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Bethesda’s E3 2019 Conference: The Live Blog

Alex Walker Avatar
Alex Walker

Now that we’re done with Microsoft, it’s onto the next major cab off the E3 rank: Bethesda.

0820: So a reminder of the times. The preshow will officially begin around 1015 AEST / 1215 NZST / 0815 AWST / 0945 ACST, with the actual conference launching at 1030 AEST.

You can find the specific times and links you need below.

[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/bethesda-e3-2019-fallout-wolfenstein-starfield-elder-scrolls-watch/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/03/wolfenstein-youngblood-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Watch Bethesda’s E3 2019 Conference Here” excerpt=”We know there’s a new Wolfenstein very soon, probably Fallout Shelter 2, and something to do with Elder Scrolls on mobiles. But what else has Bethesda got cooking this year?”]

[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/e3-2019-conferences-australia-new-zealand/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/05/e3-2018-esa-1-410×231.jpg” title=”All The Australian Times For E3 2019″ excerpt=”We’re one broken sleep away from the annual madness of E3. Things have been shaken up a fair bit this year, so here’s all the times you need to plan ahead.”]

So, what can we expect? Bethesda is fully behind Fallout 76 and there should be some extra reveals, especially since the game is split into adventure and survival modes. Wolfenstein: Youngblood is due out next month, and seeing some co-op play from that would be neat.

I’m pretty torn on what else we might see. It won’t be Starfield or Elder Scrolls 6, as Todd Howard has openly confirmed. So what’s in the works?

We’ll find out around 1030 AEST.

0833: So let’s quickly recap what Bethesda had for everyone at E3 2018.

Quake Champions went free to play for a week, followed by Rage 2 and an excitable Andrew W.K. Avalanche’s Magnus Nedfors then dwarfed over Tim Willits for a bit before more Rage 2 footage.

A relaunch of Elder Scrolls Legends was announced on Xbox, PS4 and Switch, which the studio delivered on. ESO then got a spotlight on its community and active player base, with the upcoming DLC then focusing on Black March. This year we’ll hear something about Elsweyr, the latest expansion that’s part of the Season of the Dragon year-long content roadmap.

[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/the-elder-scrolls-online-elsweyr-adds-a-shot-of-cat-charisma-and-a-lot-of-dragons/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/om9nhu98mq7bq0pnjioa.jpg” title=”The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr Adds A Shot Of Cat Charisma And A Lot Of Dragons” excerpt=”The Elder Scrolls Online has always seemed strangely reluctant to get weird. Even though Elder Scrolls games are at their best when they’re at their strangest, the opening hours of ESO’s main quests have always been surprisingly low-key.”]

DOOM Eternal was announced, and Arkane showed off the excellent Mooncrash DLC for Prey, which was ace. Then after fucking with people for a bit, we got Fallout 76.

It was Fallout Shelter on consoles and the Switch after that, followed by Elder Scrolls: Blades. Apple has been talking up Blades of late, so I wonder if there’s going to be some kind of AR functionality or something … weird.

Without Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6, the conference could use a bit of a huge surprise. It would be form for Bethesda to drop a teaser or just a logo for ES6 at the very end, the same way they did with Starfield last year. It wasn’t at E3, but people got to see something.

Just under two hours to go.

0905: If you want to catch up quickly on everything that’s out so far, we’ve got a full list of this year’s trailers up:

[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/all-the-trailers-from-e3-2019/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/06/2019-06-10_062327-410×231.jpg” title=”All The Trailers From E3 2019″ excerpt=”Want the fastest and quickest wrap from everything announced at E3? Then here’s everything you need: games, games and more games.”]

0915: Some tidbits that have come out after the Microsoft presser this morning.

Firstly, Halo: Infinite will be coming to PC. It’ll be playable on the existing Xbox One generation, but if you want 4K/60fps (given all that talk of 120fps support on Scarlett) you’ll probably need the next gen for that.

