Razer announced its first AMD-based gaming laptop, the Razer Blade 14, during its E3 keynote. Until now, Razer had been the last major laptop manufacturer that had stuck exclusively with Intel.

Razer is calling the new Blade "the most powerful 14-inch gaming laptop." And with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and GPU options ranging from an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 up to an RTX 3080 with 8GB of VRAM and a 100W TGP, it could be a strong contender for our best gaming laptops list. But admittedly, 14-inches isn't a very popular size for gaming laptops, which are often 15-inches or larger. 

The company is claiming that, at 16.8 mm (0.66 inches) thin, it is the "thinnest 14-inch gaming laptop." Like Razer's other notebooks, the Blade 14 is  milled from CNC aluminum with an anodized finish.

To cool those components, Razer is using vapor chamber cooling and what it calls "touchpoint thermal engineering" to keep commonly-touched surfaces, like the WASD keys, from getting too hot.

There are two display options: a 1920 x 1080 screen with a 144 Hz refresh rate, or a 2560 x 1550p panel with a 165 Hz refresh rate. Both use AMD FreeSync Premium to eliminate tearing.

For $1,799, you get an RTX 3060 and the FHD display. $2,199 nets you an RTX 3070 with the QHD screen, and for $2,799, Razer offers the RTX 3080 with the QHD panel. In every version, you get the same Ryzen 9 5900HX, 16GB of soldered RAM and a 1TB PCie SSD.

Ports include two USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Other features include Wi-Fi  6E support, Bluetooth 5.2, an IR camera to log in with Windows Hello, of course, per-key RGB lighting. The design also includes top-firing speakers tuned by THX, which Razer owns.

As of right now, the Blade 14 will be the only laptop in Razer's lineup with an AMD processor. The Blade 15, which still exclusively uses Intel chips, remains the flagship notebook.  It's unclear if Razer intends to add the choice of either chip at any point in the future.

Razer is also using E3 to get into the laptop charger market. It announced the Razer USB-C 130W GaN Charger (GaN is short for Gallium Nitride) with two USB-C ports at 100W and two USB-A ports at 12W. It weighs just 349 grams (0.77 pounds) and measures 3,2 x 7.7 x 6.2 mm. It will compete with the best USB-C laptop chargers.

The device can charge four devices at a time, including a laptop, though it wouldn't be enough to power the Blade 14 while gaming. The charger also comes with adapters for global travel. It's $179.99 and available for pre-order from Razer.com, Razer stores and other retailers. It's scheduled to ship within 30 days. 

Ahead of E3 Microsoft and Xbox are putting a heavy emphasis on cloud gaming and its Game Pass subscription program alongside its existing console ecosystem. This includes new, dedicated streaming hardware for any TV or monitor. It is also updating its cloud datacenters to use the Xbox Series X, so that gamers who stream are getting the company's most powerful hardware.

Xbox's announcement comes ahead of Xbox's joint E3 games showcase this Sunday with its recent acquisition, Bethesda, and also comes with a slew of new attempts to push Xbox onto just about any device you might already have. The Xbox division is moving to get its software embedded into internet-connected TVs, which would require no additional hardware other than a controller to play cloud games.

Additionally, the company is looking into new subscription offerings for Game Pass. (though it didn't get into specifics), and is looking into new purchase options for Xbox All Access, which lets people buy the console and Game Pass for a monthly fee, rather than paying up front. (This is similar to how many pay for smartphones in the U.S.).

Building its own streaming devices, however, is a bigger push to make Xbox an ecosystem outside of consoles and even moves Xbox into competition, to a degree, with Chromecast, Roku and Apple TV for the living room. (Chromecast is scheduled to get Google Stadia support later this month).

Still, the company sees its consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, as its top-notch offering, even while it expands in mobile, on PC and in streaming. In fact, that's the other major piece of hardware Xbox is working on: the next console.

"Cloud is key to our hardware and Game Pass roadmaps, but no one should think we're slowing down on our core console engineering. In fact, we're accelerating it," said Liz Hamren, corporate vice president of gaming experiences and platforms. 

“We're already hard at work on new hardware and platforms, some of which won't come to light for years. But even as we build for the future, we're focused on extending the Xbox experience to more devices today so we can reach more people."

This isn't exactly surprising. Consoles start getting designed years in advance, and these days, the mid-life cycle refresh cycle is common. Microsoft has also positioned the latest consoles as a "series" of devices, so it's possible there will be new entries in the line that remain compatible with the current options.

Cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is set to launch in Brazil, Japan and Australia later this year. Meanwhile, cloud gaming in a web browser, including support for Chrome, Edge and Safari, will go live to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers "in the next few weeks." The Xbox app on PC will also get cloud gaming integrated this year.

Hamren said that Game Pass has more than 18 million subscribers, though that wasn't broken down between the console, PC and ultimate plans, (which include game streaming).

The Series X and S haven't seen a ton of new titles from Microsoft Studios yet, but it sounds like that will change.

"In terms of the overall lineup, we want to get to a point of releasing a new game every quarter…" said Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios. "We know that a thriving entertainment service needs a consistent and exciting flow of new content. So our portfolio will continue to grow as our service grows."

Xbox has more than 23 studios and also recently acquired ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Game Studios, as well as id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios.

Game Pass games are released simultaneously on PC and Xbox, which Xbox Head Phil Spencer used to poke at its competitors, namely Sony and its PlayStation 5.

"So right now, we're the only platform shipping games on console, PC and cloud simultaneously," Spencer said. "Others bring console games to PC years later, not only making people buy their hardware up front, but then charging them a second time to play on PC. And, of course, all of our games are in our subscription service day one, full cross-platform included." (PlayStation brought Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to PC but long after their PlayStation 4 releases.)

Tim Stuart, the chief financial officer for Xbox, said "we'll do a lot more in PC for sure." There have been rumors of big changes to the Microsoft Store on Windows, including making it easier for developers to sell games. That's another avenue we may see explored soon, as Microsoft explores what's next for Windows later this month, after E3.

The Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase will take place on Sunday, June 13 at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET and will stream on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter.

Just in time for E3 2021, the next edition of the Future Games Show is set to air. Run by our sister site, GamesRadar+, with sponsor WD_BLACK, the Future Games Show will feature game announcements, trailers and updates from more than 40 new PC and console titles when it airs on June 13th at 7 pm ET.

Airing on GamesRadar+ and social networks Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the show will be hosted by Last of Us 2 voice actors Laura Bailey and Troy Baker. Participating game publishers include SEGA, Team17, Private Division and XSEED Games.

"Last year was arguably the most challenging year for games development,” Baker said. “Now we’re starting to see the games that will emerge this year and beyond. I’ve gotten a small peek behind the curtain and I can’t wait to pull that curtain back even further for you on June 13." 

