Lewis Packwood E3, E3 2017

E3 2017 hopes and dreams

EA will kick off E3 2017 with their pre-show presentation tomorrow, so we thought we’d put our heads together and come up with a list of the announcements we’d like to see over the next week or so. Maybe this is finally the year of Half-Life 3…

Hey, what do you mean it will never happen? If E3 has taught us anything over the years, it’s that it is a place where dreams can be made (…and promises broken).

Professor GreilMercs – E3 (in my household also known as Nintendo Christmas) is always a time for high hopes and dashed dreams, but by now I’ve learned to accept what the Nintendo gods grant us rather than get myself too dangerously hyped.

Without a doubt Nintendo is going to be showcasing Super Mario Odyssey, one of its big releases for this year. It’s a game that I’m not super excited about, not being a big fan of 3D platformers in general, but that I don’t mind finding out more about. On the realistic side, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo filled in some info about the just-announced Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon and padded their presentation with some additional info about the soon-to-be-released Splatoon 2. There are also a number of previously announced Switch games that everyone’s been waiting to hear more about, including Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the new Shin Megami Tensei game. The game that falls into this category that I would be most psyched to see a trailer for would definitely be Fire Emblem Warriors, and it seems likely since details and images from the game have already started to be included in Famitsu.

More info on Super Mario Odyssey is a dead cert for E3.

We should probably also expect to see at least some of the multiplayer-centric fluff that Nintendo has been pushing for the last few years, like the ones from 2015’s underwhelming presentation that included The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, Metroid Prime Federation Force, and Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (yawn). It also wouldn’t be surprising to see at least one new line of Amiibo announced, and some more Wii U to Switch ports. The most likely of these is the much-speculated new version of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U that would include all the previously released DLC and some new characters and modes (such as the 3DS-exclusive Smash Run mode). This would be a super easy win for Nintendo, and including obvious characters like the Inklings from Splatoon and Spring Man or Ribbon Girl from ARMS would get them tons of points from fans.

We can expect a few announcements from left field, but as a longtime Nintendo fan any revivals of long-ignored series would be definite highlights for me (the announcement of Kid Icarus: Uprising in 2010 will always be a fond E3 memory for me). It would be great if this were the year we finally found out what Retro Studios (of Metroid Prime fame) has been working on since 2014, and of course a new Metroid game would always be welcomed with open arms (although fans have been waiting for a new 2D game several years longer than a new first-person Prime game). Likewise, any new entries in dormant series such as Advance Wars and WarioWare would be great to see, and I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a Switch follow-up to the Wii Fit series either.

Could this be the year that we finally see a new Advance Wars?

Oh, blast it all, I’ve gone and gotten myself overly hyped once again. Well, only a few more hours until we find out what E3 2017 has in store for us. Happy E3, and here’s hoping for a very merry Nintendo Christmas!

Baron Richenbaum Fotchenstein – My main concern is the rumors about Bloodborne 2 being announced. This seems unlikely, given that From Software has already publicly stated that they have no intention of doing a sequel to Bloodborne, but a man can dream.

Dare we hope for a Bloodborne sequel?

If that doesn’t happen though, I’d like to see whatever other new game or games that From Software is working on, more new horror games, more new Marvel games, some big new PlayStation VR titles, Death Stranding gameplay, anything at all about Cyberpunk 2077, and I hear there may be new Wolfenstein and Evil Within reveals coming too.

Lucius P. Merriweather – In some ways, my dream E3 announcement is that there will be no announcements whatsoever. I already have a healthy backlog of games, and there are dozens of titles from the past couple of years that I’d dearly love to pick up and play – so the idea of adding even more ‘must-have’ games to my purchase list sends a shudder through my wallet.

Still, I can’t deny I’m excited about another E3 – as Professor GM points out, it’s basically Christmas for gamers. One title that I’ve had my eye on for a while is Vampyr by Dontnod Entertainment, who made the wonderful Remember Me (review here) and Life is Strange. It’s set for release in November, and it’s shaping up to be something special, so I’ll be keeping my peepers out for more news on this intriguing game.

Vampyr looks very good indeed.

In terms of surprises, I’d love to hear an announcement of what the oddball Japanese developer Swery has been up to with his new company, White Owls. I loved the Twin Peaks-esque Deadly Premonition (sort-of review here) – so much so that I recently backed the board game version on Kickstarter – and Swery has already promised that his new game will be “perverted, violent and crazy”. The crazier the better, I say.

I’m also holding out hope that we’ll get some wonderful surprises from Nintendo – top of the list would be the announcement of a new, ‘proper’ Metroid game (2D or 3D, either would be fine). Anything Fire Emblem-related will also see me pricking up my ears with pleasure, and the resurrection of a few old franchises would be more than welcome. Pilotwings, Advance Wars and Wave Race are three that spring to mind. The announcement of GameCube titles on Switch – see my recent wishlist – would also have me jumping up and down with glee.

Come on, it’s about time we had more Samus in our lives.

You can file these next three under ‘highly unlikely’, but I would be whooping with delight if there were announcements of sequels to Silent Bomber, Skies of Arcadia and Lost Kingdoms. There’s some vague sense of hope for these, at least: CyberConnect2 have recently been taken off the Final Fantasy VII remake, so maybe they’ll decide to do a Silent Bomber sequel instead (OK, I admit it’s a long shot); SEGA recently said it plans to revive some old franchises, so Skies of Arcadia COULD be among them; and finally, From Software, the developers of Lost Kingdom I and II (and also some game called Dark Souls or something), is supposedly working on three unannounced games, so there’s a chance that one of them might be a Lost Kingdoms sequel.

OK, it’s a very, very slim chance, but it’s a chance nonetheless.

Oh, and Half-Life 3. I reckon this is the year. Called it.