Other useful bit from Jedi: Fallen Order is that its a Metroidvania, of sorts. The detail was revealed in a after the Microsoft conference. We’ve already heard a little about the game’s hub worlds — Nathan played a bit of it at EA Play yesterday — but Stig Asmussen revealed that Cal would need to unlock powers and abilities to progress.

“We have agile exploration, which is basically beyond human exploration, works with the force. But the last one that’s really important is our Metroidvania design — the player has access to several planets in the game, and can jump to them at free will, and is only limited by powers,” Asmussen said.

Definitely puts a lot of what we’ve seen in context.

0940: Hideo Miyazaki has also given more details about Elden Ring in a new interview, which we’ve added to our story from earlier this morning. Primarily, it’s an open world with “horrifying” bosses to battle. What you’d expect from FromSoft, then.

[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/06/its-official-elden-ring-is-a-crossover-between-george-rr-martin-and-the-developers-of-dark-souls/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/esip11tekxc3m1rjjvcj.png” title=”It’s Official: Elden Ring Is A Collaboration Between George R.R. Martin And The Developers Of Dark Souls” excerpt=”Game of Thrones and Dark Souls are colliding. A trailer for a new From Software game called Elden Ring was shown at E3 2019’s Microsoft press conference today. The catch: it’s set in a fictional world designed by Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and best-selling author George R.R. Martin.”]

0945: Unsurprisingly, Keanu RPG is everyone’s favourite video game thus far, followed by Halo: Infinite. Little bit of love for Flight Simulator as well, plus Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

1008: Probably because of the time, but the audience for Bethesda’s showcase is already pretty big.

82,000 plus concurrents before the preshow isn’t half bad. Microsoft’s numbers were just over 100,000 on Twitch from memory just after the opening. And as I write, the viewer count has just ticked past 85,000.

Make that 90,000.

1015: Audio from the theatre is coming into the stream now; people are being told to take their seats, although it’s likely that a crowd that size is seated beforehand anyway. The stream is filled with shots of people already in the theatre, anyway.

Some DOOM music plays in the background. It’s a nice touch that viewers can get bonus in-game loot through the Twitch extension and by connecting their accounts.

I wonder how far away we are from E3 conferences being impacted by the decisions or choices made in Twitch chat. Like a live demo that’s becomes a Twitch chooses your own adventure. That’d be wild.

1022: Time for another morning coffee before everything kicks off, I think.

1030: Straight into it with Bethesda’s standard opener — one focused on community.

The video talks about Bethesda developers talking about their experiences as kids, and now as adults. It’s the standard line you hear from developers: we’re making games for you, because we are you.

I wonder how much that actually applies these days with changing generations — not that we aren’t all gamers or anything. I just wonder if the demographic targeting that’s becoming a part of most analytics-driven business decisions is factoring in to games at some point. Anyway.

Montage time! And then Pete Hines strolls out from the crowd onto the stage (instead of behind the crowd).

Hines says the show will take pause at points through the conference to feature feedback directly from the community. New games to be featured, and “we’ll go deep on DOOM Eternal“.

But it’s Todd time.

Fallout 76 first cab off the rank — “Had a lot of difficulties at launch, and we got a lot of well deserved criticism.”

Nice to see. But he mentions that the player base has stuck by the game, and he claims it has one of the nicest communities online. But before talking about Fallout 76 updates, a pivot to Blades.

A new dragon quest line is coming out tonight for Blades, which is very much Bethesda’s style. And later this spring, Blades will be on the Switch. It’ll still be free-to-play too.

I think I’ll probably pick that up. Bonus: your progress from mobile will carry over to the Switch version later this year. Nice touch.

The update will be free for all existing Fallout 76 players. And just for E3, FO76 will have a free trial week from tomorrow until June 18 Australian time. There’s a new game mode on the way as well — Vault 51 has no Overseer. It’s called Nuclear Winter, and … it’s a battle royale game.

The mode will be playable from tomorrow (a beta version of it, anyway).

Now, Shinji Mikami takes the stage. This smells like a The Evil Within follow-up of some kind.