The three previous Future games shows drew an audience of 45 million viewers combined. An official partner of E3, the show takes place on the same day as the PC Gaming Show, run by our other sister site PC Gamer. Starting at 2 pm ET, the PC Gaming show will feature 39 new game trailers and be hosted by Frankie Ward and Mica Burton. 

“GamesRadar is thrilled to bring the Future Games Show to its widest audience yet as an official partner of E3 2021 and The /twitchgaming gathering,” said Daniel Dawkins, Content Director of Games and Film at Future Plc. “Our amazing hosts Troy Baker and Laura Bailey look forward to sharing some of the most exciting, quirky and anticipated games of 2021 and beyond; followed by unrivalled post-show coverage and deep-dives on gamesradar.com.”

It's easy to think that Intel's primary challenger to its desktop PC gaming dominance comes from the resurgent AMD, especially with its new line of 7nm Ryzen 3000 series processors on the cusp of release. But there are larger, more ominous shifts that could alter the future of gaming: Namely, game streaming services.

Google's entrance into the streaming market (Stadia), not to mention the plethora of other services that aim to mix Netflix-style ubiquity across a wide range of devices with high-performance AAA gaming, could pose a threat to Intel's gaming-focused businesses. But Intel isn't entirely convinced these services will usurp its market dominance, and if they do whittle away at its base, the company has a plan to keep its silicon in the game.

We caught up with Mark “Bot” Subotnick, Intel's Director of Business Development for Games and eSports, on the sidelines of the E3 conference to talk about the company's view on the future of gaming and how game streaming services, like Google's Stadia, will impact the company moving forward.

Think of Bot as Intel's gaming developer ambassador. Bot began his career in 1993 and previously worked for big-name gaming companies like Microsoft / Xbox and Sega. His remit at Intel is to establish and cultivate relationships with the game development community to keep Intel's flag planted in one of the company's primary high-margin revenue-generating sectors.

Services like Stadia will require hefty amounts of compute to serve up fast, accessible gameplay, but how to best deliver that experience remains a challenge. These games will be streamed from massive amounts of compute hardware spread across the world’s data centers, which Bot thinks meshes nicely with Intel’s data center business.

"Where does that compute sit, is it on the edge, is it adding a lot of graphics to the actual server node, is it a combination of that?" Bot asked. "We'll learn a lot from the Stadia roll-out, but we have Nvidia out there already, and we have a lot of other services out there already, and this isn't new to Intel."

Intel Capital famously invested in the Gaikai game streaming service in 2008. Gaikai was eventually sold to Sony for $380 million, where it now serves as the bedrock technology behind Sony's PlayStation Now streaming service. Much like today's new streaming services, Gaikai was initially intended to deliver high-end AAA gaming with all compute done in the cloud and served across an internet connection to any number of devices, including PCs, tablets, and mobile phones. Like today's strategy for game streaming, the service relied upon fast internet connections and used the latest technology.

"We were a lead investor in Gaikai, which was 10 or 11 years ago. Not to diminish it, but there was the same hype that ‘cloud’s coming, client's going to be irrelevant, everyone is going to be playing in the cloud.’" Bot later expanded on his thoughts on game streaming services, and how they will impact Intel's desktop CPU sales, "I think it’s a great service for a certain class of game, and back catalog games, which is very healthy for publishers to have a way to monetize back catalog, and I think that can be very wonderful for TAM expansion. But I'm not sitting here quaking in my shoes saying 'Oh my God, look at this, we're going to have a hard time selling i9's in the future because everyone is going to be playing in the cloud.’"

Bot thinks that history tells us that tremendous amounts of modern compute aren’t necessarily going to solve the challenges of game streaming. “OnLive and Gaikai had a very similar offering, they really did. I encourage people to go back and look at the story that was being told ten years ago and ask yourself what's different. I will 100% admit the infrastructure has changed; it is much more robust. What Google has done to create that on their side, they definitely have a very healthy data center infrastructure. But the story back then wasn't much different, and now our story is 5G, and my comment about developers eating up as much compute as you throw them kind of eats at that argument a little. “

“Yeah, sure, we have more bandwidth, and we need more bandwidth. But we weren't doing 100-person battle Royal matches every two seconds. That's my main point is the headroom isn't there that everyone assumes is there because technology has caught up--the content moves at a faster pace. We're trying to keep up with the developers and where they want to push the limits. They're ready to eat up compute; they're always asking for more. It's a very healthy relationship."

Bot believes that boundary-pushing game developers will continue pushing the limits of hardware, and says the PC is well positioned. "We're going to deliver a world-class experience, and we're going to continue to talk to developers about that roadmap, and they're going to continue to eat up every ounce of compute we throw them. And that's the healthy relationship of our business and the gaming industry that has existed for a long time, and I can't see a world where game developers stop and say 'Oh, that's good enough! We're not pushing the envelope anymore.'

“I used to make games. Everything we do is always 'how do we push the medium further?' That's the nature of art, that's the nature of entertainment, and especially what consumers want now. We're in a good position where we can continue to deliver world-class experience and performance, and the developers will continue to just eat it up," Bot said.

Bot expanded on the importance of exclusive titles for gaming consoles, and how that is important for streaming services like Stadia to attract and expand their user base. “I don't see us being competitors with Stadia any time soon. I was confused by what they showed. I would have expected them to show new experiences never capable before by using this distributed compute, or some slice of what that looks like. And then more casual games, that are latency tolerant. Which is fine… I think it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.”

Our conversation turned to how services like Stadia will impact desktop PCs and consoles. “It's confusing to me a little. They showed a lot of newer games. My belief is that there are a class of games that will run well on that. I personally have a high bandwidth connection at home, and I don't know if I can say, 'Wow, I’m going to always have the requirements they say to get the experience they say I can get right now off of my desktop.' And I'm in a privileged setting, so it's interesting to see: Who is the gamer base they are actually going to serve, and how is that class of game going to evolve? I think it's a really exciting space, I do. I think it's going to be a TAM expansion, and I think it's great for people to get more experience on any side of the spectrum, and I still think there is that class of gamer that always wants what you and I talked about [high performance].”

“[...] It's a different world than me when I grew up, we were the geeks in the corner at LAN parties, and it wasn't hip to do this. But it's actually cool to have a badass PC rig. Consoles are OK; I come from a background of working on them. I'm not going to bash that world. I think gaming is a wonderful thing no matter what you're doing it on, but I can safely say that what we deliver is the best experience, and I think we're going to continue to do that."

"So, they'll be a top of the pyramid, so to speak, people that always care about performance. I personally have a hard time seeing a future where I can’t distinguish between that and what is being served to me from the cloud. Maybe that exists. I think that's really far off if it is coming. And I think we're going to always be in a position of where we say 'OK, here is the next wave of amazing performance,’ and we'll match this with developers and publishers that maximize that, and that experience is going to be the best native. And if other people can get a taste of it from the cloud, we're going to be a part of that, too."

