Today's press conference begins with no hesitation as we get to see a variety of scenic shots until we see a Spartans helmet and the title Halo Infinite powered by the Slipspace engine. Phil Spencer takes to the stage after the first reveal to talk about this will be Master Chief's next journey to save the world. After brief words to thank everyone for watching online and in the audience, we launch back into the games, there will be 50 games talked about, 18 exclusives, and 15 world premiere.
Ori: Will of the Wisp trailer shows us once again the stunning visuals and more of the backstory of Ori and his adopted parent. Will of the Wisp will come out in 2019.
FromSoft show off their new title Sekiro Shadows Die Twice with scenic shots of moonlit fields and a focus on both the combat and movement of the game. The narration on the trailer seems to imply that the player character has been cursed with life.
Todd Howard is up next and after hyping up Bethesda's press conference later today he continued on to announce Fallout 4 will be joining Xbox Games Pass today. Howard also showed the first look on Fallout 76, the prequel to the rest of the titles. He explained the game would be 4 times the size of Fallout 4 and set in West Virginia. The trailer opens with a character in power armor watching the bombs that destroyed the world go off. We see the grand opening of Vault 76 and the state of the world while playing. Pre-Order will be available on the 15th of June. This title will also be enhanced for Xbox One X. Expect more information about Fallout76 later on today.
Square Enix and Dontnot showing off a new game in the Life is Strange universe called The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit. This game will be available for free on June 26th and will tie into Life is Strange Season 2 in some way. Take a step into a young boys imagination as you move between the real world and fantasy.
Crackdown 3 got a new trailer with the return of Terry Crews' character. We see his character in the game showing off movement skills, picking up movement orbs, and showing off all kinds of other abilities. Some other interesting features from the trailer are the instantly changing vehicles and weapons. February 2019 is when this game will come out.
NieR: Automata BECOME AS GODS edition will also be coming to Xbox One with enhancements for Xbox One X as was leaked earlier today.
Metro Exodus got a new in-game trailer. After learning more of the story we get to see some in-game movement options, weapon customization, enemies, a giant fish or two, and weather effects. Exodus will be releasing on February 22nd, 2019.
Next for the first time ever on Xbox, a trailer is shown for Kingdom Hearts 3 showing Sora ending up in a wintery world, it isn't too long until we see Elsa. The trailer also shows off a variety of locations including the Frozen world, Monsters Inc, and Toy Story worlds, as well as a series of original locations such as Twilight Town outside the castle. Hikaru Utada's new track "Don't Think Twice" is played as we see cutscenes from the game including members of Organization 13, Sora commenting on his knowledge of Roxas, and even Roxas and Mickey meeting Aqua, who now bears yellow eyes.
Sea of Thieves revealed their next expansions release windows; July for Cursed Sails, and August for Forgotten Shores. They also revealed that in Forgotten Shores players would be faced with new kinds of skeleton pirates as well as natural disasters like volcanoes.
An exclusive title is up next showing beautiful fields and fast cars. Through the trailer we also see a variety of weather and season changes as snow clings to the car or rain pelts down the windscreen. It's not just exotic cars either as we see players in offroad vehicles and trucks climbing up mountains or drifting through muddy roads. A hovercraft is even shown. This title is Forza Horizon 4. Ralph Fulton from Playground games walked on stage for the premiere, sharing that this game will be set in Britain. There will be dynamic seasons in a shared open world. Fulton then welcomed players to a stage to show off a gameplay perspective. Other features that were touted was 60 fps mode, how the seasons would affect the look and feel of the world, a quick chat to play together. This game will be released on October 2nd and will be available in Xbox Games Pass.
Phil Spencer returned to stage to talk about how important exclusives are for their platform. Investment in existing franchised will increase and they will put more into new and different worlds. "The Initiative" led by Darrel Ghallager is a new Santa Monica studio is building a team of large talent to create new experiences. Microsoft has also acquired four new studios: Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games.
Following on from those announcements of Compulsion's acquisition a new trailer for We Happy Few was shown presenting the distorted "Joy" filled world. This story trailer alludes to something more happening than just keeping the population in check. This game will release on August 10th.
Next world premiere trailer is for a new Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition. This trailer shows off new graphics and moments from the story as well as the gameplay of the Linear Motion Battle System allowing players to take control of one party member while others are AI controlled. This title will be releasing for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC this Winter.
