E3 2021 Round-Up

Credit to: The ESA (Entertainment Software Association)

This year’s E3 sure was interesting

Welcome back! This time around, we’re diving deep into E3 2021’s highlights (in my own opinion, please understand that) and letdowns! Some days had some real HEAVY hitters making their presence known, while the other days really were a big letdown. It’s unfortunate that this year’s E3 wasn’t as huge as we all thought, but at least we did still get some amazing reveals to keep us going! Now, let’s take a look at what we just recently saw.

Day 1

Hoo boy. This is gonna be tough to talk about. Of course, you should never expect too much for the first day of an event like this, but even with that being said, they really did drop the ball on the first day. This day really was a boring day. I genuinely found this to be one of the most boring days of all time. Don’t get me wrong, I truly do love indie games. I find them to be good inspiration for people starting their journeys as developers, and a lot of them really are fun. I mean no disrespect to Guerilla Collective and Wholesome Direct, neither do I mean any disrespect to the specific game designers who put so much work into these games, but most of these games really aren’t that impressive, which really is a shame. Though, Ubisoft did manage to put in just enough excitement to make the day bearable, with the reveal of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (even though that was leaked just hours before the show) and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I guess Rainbow Six Extraction, even though the inclusion of aliens in a Rainbow Six game just pains my soul. Impressive graphics though, I suppose. We did also see a bit of Far Cry 6, Elden Ring gameplay, and a tease of Payday 3, but that really was the most that was truly exciting for Ubisoft. In terms of Gearbox, they also didn’t have too much for us. They showed some of the new Borderlands spinoff, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but it wasn’t much to look at unfortunately, and I really love the Borderlands series. It is still early though, so fingers crossed for that game. They also gave us a little peak at the Borderlands movie with Kevin Heart talking about his role as Roland, one of the first Vault Hunters you play as in the first Borderlands, so that was funny. They also included Godfall and Tribes of Men, but meh. Oh yeah, and Devolver Digital was there. Hm. Next day!

Day 2

Xbox. Bethesda. I guess Square-Enix. This day was absolutely PHENOMENAL… for Xbox and Bethesda. Today was absolutely PACKED with goodies. They even showed us Battlefield 2042 gameplay, and that was an amazing looking game! Before I get into Xbox and Bethesda, let me say this. The console wars are something we don’t do here. I’m not gonna say, “PlayStation, run for your lives, blah blah blah,” no. At the end of the day, we all love video games, so we’re all in the same boat, whether you love Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Nintendo, hey, even mobile players. Now, let’s get back to it. Maaan these guys killed it. We saw a tease at Bethesda’s Starfield (which was also leaked, sadly), we saw The Outer Worlds 2 be revealed, we saw… Forza Horizons 5 I guess- we saw the next expansion for Sea of Thieves featuring the one and only Johnny De- I mean Jack Sparrow, with Davy Jones on board the Flying Dutchman, we saw STALKER 2, Heart of Chernobyl, we saw Back 4 Blood, AND, we finally saw Halo Infinite’s multiplayer. I gotta say, this was a super fun day Xbox fans. Even though 343 Industries absolutely failed the fans again with their lack of playable Elites and inability to customize your character using primary and secondary colors, the multiplayer was fun to watch. If you’re like me (bitter at the lack of Elites), you’ll be happy to know that multiplayer is free. Not only that, but ALL of these games will be available on Xbox Game Pass. That’s crazy.

Square-Enix. Okay. I’ll say this. They started off VERY strong, and then they went completely downhill. They should’ve presented before Xbox and Bethesda, because they left a seriously bad taste in my mouth. They came in with a super heavy hitter, the long rumored Guardians of the Galaxy game, alongside a closer look at the Black Panther expansion for Marvel’s Avengers, called War for Wakanda. Guardians of the Galaxy alone had me PUMPED, as I absolutely adore this team. Hot take: the Guardians of the Galaxy are way cooler than the Avengers. Don’t “@” me. There was one thing that did bother me though, and that was the fact that we can only play as Star-Lord, but not the other Guardians. I respect their choice to make this a single player experience, and this game looks like it does benefit from the decision, but I do still hope that in the future, we’ll be able to play as them too. I do love Marvel’s Avengers, but the lack of content forced me to move on. With the new Cosmic Cube event, an event that pits you against the big bad, Monica, and the War for Wakanda expansion, I think I’m ready to return. Everything, and I mean everything after these two games, were a waste of time. Square-Enix severely dropped the ball this time. There’s nothing I can really say about it, it was just a terrible showcase beyond the two Marvel games. Such a shame. Thankfully we had Xbox and Bethesda to save the day, so I’d say today was really great.

