Everything Announced At The Square Enix E3 2021 Showcase

Everything Announced At The Square Enix E3 2021 Showcase

With a first look at Life is Strange: True Colors, a proper look at PlatinumGames’ Babylon’s Fall, a new Final Fantasy Origin title that looked more like Devil May Cry and Guardians of the Galaxy, Square Enix had some firepower to follow the Xbox-Bethesda showcase.

With a trailer featuring “gameplay footage shot on various platforms”, Eidos Montreal began proceedings with their Guardians of the Galaxy spin-off. It’s a third-person action-adventure with combat mechanics similar to Marvel’s Avengers, although the focus for this seems much more on the buddy element. It’s launching on October 26, 2021, and will be single-player only.

The game will give players choices at different points. One shown off, for instance, is a choice to sell either Groot or Rocket. You’ll only play as Starlord throughout the game, however.

We even got a look at the main menu screen, which is the Guardians just hanging out while Starlord listens to music:

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We then get to see a choice of how the Guardians resolve their financial troubles. A longer scene of what was teased earlier, where the player chooses whether to sell Groot or Rocket to Lady Hellbender, plays out.

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In combat players will be able to summon each of the Guardians to unleash different abilities through a weapon wheel. It looks like each character has four abilities that Starlord can trigger, applying different status effects like freezing, staggering, and more. There’s also a meter that fills up after a certain amount of damage, allowing the entire party to attack faster and do more damage over a short period.

A different choice then unfolds as to whether you want to throw Rocket over a chasm to unlock a bridge. We then got a closer look at the combat UI, as well as a brief look at what looks like an XP system that adds up after each encounter.

Square then finally moved onto other titles, showing off Legend of Mana and more Final Fantasy remasters for new platforms. This time, it was announced that Final Fantasy 1 through 6 would be getting a remaster for Steam and mobiles.

Marvel’s Avengers then showed off the game’s next content update, Cosmic Cube, due out this month. Wasteland Patrol, scheduled for later in the Australian winter, is adding a new patrol mode, randomised, replayable boss fights, and more exploration bonuses. War for Wakanda is the Black Panther addition to Marvel’s Avengers, and it’s being added as a free content update.

Square then unveiled a mobile spin-off for Hitman. Hitman Sniper: The Shadows is due out this year sometime for iOS and Android, and looks like it’ll focus largely on long-range sniping. NiER Reincarnation was also unveiled as the first mobile spin-off for the franchise, but no details were provided beyond what looked like some wave-based combat:

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More Final Fantasy mobile spin-offs followed. The Final Fantasy battle royale, Final Fantasy: The First Soldier is getting a worldwide iOS/Android launch this year. It was then time for Babylon’s Fall, the latest title from PlatinumGames.

Shots of gameplay looked to feature a squad of 4 characters that fight alongside you, with shots of the player controlling multiple characters with different melee and magical abilities. Square then confirmed Bablyon’s Fall would only be coming to PS4, PS5 and PC. A developer interview later confirmed that Babylon’s Fall can be enjoyed solo or in co-op, and was modelled after the combat style of NiER: Automata. It’ll be developed as a live service title with frequent post-launch content updates.

Life is Strange: Remastered Collection then had a brief trailer, showing some of the before/after shots. Life is Strange isn’t that old a game, so the remaster mostly looks like upgrades to the lighting system, better lip syncing, with some sharpening applied to the models. It’ll be released on September 30.

Some gameplay from Life is Strange: True Colors then played, showcasing how Alex’s empathy powers come into play. You’ll have access to this power from the start of the game, letting you listen in to the various people of Haven Springs. Doing so uncovers new dialogue options and choices, and like in Life is Strange, that unlocks pathways that can permanently diverge the story.

Alex also has the power to effectively enter a person’s psyche by connecting with their aura, which then visually shapes the world around her as she tries to understand what someone is going through. It’s all a journey to uncover the mystery behind someone’s death. Life is Strange: True Colors launches on September 10 for all major platforms. 

Square Enix Japan then announced a new action brawler from Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo, one with a combat style eerily reminiscent of Devil May Cry without the combo bonuses. Starring a small group who calls themselves the “Warriors of Light”, it’s called Stranger of ParaDise: Final Fantasy Origin. It’ll be out in 2022 on all major platforms, with a demo “coming soon” for PS5.

A montage of current and soon-to-be-released titles followed, with a few seconds of footage from at Forspoken, Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker, and more Guardians of the Galaxy footage. Nothing new was revealed on those titles, however, and the show closed out, giving everyone about an hour’s break until the next major broadcast.

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