Andre’s E3 2018 Ubisoft Press Conference Thoughts
Ubisoft has continually shown that they understand how to put on a show at E3 and present their games. This year was no different, as the E3 2018 Ubisoft Press Conference began with a really entertaining dance presentation that started outside and went inside the theatre to promote Just Dance 2019, which continued the yearly tradition of leading off with the Just Dance franchise and a dance to accompany it. Although I will probably not be a buyer of Just Dance 2019, this was a good presentation even if it lacked gameplay, but we all know what Just Dance is already.
Last Year Beyond Good and Evil 2 was shown for the first time with a cinematic trailer and this year we got another cinematic trailer, but also a gameplay trailer that was hard to see at the press conference, but still encouraging Beyond Good and Evil 2 is a prequel to Beyond Good and Evil and the trailer had an ending that would certainly connect those dots. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the actor, came out and presented an initiative for creative artists around the world to collaborate and include their creations within Beyond Good and Evil 2 through a website called http://hitrecord.org. He later cleared up on twitter that artists will in fact be compensated for their work, despite the omission during the conference.
Skull and Bones was also presented again, a game about ship combat. This time it showcase a gameplay trailer of multiple player controlled ships trying to take down a pirate ship then afterwards fighting for control of the treasure that was on the pirate ship. I am not sure what to think of Skull and Bones, but it continues to peak my interest with their multiplayer ship combat. I still need to see more of it to get more excited, but it is clearly trending in a very appealing direction to me.
Transference VR was presented next by Elijah Wood, which seems to be a horror game, so a game I will definitely not play even if I owned VR. If I’m putting my fears aside, the game looked appealing and startling. My heart goes out to anyone willing to play that. Jump scares in VR? No thanks. Another game was StarLink, which is like Skylanders does with toys, but for starships. They announced that Fox McCloud would be part of the Nintendo version of StarLink, which in my opinion is a very cool crossover idea.
The last game shown was Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, which is set in Greece. I found last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Origins to be appealing, but Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey looks even better. First, I find the setting of Greece to be better than Egypt, but the game looks to have had some changes. Now there seems to be some level of dialogue choices, which I am always a fan of. Hopefully those choices have some meaning.
I didn’t mention everything in the E3 2018 Ubisoft Press Conference, but the above games were my highlights. Ubisoft knows how to put on a show, and I wish other companies followed their lead in that sense. Look forward to next year’s opening number to promote Just Dance, but this year’s may be tough to top.
