Shadow of the Tomb Raider

After a brief introduction by Yosuke Matsuda, President & Ceo of Square Enix Holdings. After that, we got treated to a visually stunning presentation for the next installment of the modern open world Tomb Raider franchise that has sold around 8 million copies so far. These games are consistently filled with lush, gorgeous set pieces, phenomenal graphics, solid puzzles, and tight gun play, to the extent that it’s really hard not to like them. As usual for open world games, there’s also a ton of loot to collect, and to a lesser extent, things to upgrade. If you like open world games, and you haven’t delved into this series yet, do yourself a favor and get familiar. The next installment should be a hell of a ride.

Final Fantasy XIV Moonlight & FFXIV X Monster Hunter

Next up they dropped a short video showcasing some highlights for the next FFXIV update called Moonlight, as well as an apparent cross over between Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter, which should be interesting. They didn’t elaborate afterwards, so we are left with this until further notice…

Captain Spirit

Well this is awkward, Microsoft already presented this during their conference. This will be an unfortunate theme throughout. I would just head over to my Microsoft round up to check out the trailer.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

Well, if this game is half as long as the title, I bet this will be bursting at the seams with content. But seriously, it’s good to see another entry into the long touted Dragon Quest series. It’s even better to see more JRPG’s make their way over to America, especially traditional ones. Here’s a pretty solid length gameplay demo so you can see what it’s all about.

Babylons Fall

Now we get a non descriptive trailer for a game coming out called Babylons Fall. With zero game play footage, I can only assume by the tone of the trailer, it’s probably going to be adjacent to the Dark Souls series. They follow this up by reminding you of yet another thing you already saw from Microsoft, Nier is coming to Xbox.

Octopath Traveler

Jesus, don’t judge a game by it’s title. What a terrible game title, haha. Regardless, this looks to be a fairly charming little rpg for the nintendo switch that has different classes built in, and what looks like turn based action. It seems it’s a Nintendo Switch exclusive, good for Nintendo!

Just Cause 4

Wait a minute, wasn’t this announced during Microsoft’s press conference as well? While true, they did elaborate a little more. Apparently Just Cause 4 will have some very aggressive extreme weather effects in the game this time around. You might be chilling, and them BAM tornado, dear god why!? Other than that, they have made an effort to make draw distances farther than ever, meaning you can see farther into the distance before things get blurry, or textures stop being as detailed. They also mentioned overhauling enemy AI so that they actually pose a threat for once. Haha, the stuff you can do to those guys in JC3, so silly. Get ready to get your Rico on, one mo gain.

The Quiet Man

Maybe you play a deaf guy? Yet another trailer explaining nothing about the game, how it plays, or even what the genre is. Could this be a story driven action game like Heavy Rain where your fights are all QTE’s, or is it a legit fighting game? A bit annoyed with these limited info trailers.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Did they really just show the same exact trailer from the Microsoft conference? Wow….just wow.

Outro Montage & Final Thoughts

….wait that’s it? And just like that, any hope of hearing about the FF7 remake that is becoming the “Detox” of the gaming industry, has been dashed. This was pretty underwhelming in general. Well, I don’t really know what to say other than …meh.  Seems like a few solid titles are on the way, but overall, considering this is the first time Square has had their own conference at E3 in a few years, this just seems like it was missing something.  

5.5/10