During the past year, the third-party developers have seemed to struggle with a change in generations and with tight deadlines. We have seen some excellent games come out from third-party developers since the last E3 but it seems like there have been more misses than hits.
This last year has also seen the rise of the “limited” edition. With seven or eight editions of the same game starting to become the norm, gaming is starting to become even more expensive than it ever was.
Whether you loved or hated Watch_Dogs, it is easy to agree that it wasn’t what it was supposed to be. With a couple of big titles that have been significantly delayed and falling short when they finally see the light of day it is hard not to wonder if Ubisoft are over-thinking things a little. No doubt we are going to see more from Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry 4. I hope that Ubisoft can inject some much needed life into the former and innovate more with the latter.
I hope Ubisoft can resist going down the path of evil and not announce there will be two hundred different versions of each new game that they release. I also hope they can finally do away with an even worse evil, timed exclusive DLC content.
EA’s show will be big and flashy. I predict that they will also try and drive home the message of people playing together and the successes of some of their bigger franchises. The irony is that Battlefield 4 is still broken in multiplayer across both the current generation consoles and sadly, it will probably never get fixed, despite their claims of remaining committed to the game. I hope that EA have nice surprises in store for us and give some substantial information about what is going on with the next Mass Effect game and that we’ll see a playable demo of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
We will see the next iterations of the EA Sports line-up for the next twelve months. Everyone will complain that they are barely different from the year prior, but will strangely still buy them up.
If rumours are to be believed, we will also be seeing Resident Evil 7. If this true, the team at Capcom really must build the series from the ground up much like they did with Resident Evil 4. Their last effort was wildly unpopular and Capcom would do well to listen to the criticisms of that sixth iteration and take that feedback on board.
Will we or won’t we see Grand Theft Auto V for the PC and current generation consoles? That is the big question. And will we finally see Rockstar’s successor to Red Dead Redemption? If so, will it be a cross-generation title? I expect answers will come sooner than later.
I am looking forward to seeing Sonic Boom on the Wii U. I hope that Sega can finally do something with the Sonic licence that doesn’t involve gamers scratching their head and wondering why.
I hope we see some news from Sega regarding some HD Dreamcast reboots or updates for this generation.
Also, Shenmue 3! Please Sega, please!
Ubisoft really need to lift their game, after the bug ridden tripe that was Watch_Dogs. I have basically lost all faith in them as a company. Releasing Watch_Dogs how it was only revealed them as underhanded, putting out underdone titles to line their pockets.
It is probably too late for me, but for Ubisoft fans who are feeling the same, one can only hope they strike half a chord of honesty and integrity with their yearly release series, Assassin’s Creed. A lot is set to be revealed for the franchise this year with a dedicated game to both last and current generation. Hopefully Ubisoft can reinstall some faith in their disappointed fans with these reveals by taking on board a few suggestions that fans have been begging to get for years now.
Batman: Arkham Knight got delayed and that’s fine with me.
Rocksteady have earned the gamers trust and respect by already delivering two marvellous Batman games and I think the can all agree that a delay isn’t a sign of struggle for Rocksteady, but rather a sign of respect that they really want to give the fans what they deserve in an epic conclusion to their Arkham trilogy. I am still expecting to see some more gameplay information reveals here however, perhaps even the inevitable Collector’s Edition could be revealed.
Mortal Kombat was recently revealed with a CGI trailer, so no real gameplay was shown but scrutinising the footage it may hold a few hints as to what new features the game may contain. I look forward to more information on this game, particularly as I adore NetherRealm timing for reveals. Just about every four to six weeks, or if a convention is in town, you can expect a character reveal, as their drip feed of information keeps fans in the loop.
E3 2014 is here and now more than ever, people seem to be more excited about what third-party have to show. I’m really excited to hopefully see FIFA 15 revealed. FIFA 14 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One was a huge advance over what we’d seen in the past but I believe that the team can take the game even further and use the processing power to create a smarter AI which will lead to a better overall game. I’m really excited to see how Mirror’s Edge 2 is shaping up, however I feel that it’ll still be quite early in development and won’t be released for quite some time.
Ubisoft will be the most interesting conference from my point of view. They’re splitting the Assassin’s Creed series into two directions. One will be for the current generation and one will be for last generation. I think we know what to expect from the previous generation version however it’ll be exciting to see how Assassin’s Creed makes use of the newer consoles. I believe that we’ll see a more integrated multiplayer world, like the one we saw in Watch_Dogs. We’ve seen a ton of Assassin’s Creed games in the last seven years so it’s going to take a lot for fans to get excited.
I’m super excited to see how Far Cry 4 is shaping up. Far Cry 3 was one of the best games of the last generation and really came out of nowhere. I believe that the game will be phenomenal and most likely take the open-world shooting genre to another level.
Ubisoft will possibly announce a Wii U specific game. Fans are really excited for a sequel to ZombiU, however I believe that they’ll go in a new direction and possibly announce something else.
From Activision I don’t feel that we’ll see anything too exciting. I’m sure they’ll push Call of Duty and Skylanders to death and that’s what they do best. It wouldn’t be an E3 without a Call of Duty getting shown.
I’d love Rockstar or Bethesda to make an appearance and announce something for the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One that would really get gamers talking but I just don’t see it. They’d be better off waiting to announce it in their own time. I just really hope that we see third-parties taking the leap. I’m really tired of games being announced for cross-generation. I want to see the power used to its full potential.