Bot said that services like Stadia would expose more casual users to AAA gaming, which could eventually lead them to buy a desktop PC to get the best experience. “We're in a unique position where that's not hurting us from a business standpoint; we'll be serving that up with amazing Xeon parts and our GPU. But from the PC part, the part that you and I are talking about today, I don't really think it's frightening. I think it's going to grow the business. I may be crazy, but I really see this TAM expansion. It's almost like, 'Thank you, Google, go get everybody else that can't afford what we deliver a taste.'“

Intel can play both sides of the ball by selling its Xeon data center processors, and the collection of complementary technologies, to could service providers. “Part of the conversation that's shifted is that now we are starting to talk to people about what their needs are in the cloud, from the games as a service aspect to different forms and flavors of streaming, and we have some partners in that segment as well [Play Giga, Tencent, and Gamestream]. I can't share much more than that, other than we are obviously a segment leader on that side.”

“Intel recognizes that cloud gaming is being looked at, and they feel that they are in a healthy position to be a partner and provider in that space," Bot said. "We've already developed some key partnerships. Being competitive on the server side isn't new. But I can't imagine a shift where we go 'well, client is dead.' We lead in that space, and we're going to continue to lead in that space. It’s a healthy business, and gaming is a growth segment of our business, it is a growth segment of the CPU business at Intel, so it is important to us as a company.”

"Gaming is so broad now, it is the thing that people are doing across any aspect of their lives, and they tend to do it across a wide range of platforms. So, we want to be able to provide a good product for all of those ranges. We're uniquely positioned, there are companies doing great things on CPUs, great things on GPUs, some focus on different aspects, but we have a very healthy server story, a very healthy CPU story, a storage and memory story, a GPU story, and I would say a good part that came out with Ice Lake. We’re doing a lot of nice things."

Bot also believes that the desktop PC will continue to have a role in a gaming world that is becoming more fragmented with mobile gaming, consoles, and now streaming services. “I would have never ever believed that this world would have existed today where you see games playing across all these different services. When that world is broken down, what platform is the platform of choice? What's the best future proof for your money over time? Sure, you could save money over the short term if you go the console route, but if you want something that is going to be badass and run over a healthy cycle, and be upgradeable based on what you need, PC is the way to go."

Photo Credits: Intel / Shutterstock

It's been a long road to Atari's VCS release, kicked off by an Indiegogo campaign that raised $3 million, but the system, which comes powered by an AMD Ryzen processor, is finally up for pre-order starting at $249.

We caught up with Atari at E3 and had a chance to take a deep look at the retro box, but the company's message is clear: The Atari VCS isn't a game console. Even though Atari designed it to be adept at gaming, much like a game console, the VCS fulfills many of the roles of a typical desktop computer and allows for intense customization that the company says makes it "like a Raspberry Pi for the living room."

That all starts with an AMD Ryzen Embedded 1606G processor. The 14nm dual-core, quad-threaded processor has a 2.6 GHz base frequency and a 3.5 GHz boost, paired with the Vega 3 graphics engine. The system comes with its own Linux-based Atari operating system that has a crossbar-style, tiled user interface and includes submenus for games, applications like Netflix and Hulu, social media platforms and an Atari game store. It comes with 100 classic Atari games for the nostalgic. The set-top box has a retro design, but it is actually a modern machine: you can also install new gaming titles, too, like Borderlands 3 or Fortnite.

You can also use the box as a standard PC by installing your own operating system, like Windows 10 or Linux, via a sandbox menu. The VCS supports 4K, 10-bit HDR streaming and HDCP via the single HDMI 2.0 port. It also supports standard AMD Radeon graphics drivers, meaning you have access to all of the latest day-zero driver updates for new games. Unfortunately, the system does not support AMD FreeSync. 

Aside from the 32GB eMMC storage that houses the Linux-based Atari operating system, the company opened the entire system up to secondary operating systems, meaning all of the hardware is accessible to the user. That stands in contrast to Sony's practice of allowing users to install another operating system, but then restricting access to key components, like the GPU. Atari's approach allows the system to be fully programmable, so you can create your own apps and programs, hence the Raspberry Pi-type functionality.

The base packages come without a paddle or controller, but they come with the $389.99 bundle or you purchase them separately for $49.99 and $59.99, respectively. The wireless controller clearly draws inspiration from the Xbox controller and comes with five lights aligned down the center to indicate power status. The wireless paddles have a ring of LED lights around the base that light up based upon the paddles' position. Like the controller, the paddle vibrates based on game activity.

Above is a mock-up of the system that shows the internal components. A blower style fan cools the AMD processor, with air exhausting to the rear right of the chassis. Atari said this cooling system is robust enough to run the processors at its full TDP over extended periods, so you won't have to worry about thermal throttling due to the slim chassis design. We see an M.2 slot in the middle front of the system that is fully upgradeable and can house any M.2 SSD. The VCS 400, which is the value-centric model, lacks an M.2 module, while the full-featured VCS 800 comes with a drive (tAtari hasn't specified capacity).

Two SODIMM slots on the bottom of the motherboard house DDR4-2400 memory. You can also upgrade these modules, meaning you can upgrade both the memory and the storage, but the processor is soldered to the motherboard. The VCS 400 comes with 4GB of memory and is geared for 1080p gaming and streaming, while the VCS 800 comes with 8GB of memory for 4K gaming and streaming. The rear of the machine has two USB 3 ports (two more are nestled under the front overhang), HDMI 2.0 port, Ethernet port and the power port. The VCS uses a 19V external power brick that is roughly the size of the base of the game paddle. The power supply is fully sealed and supplies the required 60W for the system.

Price and Availability 

The VCS is available for pre-order now through Atari's online store, GameStop and Walmart. Each retailer carries the Onyx Base model, plus an exclusive $389.99 all-in packages that vary by retailer. These exclusive models have the same features and come with a paddle and controller, but carry different color schemes.

It's already been a long and winding road to the VCS's release, but we'll have to wait until March 2020 for the systems to ship. 

A little more than two months before its August 27 release, I got my hands on Remedy Entertainment’s Control, a third-person adventure game with some telekinetic powers thrown in for good measure.

The demo, which took place in the game’s third mission, “Directorial Override,” put players in the shoes of Jesse Faden, the new director of a secretive, discreet organization based in New York.

Jesse has some telekinetic powers. I only had the ability to pick up and launch objects, though others, like shields and hovering, are unlockable. She also carries a shape-shifting pistol that seemingly never runs out of ammo.

This made for exciting combat. When enemies, known as the Hiss, showed up, I would first try to launch environmental items at them from afar. But those that approached me would feel the wrath of Jesse’s service weapon in close-quarters combat, or a powerful telekinetic melee smash. It felt like playing a violent version of X-Men.

Jesse is in the bureau’s maintenance sector, which is on lockdown. She meets the janitor, Ahti, who gives her cryptic instructions to fix the power plant’s cooling and power relays. It turns out that the whole plant is powered by the superhuman abilities of a previous director, one whose abilities became too strong to control.

