny version of the original two games. Fast-paced, no cover or recharging health, extreme gore, angry demons and lots of chinky angry weapons. looks a little boring for my tastes but could be worth a blast. Also ships with arena multiplayer and map editor across all systems. PC, Xbox One & PS4, no release date announced.

*Dishonored 2* – hilariously spoiled by Bethesda themselves in a  Twitch rehearsal yesterday, the new entry in the *Dishonored* series seems to be even more focussed on pushing their clockwork world into a science fiction future. With a male and female protagonist to play as during the game, all play styles are said to be catered for (and, apparently, the whole game can be beaten without killing a single person). It certainly looks very, very pretty. No release date yet, but an enhanced version of the first game will be out for current consoles in the Fall.

*Elder Scrolls Online* – more area for the online RPG. Not for me at all.

*Elder Scrolls Legends* – a strategy collectable card game that very obviously wants a slice of the Hearthstone pie. No mechanics or art shown, just a plain announcement.

*Fallout 4* – the big one. A full sequel set in Boston 200 years after the bombs dropped, *Fallout 4* is apparently the largest, most detailed open world Bethesda has ever designed. It looked chock full of tiny details and interesting area, and this time includes a level of customisable elements that could keep you busy for months. Areas where you can build encampments, huge suits of power armour and even weapons can be designed from the ground up to give your playthrough a totally unique feel. They say that their focus this time round has also bene on improving the combat, and the player can choose first or third person real-time combat or a tactical system once gain using VATS. As someone who got totally lost in *Fallout 3*, this all looks very attractive, though I worry all the customisable elements may be a little distracting. As long as the single-player campaign can be completed without relying on changing these tiny elements, then this could potentially be another Game Of The Year for Bethesda. And the final surprise was that we don’t have to wait too much longer – *Fallout 4* will be available on November 10th this year!

*Fallout Shelter* – finally, a little touchscreen mobile game that’s gone on sale tonight. *Fallout Shelter* lets you run your own vault in a sort of side-on view that’s reminiscent of the base view in *XCOM*. Free to download but only for Apple devices it seems, so I’ll have to wait for Matt to tell me how it is.

So, quite an interesting show with the star of the hour *Fallout 4* impressing with its first demo. Lets hope the other shows have their own surprises tomorrow. See you at 9:30am for the Microsoft E3 show liveblog!