Day 3

This day for E3 wasn’t too bad. It was a bit weak in terms of content, but it wasn’t as bad as Day 1. On this day, we saw Capcom take the stage and drop some announcements. While the didn’t really show much, it was cool to see that Resident Evil Re:Verse, the online multiplayer game, will launch completely for free for those who own Resident Evil: Village. You already know how I feel about Village, so I guess I’ll just pay for this game. On the topic of Village, the developers did confirm that they are working on a brand new DLC for the game, though they didn’t exactly specify what it would be about. This must be exciting for most of you Resident Evil fans, so keep checking in with The Wolf Den’s Instagram and Twitter to stay updated on this. Moving on to the amazing Monster Hunter series, we saw a really cool and in depth trailer for Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, and announcements for future paid DLC and free content as the months go by for Monster Hunter Rise. Also, Monster Hunter Stories 2 will see the addition of the Palamute, a canine companion that the player can mount and have fight alongside them, first featured in Monster Hunter Rise. Monster Hunter Stories 2 drops on July 9th, while the Palamute comes through on July 15th. Something fans have been waiting for is a new Ace Attorney, and we see some of that here. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a spinoff, had a brand new trailer revealed today, getting fans super excited. This games drops on July 27th, only for the Nintendo Switch.

That’s not all we had. Xbox had a bit more to share for the new Halo Infinite, showing an in-depth overview of Infinite’s multiplayer and gameplay mechanics. I gotta say, this looks way more promising than I initially thought. Unfortunately, the multiplayer does lack playable Elites, a beloved alien race often included during Halo’s Bungie days. This is something that genuinely does annoy me, because this is the third mainline Halo game that 343 Industries makes that yet again doesn’t include them. The lack of dual wielding weapons also annoys me, but to a much lesser degree. Moving past these two major red flags, the gameplay does look very fun. The customization is absolutely wonderful, even though you can’t customize the colors of your multiplayer Spartan like in all other Halo games. This has been replaced by armor coatings, a system that gives the player a preset design like all-over camouflage or any other pattern. This is something that also upsets me, as it is pretty pointless and it’s something that shouldn’t have been replaced, but I digress. The player has the option to change out their Spartan’s helmet, visor color, shoulder armor, gloves, knees, chest, armor coating, and armor cores, something I assume would be the player’s under-suit and crotch, but I can’t say for sure. We see new vehicles alongside old vehicles with fresh and new designs, the return of equipment, not seen since Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST, and a nice look at some of the new maps, weapons, gameplay mechanics, and armor. As a Halo fan, all I can say is wow. This is a MAJOR step up from Halo 5: Guardians, easily the worst in the series. While this day didn’t have too much, Xbox did make it a bit more exciting with Halo Infinite. Not half bad.