Control’s atmospheric visuals are arresting, and publisher 505 Games and Nvidia were showing it off as a title supporting RTX ray-tracing. This developer build of the game could turn it on and off with a single keystroke, and yes, the game looked better with RTX on. Used for environmental lighting and reflections, and the puddles in the sector looked more realistic and shadows and low lighting were more immersive.

While we were playing the PC version of the game. The developers didn’t specify what CPU or GPU were at play. When I paused the demo, I saw the game was running at 1440p resolution but rendering in lesser FHD resolution, borderless, with V-Sync on. That’s when a developer politely asked me to exit, as the game may not ship with all of the settings options I was seeing. Because I couldn’t play with them, it’s hard to know if RTX will have a serious performance impact on this game.

Perhaps my biggest nitpick was a narrative one. In many of the cut scenes, Jesse thinks to herself in between dialogue. This happens frequently and becomes a prime example of telling, not showing, and occurs often enough to be annoying.

There is still lots of mystery left after the demo, though, and my interest is admittedly somewhat piqued.

Control debuts August 27 for PC exclusively on the Epic Games Store, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Google won’t launch its Stadia streaming service until the end of the year, but here at E3 2019, I got to try it early.

The setup was non-traditional but still a possible use case. I played Doom Eternal on a Pixelbook hard-wired to the internet and connected to a TV with an HDMI cable. The Stadia controller (part of the $130 Founder’s edition or $70 on its own) connected to the Pixelbook via USB.

There was no server in the backyard of the downtown house Google rented for the demo. Everything came from a data center in San Francisco. While a representative didn't know which ISP wired the house, he said they were getting 25 Mbps , good enough for 1080p at 60 frames per second (fps) with 5.1 surround sound. That is short, however, of the maximum 4K at 60 fps when you get 35 Mbps down.

For the most part, Doom Eternal played pretty well. After a tutorial and half hour of play I was blasting enemies with a flamethrower, performing glory kills and dashing to walls I could climb reliably. Two or three times during that time period, there were slight hiccups in which I encountered lag, but other than that it was smooth sailing. Was it as exact as playing on a PC? Not exactly, but it felt pretty damn close to console play.

But that’s the question that Stadia will have to answer. For those with even the most stable internet connections, hiccups can happen. How many will gamers tolerate?

I encountered a few issues; The game itself crashed twice, which a representative from developer Bethesda present said was due to the fact that it was an early demo. I had to use the touchpad on the Pixel to relaunch the game, which led to the cursor being stuck in every gun’s reticle until I moved it offscreen. Unlike some other reporters I’ve spoken too, I was never disconnected from the game entirely due to internet issues. But the fact that others did gives me some pause.

I asked the Bethesda representative if there will be any settings options at all, but was told that the Stadia edition of Doom Eternal will perform like its console brethren with only your Internet connection changing graphics and performance.

One highlight is that the controller is surprisingly comfortable. It takes PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 shape and control stick layout and mixes it with Xbox’s button layout to make an ergonomic design that was comfortable for a solid period of play.

Stadia will launch in November for $10 per month or $130 for a Founder’s Edition package that includes three months of service, a Chromecast Ultra and a midnight blue controller. When that happens, we'll be able to test in our own homes. Doom Eternal will launch November 22 on Stadia, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated games of E3 2019, we got an early look at the gameplay experience for Marvel’s Avengers, developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix, at a theater session here in Los Angeles.

In the game's trailer, we saw was part of the single-player story, not the co-op online mode that has also been detailed. On A-Day, a celebration of the new Avengers West coast headquarters in San Francisco, there’s an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The demo started with Thor on the bridge, using the PlayStation 4’s triangle button to slam down and fight soldiers. Thor looks like a heavy hitter with combos using Mjolnir (Thor's hammer) and his fists. Note that while the PlayStation symbols popped up throughout the demonstration, the companies declined to comment on if the game was actually running on PS4 hardware

The God of Thunder

My first impression is that the game looks early. While some fan reactions to the trailer have lambasted the look of the character's face, I didn’t have that issue with the gameplay we saw. But textures, like Thor’s hair and on much of the environment, looked rough. But the game’s not coming until 2020, so there’s time for polish. Like many demos, this was likely put together exclusively for E3 as the game’s development continues.

A cop thanks Thor for the assist. Civilians are behind barricades, and The God of Thunder breaks them with his hammer and lightning, attacking more enemies. He punches with bare. He uses super strength with repeated taps of the square button to release a man trapped under rubble.

Behind him, a bus is being shot at. Thor attacks those soldiers, who carry electric blasters, thus distracting them.

That’s when Iron Man comes in, shooting from the sky. But the player is still Thor, who takes to the sky for a downward attack before returning to the ground. A truck with more baddies come up. They have shields, and Thor winds up a tornado to push them away.

Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk take Action

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, attacks guys on jetpacks, then chases them away. Then the character playing shifted to Iron Man, shooting, flying and bantering with Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, over The Avengers’ communication channel.

This was a more impressive piece of the demo, with cars flying as Iron Man chases the enemies and shoots at them. Not only was it more exciting, but Iron Man looked more finished as a character with shiny, polished armor.

Meanwhile, Captain America is on a Chimera, a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier trying to secure a Terrigen reactor on board. The controls seem to have a mind of their own.

Iron Man lands for some ground-based fighting with punches and repulsor blasts. He has air combos and can hover for far longer, including a powerful unibeam shot. Cannons emerge from Shield trucks, which Tony Stark fires at and makes explode.

Enter the pulsar tank.

The Chimera is taking off, but Cap tells the Black Widow and Hulk, both of whom are on board a Quinjet, to focus on the bridge. Civilians are the priority.

Bruce jumps off the jet onto the bridge. When he lands, you’re playing as a fully formed Hulk. He grabs enemies like rag dolls and brutally smashes them and stomps on them. He throws one off of a bridge and claps two together.  The tank fires, and Black Widow advises Hulk to destroy it.

Hulk does some impressive jumping over gaps, slamming enemies in his path. But things are bad. The bridge is falling apart. Hulk uses its rubble as a weapon.

Iron Man jokes over comms. Perhaps too much. For Crystal Dynamics’ own spin on the franchise, he feels very inspired by Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Tony Stark in the recent movie franchise.

While the tanks take the bridge out, Hulk uses a gamma clap to get through a number of enemies, then walks over a truck, using it as a bridge. He smashes the tank with a quick time event, then tosses it at another tank. Then Black Widow lands on the bridge.

Black Widow calls Cap, who says the reactor is malfunctioning. On board the Chimera, Cap is surrounded by baddies and throws his Shield at them. He also has hand-to-hand attacks, but his attacks and combos seem basic compared to those of Thor, Hulk and Iron Man. Enemies throw smoke grenades and then swarm. The comms start going out.

The electric fisted baddie come again, and the Chimera is catching fire. The reactor isn’t stable. Cap is urged to get to safety but stays to fight.