Ghostwire Tokyo is the next game from Mikami and co. A producer comes out and she is thrilled to be on stage.

It’s not a survival horror game, but it is an action-adventure that’s spooky. People are vanishing in Tokyo and the player has to find out why. It’s got a cyberpunk theme.

Best developer of E3 so far. It’s great to see someone just have fun on stage.

Best looking video game noodles for a while, though.

Now we’re talking about the Bethesda community. It’s people talking about their experiences with Bethesda games — what they played, what their life was like when they played, what they’re doing in their lives now.

After the final bloke talks about adding dragons to everything, it’s Elder Scrolls Online‘s time. A game which, can confirm, has dragons. That’s the year-long content roadmap for ESO, after all.

But what happens after Elsweyr (which sounds like elsewhere). We see a battle with a dragon, with a legendary Khajiit back as part of the Dragonhold Q4 story DLC for ESO. More about Dragonhold is due out at Quakecon.

There is more people going batshit in the crowd this year for ESO than previous years, for what it’s worth. But Zenimax Online Studios is working on “several other projects”. One of them will be revealed now.

… that’s out of left field. The game will feature Billy and Billie. Twins will build gadgets from household items, with players dragging and dropping objects from one platform to another so the twins can progress upward.

Legends is getting a run now with what looks a lot like a TVC.

There’s not actually a new announcement – it’s just a promo for Legends and Bethesda trying to push more people towards Legends. The next expansion drops on June 27, but they’re not spending any time talking about the update here.

1114: Rage 2 hasn’t featured since the opening, so it’s about time for some cheesy music and some wasteland slaughter. The game’s getting cheat codes, a new vehicle, and the Rise of the Ghosts expansion.

1118: It’s Youngblood‘s turn. Talking up about the co-op nature of Wolfenstein, more weapons, more weapon upgrades, and more Nazis in Paris to cut through. Great music for the trailer.

It’s a new game from Arkane Lyon, featuring two rivals — one bloke gets killed and keeps repeating a timeloop. But if he kills his female rival, she repeats the loop. Death Loop, it’s called.

1127: Another player intervention, and we’re introduced to Bethesda’s director of publishing and id’s chief technology officer.

This doesn’t feel like an Eternal launch. They’re talking about the first commercially viable VR technology — ooft, Nintendo — and other world firsts for the publishing house.

Next up is a game test with DOOM streaming to a mobile device, at 60fps “without perceptible latency”. A closed beta (which you can register for) will be run soon, although the site to register is currently down.

But, as you’d expect, it makes sense to roll straight into DOOM Eternal with that.

“DOOM promises to be the ultimate power fantasy,” Hugo Martin, creative director on DOOM Eternal, says.

That new UI is …. something. Seems a little out of place with hell and more something from … STRAFE? A cyberpunk retro shooter almost? I can’t quite place it.

DOOM Eternal launches on November 22 this year.

But there’s a new multiplayer mode. It’s called Battlemode — it’s Pure doom, with two player controlled demons take on a single Slayer. Demon strategy vs slayer skill, apparently. More will be shown off at Quakecon. It’s round-based, from what we can see in the following trailer.

More shots here:

1148: A ton of panels and activities will be added to Quakecon this year to celebrate DOOM, being the game’s 25th anniversary.

But that’s it. We’ve got the wrap-up montage playing now.

Any random surprises to finish the show?

… not this year. So that’s it. DOOM Eternal and the Orion tech were really the biggest reveals — Youngblood seems like it’s leveraging the co-op element more than anything else. We didn’t hear much about the story or any changes in systematic gameplay or design there. Bit worried about it, to be honest.

But the opening for Fallout 76 was frank and good. A battle royale mode makes a lot of sense in the Fallout world. We didn’t get a Western release for Fallout Shelter 2, even though it’s live in China right now. Maybe that’ll drop later this year.

Ghostwire: Tokyo looked interesting. Importantly, it looked different. That game was pick of the show for me.

But what about yourselves?

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