Day 4

Uh… hm. Today was um… not how I initially imagined it to go. I really thought Nintendo was going to kill it at E3, but they didn’t. I really expected Donkey Kong to get some love, I sincerely believed that we’d get a proper Metroid Prime 4 update, I thought Kirby would’ve gotten a little something, but most of all, I thought Zelda would’ve been much more appreciated. Before I get into all of that, let me just point out the good that Nintendo did for the fourth day of E3, then I’ll dive into the bad. I’ll have the bad of it all in the next section of this Day 4 segment. So, the good. I’ll definitely say that Nintendo did a pretty good job with the regular content. We have the brand new WarioWare: Get It Together! coming September 10th, 2021, we have the new Mario Party Superstars coming October 29th, 2021, which I have something to say about in the next section, we have the AMAZING looking Metroid 5/ Metroid Dread, something I can’t WAIT to play when it releases October 8th, 2021, Super Smash Bros Ultimate is getting Kazuya from the Tekken series as a new fighter later this year, we saw The Legend of Zelda: Age of Calamity getting some love with the reveal for Expansion Pack 1, and a release for June 18th, 2021, we got a pretty neat little Game and Watch Zelda console with 3 classic Zelda games and a Zelda minigame added onto it, and finally. FINALLY. We saw some in game footage and cutscenes for the sequel to Breath of the Wild, and it was AMAZING. I absolutely cannot wait for more info on this game. Bandai Namco… I mean, whatever. It was only Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, but, eh, I guess if you liked it then you liked it. I found it to be an okay looking game, but it wasn’t something major. Yooreka Studios had a presence too, with a good amount of little games. Not my thing, and it was quite boring, but I did see a few with some potential. Now, let me get to the next section.

Now, the bad. Man. Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo. What is wrong with you this year? I know there’s the pandemic and all that but gosh man, that was such a BAD 40 minutes of our time. I mean really, everything besides the games listed above were absolutely BORING to look at. The games just looked so repetitive, and there really weren’t any new games besides what I said before. Of course, no disrespect to the developers, but seriously, we’ve been looking forward to E3 for a good while now, since the pandemic forced E3 2020 to just be canceled. This was such a shame man, because Nintendo usually shows some really cool games, even if they’re the smaller indie games, but this time around? This was really bad. Beyond that, let me jump to the anniversaries they didn’t bother with. Donkey Kong’s 40th anniversary is this year, and they didn’t bother to say a single thing about that. It’s also Metroid’s 35th anniversary, and it’s really a shame that the only thing they have for it (even though it’s not slated to be treated as a game for the anniversary) is Metroid Dread. Metroid Prime 4 was absolutely ignored. Again. Not even a little heads up on when we MIGHT hear something. Animal Crossing was nowhere to be found, and neither was Kirby. Now, Zelda. Ugh. Man, Mario got his little anniversary, and so did Pokemon. They arguably could’ve received a little more, but at least it was something. For the Zelda 35th, all we got was a Game and Watch. That’s it. In fact, the producer of the Zelda series confirmed that they’re not even working on anything else for this year for the anniversary, and that hurt so much to hear. I want to assume that maybe, just maybe, there actually is an anniversary celebration planned for next year, but since Nintendo is literally the worst at communication, we won’t know for certain until they feel like talking. While I was at least super excited and happy to see the sequel to Breath of the Wild, it was only a clip that lasted for a minute and a half with no confirmed title or release date besides "2022”. I absolutely sympathize with the developers due to the pandemic, I sincerely do, because their schedules must’ve been wrecked, but seriously, communication is KEY. Just because you have loyal fans who have no choice but to wait, that doesn’t mean you just sit there shrugging your shoulders without giving them a window on when we can hear something about development speed, a window for a surprise announcement that just teases us, etc etc. This was not the way to go. Loved to see the titles that were confirmed with a date, but the communication is really what my disappointment stems from.

Final Thoughts

Man, this E3 was waaay too overhyped. This was definitely a 2/5 experience. Xbox and Bethesda killed it, Nintendo and Square Enix were below average, Capcom did pretty well, Ubisoft was alright, and everyone else just… ugh. I know there needed to be an E3, but honestly, maybe they should’ve skipped out on this year too, but the developers just weren’t ready, but that’s totally okay. This was the equivalent of a huge party that had no music and sugar free candy. There’s only like, one bowl of Cheetos and Doritos, but they’re almost gone. Does that make sense? I’m sure it does.

That’s gonna do it for today, y’all. What did you guys think about E3 2021? Keep in mind, I will update both Instagram and Twitter over the course of the summer, as there will be announcements for Summer Games Fest and EA Play later in July, so make sure you’re following us on those two accounts! Hit me up on those accounts, let us know what you personally thought about this event and what you hoped would’ve happened instead. This has been The Wolf Den!