People on the ground start running for their lives. On the bridge, Black Widow, Iron Man and Thor attack a truck that comms say is carrying a Sonic Bomb.

Black Widow vs. Taskmaster

Taskmaster is driving the truck. He uses a detonator to turn on the bombs, but they haven’t exploded yet. The bridge starts to fall apart, and Hulk tries to hold it up. Stark and Thor also go for the cables. Black Widow chases Taskmaster, and now players are in her shoes.

She jumps on Taskmaster’s jetpack by sliding around the bridge and then punches him with quick time events. They collide into a truck but keep flying. This part felt truly cinematic, as the two combatants were flying between the other Avengers holding the bridge together and catching tucks. Black Widow grabs the detonator and flips onto the bridge

Taskmaster takes out his sword and shield, and Black Widow fires dual pistols at him, dodging sword strikes. There’s hand-to-hand combat, and the two fall to a lower level. He takes his weapons out again and takes out a second detonator. Black Widow uses kicks and batons to fight in close-range. Each hit lands with a thump. Black Widow’s list of moves appeared far more varied than Thor or Captain America’s

Taskmaster starts throwing his blade. Black Widow goes invisible and fights up close again. She then punches him endlessly and shocks him with a concussive blast. He’s covered in rubble, and she disables the bomb on the truck.

“The world will remember this day, the day their heroes failed them,” Taskmsater says before Widows knocks him out.

Under the sea there’s a cyclone sucking in the Chimera and the Terrigen reactor.

“Damn it, they played us,” Black Widow says. Cap races down a hall on the Chimera, and Iron Man and Thor fly to it as the Terrigen reactor explodes, sending the helicarrier into the ocean.

Online Co-op Tease

In some extra footage, we saw four heroes online battling together. The developers said you customize the ever-growing roster of heroes in the online co-op mode, which will feature more scenarios and characters as time goes on. That makes me hopeful, as we’ve seen the existing roster of heroes on screen for a number of years now. It’s unclear if more heroes show up in the single-player game.

Release Date

Marvel’s Avengers, for all of its fan service, felt early but feels like it has potential. We’ll have to wait until it releases May 15, 2020 on PlayStation 4, Xbox, PC and Google Stadia to find out.

Gearbox’s Borderlands 3 seems more explosive than ever. I had about half an hour with the game here at E3 2019 in Los Angeles, where I played as one of three new vault hunters, Moze (Amara and Zane were also on offer), breaking into villainess Tyreen Calypso’s broadcasting studio.

Moze is unique because of her mech, Iron Bear. One of my first moves when I jumped in the game was to equip the mech with a rocket launcher and a minigun. On foot, I carried a rifle and a shotgun, favoring the latter.

I started in a junkyard outside of the studio, shooting through Children of the Vault and sliding around cars and boxes for cover. When I got inside, I was surrounded by Psychos and Fanatics, and I summoned the Iron Bear with a tap of the left bumper on an Xbox One controller, jumped in the mech, and set them ablaze. I loved being in the mech, even though it only stays around for brief periods of time. It gave me a feeling of power as I ripped through common enemies.

After collecting loot from chests and enemies, I found a boss, Tyreen’s henchman, Mouthpiece. He likes to yell, and he has a shield with audio measurements on it. The shield makes him near-impenetrable from the front, so you have to get around the back while other, smaller baddies attack. I called on the Iron Bear again to do some serious damage.

Soon after, I started running out of ammo. As I reloaded my final few times, I also tried some grenades. It ends up Mouthpiece is immune to those. But I was surrounded, didn’t have enough weaponry, and died.

The demo I played was on a PC with a Ryzen 7 2700X and a Radeon RX Vega 64 GPU. This was one of the few games at the show I’ve played so far revealing such hardware details. Gearbox was on AMD’s stage earlier in the show, promising to develop on the company’s platform, so this wasn’t exactly surprising.

The whole thing felt fluid, bright and reactive. The gunplay, in this early stage was focused and tight. The cartoony art still looks vivid and grotesquely beautiful.

More that we learned

In a short presentation, Gearbox Software and publisher 2K games detailed the story and the villains, the new ship, Sanctuary 3, which allows you to explore new planets and the tighter gunplay.

Gearbox and 2K have new ways to play with friends, as well. There are vending machines with items your friends are selling. You can buy the stuff they didn’t want or need.

Additionally, Borderlands 3 offers dynamic missions if a friend encounters a rare boss, like the Unstoppable we saw in a demo. You can use in-game email to send items to friends. In the case we saw in the theater demo, a player who jumped in helped with the battle and, after it was offer, took the resulting legendary item from the person who initiated the battle.

Borderlands 3 will release on the Epic Games Store for PC, as well as on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, on September 13, 2019

Here, you can check out the Borderlands 3 minimum and recommended spec requirements. 

If you thought Lego games were overly simplistic, it may be time to take another look. At E3 2019, I saw Warner Bros. and TT Games' Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which fits all nine movies into one game for both PC and console. The engine is built from the ground up and, in this early look in a theater demo, where taking photo or video wasn't allowed, it looked like a lot of fun.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga comes out sometime in 2020 for PC, as well as the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

The game’s menu has all nine games listed in a circle for your selection. You can play them in any order, so you’re not stuck starting with the prequel trilogy.

Our demo focused on a small portion of Return of the Jedi in a section on Tatooine. The Millennium Falcon is in space, and you can fly the ship yourself and freely explore space and fly to any planet. On the way to Tatooine, we had a random encounter with a Super Star Destroyer, which was made of 18 million Lego bricks in the UK as a model. (All of the vehicles were actually built from Legos, the studio said.) We saw some space combat with Tie Fighters before approaching the planet.

Tatooine has multiple landing points, including Mos Eisley, but we went to Anchorhead, the desert area with Ewoks.

The graphics were far beyond what I expect from a Lego game. The rocky crags were detailed and rich, and there was detail, like sand gathering on the Lego mini figures’ feet.

Our demo was single-player, but you can play in co-op. The demo switched between C-3PO, who falls apart (you can play as just his legs if the top falls off), Boba Fett and other characters.

“This a next-generation Lego game,” a developer said.

The camera is close to the character in the game, giving it a more cinematic look.

As Luke, they showed off the Force by being able to pick up and throw any piece of Lego. We saw him lift and throw rocks and bushes, which can be used for combat. He even managed to throw a rock into a net, causing Luke to celebrate (it’s a Lego game, after all. There’s bound to be some silliness).

Luke meets a robot named Gonko but can’t understand him, so the game switched characters to C-3PO, who can understand the robot. It requests help and asks the player to follow him.

The player follows Gonko past shops and is ambushed by Tusken Raiders. He whips out a lightsaber and uses a new combo system with light, mid, heavy and force attacks. It still looks simple enough for a kid to pick up and play but with the option for a more advanced player to put together some sick lightsaber stunts. Then, Luke jumps into a landspeeder and heads down a canyon. Jabba’s Palace is on the way, but that’s not the mission.