The Division 2 was shown off next with a story trailer about what happened during the virus outbreak in Washington DC. This new title will be set around 6 months after the outbreak and it's up to members of The Division to stop the continued violence. Taking a step out of the concrete jungle and into a literal one we see the player character navigating their way through gardens long overgrown and left unkept.
Ashley Speicher from Gamepass took to the stage next to announce that they have found a way to start games twice as fast. Unlike "Ready to Start", "Fast Start" is machine learning to have games launch faster. In the June update, some titles will be eligible. Halo MCC as well as other new games like Forza Horizon 4 and Crackdown 3 will also be coming to Gamepass catalog in the future. Today for Gamepass The Division, Fallout 4, and Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited will all be available and with Xbox One X enhancements.
After that, there was a long trailer showing off a variety of the games that are coming or have come to Xbox as a part of the ID@Xbox program. Some of the titles included in this showcase were Below, Conqueror's Blade, Waking, Raji, Super Meat Boy Forever, Islands of Nyne, Sable, Harold Halibut, Bomber Crew, and many many more.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was shown next with Lara trying to find her purpose. In this trailer we see a variety of different puzzles and locations as Lara discovers a dagger that seems to be the drive for this chapter. People who preorder The Croft Edition of the game will also get early access to this title but no further information was revealed on what would be included. This game was announced earlier this year and will be releasing on September 14th.
A skateboarding game was shown next called Session, not much else was shown about it than a short trailer with some skate scenes.
A beta was announced for the Xbox One edition of Black Desert Online. Some story is talked about within the games setting as well as locations and battle styles. This game was originally meant to have its release in the summer, but the beta is now set for this fall.
An in-engine trailer is shown for the world premiere of the next Devil May Cry. This trailer shows a variety of demons getting beaten by Nero as he and his mechanic are trying to make their way through a city. As well as the regular demons we also see what can be expected to be a boss that shoots fire out of his stomach and a large serpent demon. Devil May Cry V is due out Spring 2019.
Cuphead will be getting new DLC in 2019 including a new island filled with all kinds of new bosses as well as a new playable character in the form of Ms. Chalice. This DLC will be called Cuphead in "The Delicious Last Course."
From Finji the next game is a top-down puzzle/action game starring a fox in a green tunic simply titled Tunic. The trailer shows off both combat and problem solving as the fox works his way through a variety of locations such as forests and dungeons. This game was shown off last year at the PC Gaming Show.
Bandai Namco's next game is a crossover fighter between popular Manga characters from One Piece, DBZ, and Naruto. In this trailer, we get to see Goku, Monkey D. Luffy, Naruto, and Frieza all battling it out in what looks like modern Japan. This game will be called Jump Force, the trailer ends with Light Yagami and Ryuk from Death Note watching from afar.
Next world premiere is for Dying Light 2, in this trailer we get to see the effects player choices will have on the world and while no zombies were shown we did see plenty of human combat. Chris Avellone who has been working with TechLand to shape this game as a narrative designer then talked about deep combat, terrifying nights, and a robust parkour system. A demo was shown of the game highlighting movement as well as the choice system. How you complete quests in the game will affect how the rest of the game continues.
A brief announcement is made as Battletoads will be coming to the Xbox One in 2019 exclusively and will also have three player couch coop.
A trailer was shown for Just Cause 4 following Rico and his fight against the Black Hand. The game will be released on the 4th of December but pre-orders are going up today. In the trailer, we get to see what we've come to expect out of Just Cause from big explosions, fun vehicles, a variety of weapons and gadgets, and a new addition of extreme weather effects.
As a triple hit from Microsoft Studios an Android and iOS Gears POP game will be coming in 2019 was announced. This was then followed immediately by Gears Tactics being announced for PC, this tactics game will be set 12 years before the first Gears of War game, and then to bring it all together Gears 5 was announced and accompanied by a story trailer. Gears 5 will be out in 2019.
To close out the conference Phil Spencer took to the stage for one last time to talk about their console quality streaming on any device, improvements in game AI, as well as that their hardware team is working on the next iteration of the Xbox. After a brief glitch in the system, a surprise trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Project Red was shown off. The trailer shows off all the strange aspects of the world of 2077 and the player character.
What do you think of Xbox's showing this year at E3 2018? Did you get to see more of what you were interested in? Leave your comments below and be sure to check out the rest of our E3 coverage here.
