There are 17 games confirmed already to have slots at E3. Here’s the rundown on all of them!
This year’s E3 is shaping up to be a hot one, with a ton of games for every type of gamer having planned announcements. As always there will be surprises and world first previews, but right now we’re talking about what will almost certainly be there without some huge last minute changes to the lineup.
E3 2019: Every Game Confirmed To Be At The Show
Let’s break things down by company, starting with:
Microsoft
Session
Things have been fairly hush about Session since its announcement last year. The PC Kickstarter exclusive turned Microsoft backed Xbox game has apparently been going through some big changes behind the scenes, and was delayed, so it should be interesting to see how big of a shake up its development has gone through. With the death of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Skate franchises, maybe Session will be the breath of fresh air the skateboarding genre needs to thrive again.
Halo: Infinite
The newest entry in the Halo franchise is meant to be a soft reboot of the series and could be a welcome return to what made the series great. The rumored focus on exploration and “live service” focus has me feeling skeptical, but Halo: Infinite might just surprise everyone by reclaiming the franchise’s spot as the king of the FPS genre.
Gears 5
Dropping the “of War” part for the first time in the franchise’s six games long run, Gears 5 features another shift in protagonist (to former supporting character Kait Diaz) and by all accounts will feature all of the mainstays of the series: third person shooter combat, local and online co-op, and lots of messy kills.
I don’t expect many surprises about the game as the series has remained remarkably static over its long run in terms of gameplay, but as they say: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Given the consistently high reception from both fans and critics alike across five games already, The Coalition has little reason to muck with a winning formula.
Ori and the Will of Wisps
Ori and the Blind Forest was a surprising, and welcome breath of fresh air from freshman developer Moon Studios back in 2016. The sequel plans to retain the basic Metroidvania formula, with some tweaks to how saving and upgrading your abilities works, but other than that information things have been quiet since Will of the Wisps‘ initial announcement in 2017. I’m looking forward to seeing what other innovations Moon Studios brings to the Metroidvania genre, which has had a meteoric resurgence in popularity in recent years.
And now we’re on to:
Nintendo
Pokemon Sword and Shield
Nintendo first revealed this game back in March, and it took the internet by storm. While concrete details about the gameplay are sparse (though let’s face it, it’s a Pokemon game), the new UK inspired Galar region looks fun. I’m interested to see what the new gimmick for this region will be if the trend of having one-off region specific abilities (Mega Evolution, Z-Moves) holds for another generation.
Animal Crossing Switch
It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since the last mainline Animal Crossing game was released. Little is known about Animal Crossing Switch except it’s slated for a 2019 release, so its E3 announcement has to do some really heavy lifting this year.
Luigi’s Mansion 3
The “Year of Luigi” back in 2013 was a sadly lackluster affair, but the one standout was Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. Like Nintendo’s other entries they’ve been pretty hush-hush about the sequel, but I think we can expect more of the same formula with some new gadgets and a fun new setting to explore. That’s always a safe bet with existing Nintendo properties.
Multi-Platform
The Outer Worlds
Obsidian’s newest property, which looks to be a mash up of the modern Fallout games and the Bioshock franchise shows a lot of promise. We know little about it other than it’s an FPS, it will have some quirky characters, and it’s an Epic Games Store Exclusive. Most of that sounds good, and hopefully the further details at E3 this year will make it sound even better.
Cyberpunk 2077
CD Projeckt Red have been hard at work on Cyberpunk 2077 for a while now. Based on the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG (which sadly lacked the longevity of its cousin, Shadowrun), this game evoked the urban dystopia the cyberpunk genre thrives on from its first teaser, and the later 45-minute gameplay reveal cemented it. While we know a lot about the game…we also sort of don’t. CDPR has been up front that last year’s gameplay footage was pre-alpha and subject to change if they couldn’t get it to work properly, and they’ve been quiet since then. It will be very interesting to see how much the game has changed in the last year of development.
Borderlands 3
Gearbox has been releasing details non-stop about Borderlands 3 since its relatively sudden reveal a few weeks back. Given the game comes out in only a few months, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything left unrevealed (besides the plot in its entirety, of course) was laid out on the table at this year’s E3. If tradition holds, we may even get the Perk Tree Calculator for each of the new Vault Hunters after the conference so that we can start number crunching months ahead of time.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
A flurry of details have come out about this game recently, so next month’s conference should be very enlightening. We’ve heard it will be single player, story driven, have no microtransactions, and be more linear (with puzzle solving!) rather than the open world, and have a lot of focus on lightsaber combat, among other things. We even have details about the plot (you’re a young Force user trapped in post Revenge of the Sith era Star Wars, on the run from Inquisitors), so all that’s really missing is gameplay footage. I imagine a lot is riding on this game after the debacle with Battlefront 2 so I expect great things from this game.
Doom Eternal
And to cap us off, Doom Eternal. We saw a trailer a while back, but not much else is known besides an even higher focus on mobility (not a surprise for the originator of the mobility shooter sub-genre), some brutal new weapons, and that you’re still fighting demons (but twice as many variants now!). Considering Doom 2016 (or Doom 4, or just Doom depending on your preference) was such a great game, more of the same but bigger sounds just fine to me. I’m interested in gameplay footage of the new Invasion multiplayer mode. I’ve always been a sucker for game types like that, but they vary from excellent (Left 4 Dead’s Versus mode) to mediocre (Dead Space 2‘s multiplayer) to outright terrible (Aliens: Colonial Marines) so there’s a lot of room for variance even from veteran developers.
And that’s all we’ve got so far. Note this does not include games we have little more than a name for (like the Werewolf: The Apocalypse game rumored to be announced) but if more details are revealed or confirmed before the event itself, check back here for updates!