Then, the demo switched characters to Chewbacca. He attacks with a crossbow with over-the-shoulder shooting to take out Tusken Raiders. Headshots do more damage, or you can shoot a character in the legs to separate the bottom of the mini figure from its torso. Boba Fett also has this system with his blaster.

At this point, the game crashed. It is a very early demo, after all. It read “Xbox Dev Space,” suggesting this demo was on an Xbox.

The developers said this game would’ve taken players back to the Millenium Falcon and into hyperspace if it didn't crash. Instead, we saw clips of other parts of the game, including Hoth, the New Order base and a ton of fan-favorite characters and movie moments. At one point, C-3PO’s head is blown off.

The new engine is impressive, and I can see those who grew up with the existing Lego games going back for the more advanced features. And with all nine movies involved, it wouldn’t surprise me if some get more excited for this than the actual upcoming film.

At an event here at E3 discussing the future of Xbox and PC gaming, Microsoft also discussed the new Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 and answered questions about its durability.

I asked an Xbox spokesperson about gamers who have frequently complained that rubber would peel off of the controller or break in other ways.

“We built it from the ground up,” the spokesperson said. It’s a complete redesign, not a simple 2.0 iteration, I was told. Microsoft heard the feedback and claims to have kept it in mind with this new design.

The new rubberized grip wraps all the way around the handles, and I’m told those grips were part of the focus on durability.

The new design has some other upgrades, including Bluetooth support, an internal rechargeable battery, adjustable tension thumb sticks with new shapes (classic, wide dome) and a USB Type-C port. There are also three customizable on-board profiles with indicator lights. It will sell for $179.99 on November 4, though Microsoft is taking pre-orders now.

I also got to spend some hands-on time with the new controller, and it does feel solid. The rubber grips were comfortable, and I was able to try the hair triggers in a demo game Xbox had set up (which was suspiciously like junior Fortnite, but just for teaching people the controller’s features), and they felt great for rapid firing.

Is it really tougher than the previous version? We’ll find out for sure when the controller launches this fall and gamers get their sweaty palms all over it.

Infinity War’s reimagining of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (which it specified is not a sequel, but a fresh look at war today), published by Activision, is scarily brutal. And that’s because behind every turn, the next terrorist you turn to kill may actually be a civilian. When an enemy isn’t wearing a uniform, how do you tell them apart?

The scene I saw, which is early in the game and was from footage on a PlayStation 4 Pro, followed a terror attack in the Piccadilly Circus area of London in October 2019. Captain Price and Sergeant Kyle Garrick are closing in on a suspicious van. The meeting took place in a small theater here at E3 without photography or video allowed.

Garrick gets the call, jumps out of the van and is aiming through the crowd with his pistol when a truck explodes and knocks him out.

The attack is tracked to a townhouse in North London by an attacker code-named "The Wolf." Garrick is warned, there may be non-combatants in the house.
Days later, we see them break into the gate. Garrick aims into a window, another team is coming through an alley. They silently reach the back door.

Garrick puts up a ladder and climbs to the second floor, into the kitchen where he meets another team. They take a woman, silence her and pin her to the floor. She had left the kettle on.

Garrick looks into a room with people, shoots out the light and attacks enemies who wield guns with night vision. More soldiers come through the front door and they all go upstairs.

They open a door and peek in, see a man choking a woman. They shoot him, then she grabs a gun and attacks. Garrick kills her, too. Bullets come through another door, and Garrick shoots through the wall to kill another bad guy.

He picks up a shotgun to go with his AK-47. Bravo 6 moves to the second floor, again eyeing a door. There’s a bump, then bullets ring out. Garrick shoots through the drywall and throws a grenade, taking out the enemy, then another who races from around a corner. A third comes in from behind him and takes a bullet to the neck.

We see a soldier dragging a comrade’s body down the hallway. The rest head to the third floor. There are toys. A child lives here.
A woman grabs a baby from her crib and begs for mercy, and Garrick turns around, ordering a soldier to help her and shut the kid up. He shoots an enemy under a bed in the next room.

A woman in the attic begs not to be shot. “They were going to kill me,” she says, as she runs for a desk with a weapon.Garrick’s fellow soldier shoots her.

They find she was going for a detonator. And Price says they have the Wolf’s location.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
releases October 25 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The game draws an interesting moral line in the sand, but we didn't see nearly enough gameplay to make judgment on quality. It did, however, look amazing on a PS4 Pro with sharp, sometimes lifelike graphics.

After being originally announced in 2016 and experiencing a few delays along the road, including a switch to a new AMD V1000 processor, Smach's new Smach Z handheld PC is finally ready to hit shelves at the end of the year for $699 for the base configuration (we've got more detailed pricing below). Smach had the device on the show floor at E3, so we played a few games and took a closer look at the hardware.

The Smach Z comes armed with AMD's Ryzen Embedded V105B processor, which we've covered in depth here. The chip's Zen cores and Vega integrated graphics engine powers the 6" 1080p touchscreen, meaning the handheld PC supports standard Radeon graphics drivers and FreeSync.

During gameplay, we noticed quite a bit of heat emanating from the fan ports, but that's to be expected with this class of processor packed into such a small device. The Ryzen Embedded V105B has a configurable TDP rating that spans from 12W to 25W, but to conserve battery life, the processor runs at 15W. That restricts performance, as we cover below, but the company is also developing a powered dock that will allow the processor to run at 25W.

Battery life is a big concern with small devices packing this much processing power, but the company says the Smach Z will run for six hours on battery and only takes a half hour to charge to 80% (an hour and a half for a full charge). You can also stream to two 4K monitors simultaneously courtesy of the Display Port 1.2 and USB-C ports, but that's going to be quite a stretch for gaming if you want respectable frame rates. 

The handheld’s design takes inspiration from Valve’s Steam controller. There are two touchpads on the top. On the left side, there’s a single control stick below the pad, and there are A, B, X, and Y buttons on the right. In theory, you’ll be able to twist the covers off of the pads and add accessories, though Smach hasn’t committed to what those will be or when they will launch, but suggested analog sticks or directional pads. There are also shoulder buttons on the top and paddles on the back.

I found the pads to be far less accurate than the stick, and luckily, you can customize every button except the power button if you don’t want to rely on them. That customization will be in its Smach Control Center app.

Some of the re-mapping I saw on the show-floor was clever. In Doom, melee attacks and weapon switching were mapped the paddles, and shooting on the shoulder buttons, so I almost never had to move my fingers off of the touchpads except to jump.

Playing games on the handheld was a bit of a mixed bag in a very short period of hands-on play. The Ryzen Embedded V1605B struggled to hit 30 frames per second while fighting a dragon in Monster Hunter World. It hovered around 17 frames per second, and the game stuttered. Because we were just handed demos units with the games on them, we didn’t get to dig into the settings.

