E3 2018 - Bethesda

I almost didn't write a review for Bethesda this year since I thought "They'll probably do fine without much to mock or laugh at." Turns out I was both right and wrong which is the worst kind of wrong. Starting with such a saccharine "Look we're human trailer" it almost felt like parody with "This is Bethesda" actually being typed out and put on screen, while "Generic Inspirational Beats #4" and "Smiley Twee Tunes #11" played in the background. Bethany Esda goes on at length about how gosh darn diverse, friendly and fun Bethesda is to work for. You're not EA, you don't need to defend that. Doing so without provocation just makes you look weird at best and guilty preachy at worst.

Unless you're baking a watermelon-based video game I don't care.

Pete Hinemind walks out and flashes the cameraman before continuing the intro video's ride that nobody asked to be on. Yammering about how great their company is, the now obligatory and thus meaningless thanking of the fans and shitting on Walmart.

After promising a look at Rage 2 what we get instead is a live performance from Andrew WK a man connected to the game in so much as he said the title a few times. Unless someone performs a blood magic ritual and resurrects David Bowie or someone of his caliber, I don't think non-game music is ever going to work at these events. Even the cameras couldn't find enough people smiling to give the illusion of excitement.

When that finally ends instead of that look at Rage 2 we get the game's directors talking bollocks and doing a painful David and Goliath comedy act (or possibly an ad for Rogaine) Tiny Tim tells us "I know that you are here to see the game" Which must mean this pointless pre-amble is specifically included just to waste everybody's time.

The eventual gameplay demo features Mad Max aesthetics and Doom style FPS action which seems solid albeit very scripted in this instance. The protagonist acquires what I can only describe as a poorly chosen upgrade to show in this demo as "Shatter" is a dishonestly named, fairly limp Jedi force push and the protagonist seems like the only one impressed by it.

Next in eyeball range is a community manager for Elder Scrolls Legends. A card game video game that has apparently won awards without being released and has yet more cringeworthy people-focused trailers that outdo those usually done by Nintendo. At least theirs are usually speechless. "This is action. This is story." This is a fucking card game, shut up.

All the accumulated money this man has spent on microtransactions.

The director for Elder Scrolls Online arrives and signposts the third asked-for-applause of this conference so far. "We're over 11 million players now" "We were named MMO of the year for the third straight year" Who are you trying to convince? Anyone watching this has at least a passing interest in your games but the self-congratulatory circle jerk that has been 99% of the show up until now can undo your achievements pretty damn quick. "On the off-chance you aren't playing Elder Scrolls Online" Yeah that's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

Marty and Hugo and their identical smiles introduce sequel Doom Eternal, stoking the fires of hype with rhetorical questions only to piss it all away by admitting there's no real footage until Quakecon.

Quake Champions' community manager decides to repeatedly ask for applause and hype instead of showing us anything. "We've been doing this for a long time." and yet you haven't learnt not to put *pause for applause* in your auto-cue scripts. The trailer has progressed from CG to gameplay in a year but still looks to be a pretty mediocre hero/class shooter bandwagon affair. Doom's reboot was classic yet modernised, Quake Champions just looks outdated. 

Prey creators announce an impressive amount of new modes and DLC for the game in between some dreary comedy and live action "bits"

I'd like to direct your attention to the excellent side-eye the audience member between them is giving.
It was pretty much my reaction also.

The unfortunately named Jerk Gustafsson and the slightly more fortunate Jens Matthies arrive to namedrop more awards they've received before finally announcing Wolfenstein: Youngblood. Set in the 1980's and starring the most unfortunately named protagonist BJ's twin daughters, the game will have co op and...that's all we know because all they had was a CG teaser trailer of course.

I guess it will probably be good based on the success of its previous outings but that mindset seems to be the theme of this conference which all its speakers are relying on for unearned praise. Beans Means Hines returns to announce Prey and Wolfenstein VR with nothing more than a logo for each before spouting the nontroversial yet recently repopularised opinion that is "fuck Nazis".

This baffling scene atop all the wanky award wielding and constant screaming interjections from the audience are enough to make me try and quit like Hitler or "do a hashtag #QUITLER" if I was being as try-hard as these fucks to appeal to blithering youths. Unless Pete Hines is actually Saint Peter Hines however, my attempt dismally fails.

Just in time to see him introduce Todd Howard like he's a fucking rockstar complete with strobe lights, theme music and audience wailing. Todd paces up and down doing his stand up routine before playing a comedy sketch that knowingly mocks how often Skyrim has been rereleased on different systems. Still did it though didn't you.

A lot easier to do this now that you have all the money from it.

Fallout 76's arrival does seem to improve the overall quality of the conference or perhaps Todd is just better at working the room. Alongside footage he mentions the many creepy new creatures, sixteen times the graphical detail and six different distinct regions to explore in virtual Virginia.

All good sounding features until he announces the game is always online. Mercifully this is not essential and he wisely goes on to dissuade a lot of the panic that phrase normally immediately instils. The audience banshee that went bath salts apeshit on syllable one of the sentence didn't know that however so I'm curious as to what exactly she was excited for.

You'd have to be insane or EA to think always online is an advantage so it can't be that. Possibly the pay cheque for crowd plant fake hyper upper she'll soon receive, although I wouldn't hold that in too high regard when it seems it'll be split among at least 50 other shit-flinging chimps in the auditorium.

Griping aside (momentarily) Fallout 76 looks very promising and a lot of fun. The darkly comic 50's Vault-Tec infomercials remain entertaining and go into depth on a lot of the game's features.

Todd also announces a mobile game I somehow don't hate. Elder Scrolls: Blades looks genuinely pioneering in being a console quality, substantial game with multiple modes, connectivity and useful settings to alleviate the irritations that often come with playing these more intensive and non-arcade action mobile games.

If you can at least avoid hand cramp while playing, I'll consider this a success. 

Surprisingly it is also free which me suspects may mean in app purchases but regardless it seems like a good quality title with a release date later this year...and it's not a bloody card game. The next announcement is Bethesda's "first wholly original franchise in 25 years" which I don't think really reflects well on them and their creativity but okay.

An incredibly brief teaser is hopefully not all we'll see of this for 25 years but it's called Starfield and it's presumably Sci-Fi and/or space-based. It tells us next to nothing but I'm not gonna knock new IPs too hard when narrow minded fanboys will do that for me.

What I will knock however is the standing ovation that a CG helicopter shot of a mountain got. This was apparently The Elder Scrolls VI which is an exciting concept in our heads where we can speculate and imagine but not so much on screen from the people actually making it. Was this "trailer" just to say that you're making it? Because you don't need to be a business savvy stockbroker to know that was the most obvious guarantee of a thing being made since Snoop Dogg started buying up greenhouses..

Difficult to know which was more annoying here. The public displays of sneering businessman reach-arounds, the humiliating death rattle of uninvited "comedy" or the playpen full of volumetrically challenged shitheels. Either way there was some interesting stuff here but it wasn't worth wading through all the sewage to get to.

Is this supposed to be an iconic region I immediately recognise? Because I checked with other people and it's not.