VIDEO
Did you catch Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference and found it lacking in games? Well, thankfully, we have one more to end the day/night. This time, it’s Bethesda’s turn in the spotlight and there’s guaranteed to be a few new game announcements.
The Bethesda E3 2017 press conference will start at 9 p.m. PDT/12 mn EDT. What should we expect? Well, it looks like The Evil Within 2 is a lock, as well as a new entry in the Wolfenstein franchise. Will there be more game reveals? Tune in to find out.
The rest of the press conference schedule for the week:
Ubisoft
June 12 – 1.00PM PT/4.00PM ET
Sony
June 12 – 6.00PM PT/9.00PM ET
Nintendo
June 13 – 9.00AM PT/12.00PM ET
Running and most likely overlapping with Bethesda’s press conference will be Devolver Digital’s press conference (10 p.m. PDT/1 a.m. EDT). Don’t fret if you can’t watch that or this one, though, as we’ll be reporting all the news as it happens.
Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for Ubisoft and Sony’s press conferences, as well as for our hands-on previews, features, interviews and more.
Essential Reading:
E3 2017 surprises feature
E3 2017...The Comeback Story?
On the eve of gaming's biggest event, PSLS has nominated 7 dormant IPs that may well be on the verge of a comeback.
Spyro the Dragon
Kicking things off with a bout of wishful thinking, Spyro the Dragon is one former PlayStation mascot that has been linked with a comeback — either in the form of a remaster or totally new experience — for years. Activision now holds rights to the IP, and the cutesy reptile has since become a mainstay of the Skylanders franchise.
But after striking up a deal to create the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy , speculation is rife that Sony has found a similar workaround to welcome Spyro the Dragon back into its ranks — particularly after a PlayStation-themed ad placed Spyro alongside PaRappa the Rapper , who got a celebratory remaster of his own earlier in 2017. The rumor mill continues to operate at full tilt, so stay tuned for more.
Sly Cooper
Remaining in the realm of dormant PlayStation mascots, our next candidate on this list is Sly Cooper , the wise-cracking sleuth who began life under Infamous developer Sucker Punch all the way back in ‘02. Flanked by Bentley (The Brains) and Murray (The Muscle), Sly became something of a cult hero (or should that be anti-hero?) among the PlayStation community, and it’s small wonder why Sanzaru Games’s HD remaster garnered so much attention in 2010 — followed by that long-requested Vita port four years later.
Last we reported, Sanzaru was quick to play down talk of another entry in the Sly series, and considering that Sucker Punch is hard at work developing its new IP — an IP that may well be in attendance in a few days’ time — chances of a new Sly Cooper game are relatively slim. Even still, we live in hope.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
Steeped in the rich history of PlayStation and its world-famous roster of characters, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale initially launched for both PS3 and Vita to overly strong reviews, when critics praised SuperBot’s crossover for its water-tight controls and addictive multiplayer.
Lacklustre sales and those somewhat unfair comparisons to Super Smash Bros. looked to have clipped the franchise’s wings, though, and we understand SuperBot is now toiling away on a new IP of some sort. Plus, a full five years have lapsed between the launch of All-Stars and today, and though there have been rumblings of a sequel, Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida conceded in the past that for all of its promise, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale simply didn’t light up the sales charts in the way Sony would’ve hoped.
A worldwide total in the region of one million wasn’t enough to warrant direct follow-up, but perhaps Sony will crunch numbers in order to bring its intense brawler to a new generation? We'll see.
Resistance
Insomniac's cult shooter series already reared its ghastly alien head during our predictions video , but we’d be remiss if we didn't mention Resistance one more time before the main event kicks off.
Burning Skies notwithstanding, Resistance 3 was the last mainline entry in the cult franchise and six years after Capelli's quest to the Big Apple, Insomniac has been keeping busy with Sunset Overdrive and the as-yet-untitled Spider-Man PS4 game.
Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games, has stated in the past that the studio has no intention of releasing another Resistance game anytime soon. Perhaps Sony will shop its IP to another studio?
There is, after all, a rich sci-fi universe still begging to be explored, and though Resistance 's online servers officially shut down in 2014, PlayStation users have forever looked to Insomniac's shooter and wondered, "what if?" Is that question about to be answered?
Crash Team Racing
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy knocked everyone's socks offs last year. Here was a PlayStation mascot that had quietly fallen by the wayside, shifting over to Activision as Naughty Dog doubled down on deeply cinematic experiences in the vein of Uncharted and The Last of Us .
But N. Sane Trilogy , a remastered trilogy steeped in a particularly zany blend of nostalgia, represents something of a homecoming for Sony's marsupial. The big question now is whether Vicarious Visions will go one step further to launch a remastered version of Crash Team Racing.
Similarly to how All-Stars was consistently compared to Super Smash Bros. , many viewed Crash Team Racing as just another Mario Kart clone.
But such a short-sighted fallacy is a disservice to Naughty Dog's blistering spinoff.
In the days leading up to E3 2017, there has also been a bizarre amount of chatter concerning Bloodborne Kart , but perhaps Sony will still find wiggle room on its slate for a CTR revival?
Socom
When Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida was quizzed on the status of Socom , Sony's head honcho conceded that a reboot was unlikely .
That was almost a full two years ago, but that hasn't quelled hope of a bona fide comeback, and we here at PSLS have long made our desire for a new Socom game clear .
It would be an announcement straight out of left field, of course, but we're crossing our fingers. Here's the latest word from Yoshida-san:
"We have to gauge the interest and what they are saying and what they really want to see or play. We have to balance that with what we can do with the number of people who will enjoy that and we don’t have a good answer to that."
Dreams
Though it's not necessarily a comeback per se, Media Molecule's Dreams has been completely MIA for months — years, even — and barring a status report from the studio in December of last year, there's still no mention of that long-anticipated PS4 beta.
Surely E3 2017 is an opportune time for Sony and Media Molecule to usher their genre oddity back into the limelight? Perhaps announcing PSVR support, too? We'll find out soon enough.