It did better on the 2016 version of Doom, staying just over 30 fps, but while there was some combat, it wasn’t the most intense part of the game. Where the Smach showed more might was the lighter, eSports-focused title, Rocket League, in which the game was generally playing around 50 fps. Hopefully, if we bumped the settings down, we’d hit 60 fps consistently.

Smach plans to integrate optimized game profiles with custom settings for major titles in its software utility, so it's possible the profiles could help improve performance.

The physical unit is a bit heavy when playing. It’s about 600 grams (1.3 pounds). For reference, a Nintendo Switch with controllers is about 398 grams (0.9 pounds) with Joy-Con controllers attached.

Smach Z is in manufacturing now, and the company has opened pre-orders. The base configuration comes with a 64GB M.2 NVMe SSD and 4GB of SODIMM DDR4 memory for $699, with many configurable options. You'll have to pay an extra $99 over the regular price for a copy of Windows 10 IOT, though you can score the device with Linux without paying an up-charge. You can add a camera and beef up the device all the way up to a 256GB SSD and 16GB of memory for $1,299.

Smach also says the device has two separate motherboards, with one housing the processor and RAM, and another the rest of the components. That will allow you to swap out the processor for a newer, faster model in the future, provided you're handy with a screwdriver. If not, Smach will offer a tech support option to handle the upgrade for you.

The company says the Smach Z is in manufacturing and will ship at the end of the year.

Cyberpunk 2077 was displayed here at E3 in a hands-off, behind-closed-doors demo. Developer CD Projekt Red warned that the game is a work in project before showing about 50 minutes of some actual gameplay. Unfortunately, no photos, videos or even audio recording was allowed.

Cyberpunk 2077 comes to PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on April 16, 2020. Nvidia also announced today that the game will support ray tracing.

In the demo, which took place in the middle of the game, V has been implanted with a biochip that houses the secret to immortality. But a digital ghost named Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves) is also on her mind, and V needs the help of the Voodoo Boys, a group of hackers and netrunners with connection to the Haitian Creole community, and their leader, Brigitte, to learn more about it. They’re located in Pacifica, the southern-most point of Night City. 

A male version of V is told to meet with the Voodoo Boys in a chapel nearby. It’s packed with Pacifican people. A poor man approaches him. With a Street Kid background, he gets an extra dialogue choice and finds that the poor man is his middleman. He sends V to a butcher shop to ask for Placide.

Pacifica is one of six districts. It was meant to be a tourist area, investors put money into it to make it a rich resort community. Investors pulled funding when the economy became uncertain. Now it’s abandoned by both government and corporations.

In the butcher shop, V’s face is scanned. The demo paused ever so briefly to show V using his eye translation feature to see the words a woman sings in Creole displayed in English before moving to the back of the shop. They sell synthetic meat, as real meat is a luxury.

Placide is in the back. He won’t talk there, so V follows him. Placide’s interest is in the Grand Imperial Mall that was never finished. A rival gang, the Animals, are using it as a hideout.

There’s a thriving electronics black market on the way. V checks out the goods and sees software, including a Daemon to unlock new netrunning abilities. A samurai leather jacket is also on sale, in addition to many other styles. You can equip it at checkout.

Sitting in his office, Placide says there are 30 or more Animals members and that if V takes a job, Placide will send him to Brigitte. Placide wants V to jack into Placide’s hardware, which is risky. Silverhand shows up like a ghost to watch.

Placide scans him, asks about the chip in his head, but V won’t tell. V says he has a bullet in his brain that disabled it. Placide decieds V is good for the job and shows him a van and other military grade gear to protect some tech.

But something strange is going on behind some doors near them. Placide pushes his colleague away. V has a choice in his dialogue tree. That push could've made him grumpy. The demo showed the player choosing not to let it do so.

Placide is now jacked into V’s head, seeing what he sees and hearing what he hears. Silverhand jokes that there are two people in V’s head now. If V does the job he can see Brigitte.

The sun is setting (the game has a day and night cycle). We see V get on a motorbike and turn on the radio. Players can pick different stations. V drives via open-world travel through a darkening city to the Voodoo Boys’ lookout. In other parts of the demo there were fast travel loading screens, but the developer told us that when the game comes out, you'll have the option do the entire thing with open-world travel if you prefer.

Within the dangerous Pacifica district, many things are on fire. V meet’s Placide’s men outside the mall, and they tell him how to get in. They warn him to go quietly, as all has been quiet so far. The only action was some guys leaving for supplies, so the Voodoo Boys are outnumbered.

Meet the Animals and Stealth Mechanics

The Animals love strength and prefer melee combat. They use steroid “juice” to increase muscle growth.

In the demo, we saw a more stealthy approach rather than guns blazing. He looks though car windows and sneaks around the garage. He uses his gun’s sights to look around and slides between boxes.

The Animals make it clear the lookouts haven’t gone unnoticed, and the guys inside are getting antsy. The place is well-guarded. V ducks into the shadows then begins his search for the van.

We see some stealth mechanics. V puts an enemy in a chokehold and send hims down a waste disposal chute with an environmental takedown. You can, however, finish the game without killing anyone, if you prefer.

V uses his scanner and finds he doesn’t have the character attributes to open it with strength. But scanning the camera and hacking lets him use an access point to reach the mall’s network. They do a quick puzzle over the network, matching cameras and other device codes. In the demo, we saw, V only gains basic access.

An enemy netrunner is on the network, so Placide warns V not to use the network if he doesn’t have to. But V shuts off the camera. He then finds the Animals in a boxing gym, training against robots. V hacks a robot to make it stronger, and it punches an Animal so hard it puts a gash in his head. Placide warns him to keep a low profile, but V then overrides the network connected to a weight machine and crushes a lifter.

Next, V goes up an escalator and distracts two enemies by hacking a vending machine and lashing them with a laser whip when they turn around. He collects the cola.

The van is in the distance

But What if We Used Guns?

But before we see the van, CD Project Red chose a “strong solo” female version of V with different attributes and playstyles to see how she would have performed the same mission.

She has no hacking abilities, but is strong. She forces open the door male V was too weak to open. She can’t, however, shut down cameras. She reaches an atrium that is right above the van, then scans it to take a closer look. Sasquatch, the Animals’ leader, is in front of the van. V turns around and punches out an Animal, waking up some nearby enemies in bunks. But she’s a melee fighter and uses a knife and broken bottle to take them out. She leveled up and found a revolver in the room.

Then we saw the attribute tree. The developers playing the demo unlocked in the Handguns II skill to increase revolver damage, then run straight into a firefight. V is done sneaking around.

She takes an Animal by the neck and uses him as a shield, and then ripped a turret off of its legs to use as a gun to fight the gang, some of which appeared to be using super-speed enhancements.

With all of them dead, the van is unprotected.

Back to the Hack

Then, he brought us back to the van as the netrunner, male V. He snuck all the way to the van and used a monowire, a piece of cyberware that can hack people from a distance.

