Bethesda E3 Conference Review

Two down, plenty more to go. The second conference of day 2 of E3 is from the RPG giant, Bethesda. So how did they do? Well...that's the thing. While Bethesda makes great games, they don't make great conferences.

Bethesda E3 Conference ReviewNow it would be foolish to think the Bethesda conference would put out the same announcement volume as Microsoft. The reception of Bethesda’s conference has nothing to do with the lack of games shown, but rather the lack of new games. Last year, Bethesda had the same problem, where a sizable chunk of their running time was spent hyping themselves up, talking about what success they’ve had, and how they’re going to keep doing the same. While this kind of info has a place, E3 just isn’t that. E3 needs to be for new games, not old. E3 is about the future, not the past.
Of the 12 games talked about, only five were new, and I’m not sure about the Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot will be a full, new, game. The opening video truly did set the standard for the rest of the show; Bethesda talking about how great it is.
The most exciting reveal wasn’t for Fallout 76, not personally, but rather for DOOM: Eternal, a sequel to an amazing reboot of an amazing franchise. However, the news about Fallout 76 was still quite interesting to see. One of the strongest feeling when playing Elder Scrolls or Fallout is, “I wonder what it would be like if I could play this with other people.” Fallout 76 seeks to answer that question, for better or worse.

In this spot was my concerns that Elder Scrolls VI would never come to pass. The expected runtime of this conference was an hour, so when 10:30 came around and still no Elder Scrolls was announced, I was convinced that it just wasn't coming this year, again. Thankfully, fears were cured as we got confirmation that a sixth game is indeed being developed. There was no subtitle, so knowing which area of the Elder Scrolls universe this takes place in is hard to pinpoint, though the diehard fans are certain to be figuring that one out based on the landscape shown in the very brief announcement. Addressing this powerful need bumped their score up another notch, taking them further from EA's dismal score.

Although the games shown at Bethesda’s conference were more interesting than those shown at EA’s, at least EA knew to talk about new games. This year has just cemented the idea that Bethesda does not need its own conference, they just don’t output enough games, at a suitable rate, to warrant their own stage. Be mindful that this grade does not represent the new games they’ve shown, or a mark against their quality or hype. Instead, this is a grade against how Bethesda presented themselves and got people excited for the future. In fact the only thing that kept the grade from falling below EA's score is that the games shown were at least far more exciting than anything EA showed. This was just an exceedingly long conference that said next to nothing new. Pacing was a huge problem for them. Bethesda is still very much beloved on this end, just not for their conferences. C

The opinions expressed are that of the article's author and do not necessarily reflect those of the rest of Keen Gamer's staff. 

1 Comment

  1. Avatar photo

    yawn……

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