LOS ANGELES (AP) — The jaws aren’t dropping at E3.
Traditionally,
the Electronic Entertainment Expo is the place where video game
publishers reveal their biggest and boldest creations. That’s changed in
recent years as game release dates have moved beyond the holiday season
and leaks about upcoming titles have spread across the Internet.
"It’s
true that the Internet and social media are allowing ideas to fly
quickly," said Yves Guillemot, CEO of "Assassin’s Creed" and "Far Cry"
publisher Ubisoft. "This year, we were able to keep ‘Tom Clancy’s
Rainbow Six: Siege’ a secret, so we were very happy with that."
In
the months leading up to this year’s trade show at the Los Angeles
Convention Center, an unprecedented amount of both deliberate publicity
campaigns announcing new games and seemingly unintentional breeches
about upcoming titles meant that much of the typical E3 hype landed with
a thud.
Can game makers still astonish?
"I still think it’s
possible to surprise people," said Matt Nava, the former "Journey" art
director who wowed the crowd at Sony’s press conference Tuesday with
footage of "Abzu," his undersea fantasy coming in 2016. "There’s still
so many places you can take people where they never imagined they could
go before."
A sampling of some big surprises at this year’s E3:
—
"Cuphead": Despite receiving only a few seconds of screen time during
Microsoft’s briefing on Monday, the old-school 1930s animated art style
of this run-and-gun game from indie developer Studio MDHR captured
attendees’ imaginations. It’s coming to the Xbox One as part of
Microsoft’s ID@Xbox indie initiative.
— "Powers": Since the Xbox
One’s debut, Microsoft has touted the console’s entertainment prowess
and invested heavily in a slate of original programming. However, it was
rival Sony who used its E3 press conference to tout a show set for its
online service: a live-action adaptation of the graphic novel by Brian
Michael Bendis.
— "LittleBigPlanet 3": It was assumed ahead of E3
that sequels to franchises like "Tomb Raider," ”Crackdown" and
"Uncharted" would be teased, while the prospect of a new
"LittleBigPlanet" was a long shot. That made the revelation of "LBP 3"
coming to PlayStation 4 later this year with playable sidekicks a
bombshell.
— "Splatoon": Nintendo unveiling "Skylanders"-like
figures or a "Legend of Zelda" installment for the Wii U on Tuesday
didn’t catch gamers off-guard, but no one guessed that the "Mario Bros."
maker was working on a zany online multiplayer shooter featuring an
original crew of shape-shifting squids battling each other with paint
guns.
— "Alien: Isolation": Buried in a press release announcing
that former THQ president Jason Rubin had joined Oculus VR as the head
of worldwide studios Tuesday was the shocker that "Alien: Isolation,"
the upcoming survival game based on the original "Alien" film, would
also be playable with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
Other
jolts this week included the procedurally generated indie game "No
Man’s Sky" bringing some gamers to tears at Sony’s briefing, Ubisoft
announcing plans to resurrect "Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six" and Electronic
Arts launching the multiplayer beta test for the cops-and-robbers game
"Battlefield Hardline."
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .
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AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report.
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