The puzzle for access occurs again, which is enough access to infect him with the Daemon. He connects to the van and Placide sees NetWatch, a government agency in fighting cybercrime is behind everything.  The van is gathering data on all of the traffic in Pacifica to keep tabs on the Voodoo Boys, who don’t get along with NetWatch.

The NetWatch agents are in the building, and V hacks a turret to take out Animal members who don’t want him to get to the government rep. V can use the Daemon they bought earlier to shut them down.

What Lies Beyond

The developers switched to strong V one last time and finds Sasquatch. She could be dodged, but V takes her on with a gun, shooting at a weak point in her back. As Sasquatch hits the ground with a hammer, V jumps behind her and shoots as she picks it back up. Once that’s destroyed, Sasquatch’s strength disappears. She grabs and hacks V, and the enemy netrunner starts hacking. Placide tries to stop the hacking and V defeats Sasuatch and kills her, (which they didn’t have to do).

In a cinema connected to the mall, Placide and V are disconnected. A western movie is playing on the screen. V moves through some hallways to the projector rooms and finds the NetWatch netrunner, Bryce Mosley.

Mosley wants to talk to V in private. He offers more money than the Voodoo Boys. V says she wants in with Brigitte. Mosley suggests Placide double-crossed her, Brigitte has been on the net this whole time and that Placide wants to get rid of V. V must decide to either trust either Placide and the Voodoo Boys or NetWatch. V sticks to her plans and connects to Mosley to stop cyber attacks NetWatch are planning on Brigitte. 

Then, something goes wrong. V shuts down and reboots. Johnny Silverhand, voiced by Reeves, shows up and informs her that the Voodoo Boys had crossed her. Placide freed Brigitte and fried NetWatch and V, but somehow our hero survived.

V takes a bunch of money that Mosley left behind and leaves the mall. Placide’s goons are outside and agree to take her to Placide. He’s started - V shouldn’t have survived.

At Placide’s hideout, she punches a confused enemy. Brigitte is there with her. She wants to talk one-on-one, and Placide leaves.

Brigitte knows about her biochip and wants to make sure it still works. She promises V a word with Alt Cunningham, the first NetRunner to become a digitized consciousness on the net.

She leads V to the center of the Voodoo Boys’ hideout, through an old train system that has crumbled

Brigitte suggests they can use Silverhand’s part of the chip as bait to summon Alt Cunningham. V jumps in an ice bath, gets jacked into the VooDoo Boys’ network and Johnny Silverhand goes quiet.

V starts to see everything fade. She whimpers as everything goes black. Then, she’s in Cyberspace. It’s fractured, and not everything is visible. Brigitte says it’s a bridge to the deep net, They find the black wall, where no one has returned. If Alt comes through, she will be the first.

The wall gets hit from the other side and starts to shift.

Impressions

The demo whizzed through its most interesting parts. We didn't see many of the specialized dialogue trees, nor was a lot of time taken to explore Pacifica, which was rich and detailed as V raced through it.

But the customizations to play in the way you want seem extremely promising. The demo, skill tree, clothing, dialog options and skills were only a taste of what's to come. We'll see how the game truly plays next year.

Note: As with all of our op-eds, the opinions expressed here belong to the writer alone and not Tom's Hardware as a team.

The Electronics Entertainment Expo, E3, is often thought of as a primarily console-focused show. But as we approach the end of one console generation and the beginning of another, and with console juggernaut Sony skipping out on the show altogether, PC gaming filled the gap here in Los Angeles.

Now, consoles aren’t going anywhere. While Sony isn’t here at the Los Angeles Convention Center, we know it’s next-gen, AMD-powered PlayStation is on the way. Microsoft revealed Project Scarlett, it’s next Xbox (also powered by AMD) at its own conference. Square Enix had a few console-specific games, likes its Final Fantasy VII remake on PlayStation 4. And Nintendo streamed its E3 Nintendo Direct online, providing more fodder for its Switch console.

But if there’s one stalwart, it’s the PC.

That’s one part of Microsoft’s strategy. The company is putting its gaming on console and PC, especially among its Xbox Game Studios. Over 60 games were at the Xbox press conference, and almost every single one was showing up on PC day and date with Xbox One and, in the future, Scarlett.  To a degree, this is a continuation of its existing plans, but also a furthered commitment, with more in-house studios than ever building games for both platforms. And perhaps the biggest standout that’s not on PC yet - Halo: The Master Chief Collection - will be coming (which we’ve known for a bit) with the addition of Halo: Reach.

That’s also why Microsoft has added a PC component of Xbox Game Pass, with a $9.99 monthly charge for over 100 PC games. It’s also part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, combining console and PC game subscriptions with Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 a month.

Over at Bethesda, Ubisoft and Square Enix, a number of the highest-profile games were also highlighted on PC. Bethesda showed off Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Doom Eternal, Rage 2 and a number of others, while Ubisoft trotted out Watch Dogs Legion, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and its own UPlay Plus (stylized UPlay +) streaming service for its library of PC games (though that will eventually also make its way to Google Stadia as well). Square Enix showed off Outriders, a new shooter from People Can Fly coming to PC and consoles, Marvel’s Avengers, and a remaster of Final Fantasy VIII.

And, of course, our sister site PC Gamer had a whole show full of games on the PC, including Borderlands 3, Shenmue III and a number of indie games like Sam Barlow and Annpurna’s Telling Lies and Tripwire and Torn Banner’s Chivalry II.

AMD’s presence was also outsized at E3 this year, as it debuted its RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT GPUs as well as its Ryzen 3000-series stack. The company paraded The Coalition on stage to show off Gears 5 on PC, Gearbox to display Borderlands 3, Ubisoft for Breakpoint and some new developments for the Unity engine.

And with AMD’s parts in consoles for yet another generation (Xbox One and PS4 both use a modified AMD “Jaguar” CPU and custom AMD graphics), it should only be easier for console and PC games to be ported to each other and be developed alongside one another.

That’s all besides a ton of peripheral companies showing off their wares at the show, many with mice, keyboards and headsets to show off.

This all highlights the PC in two ways: One, as a steady stalwart as console hardware prepares to change (however promising the new hardware sounds); and two, as a thriving gaming ecosystem even as those new consoles and the cloud continue on as rival options.

So if you’re looking for something to play on your PC in the next few years, there’s plenty coming. And if you were worried about the future of the platform, well, it’s clearly not going anywhere in the near future.

Image Credits: Getty

MORE: E3 2019 Coverage

MORE: All Gaming Content

At the E3 gaming conference this week, Epic Games announced that it has added 15 new games to its store. The company also revealed that it is extending its free games offering from one every two weeks to one every week until the end of 2019. 

A Free Game Every Week

When Epic Games launched its online store, it said users would receive a free game every two weeks. Last month, the company announced a free game every week for its month-long summer sale. Now, just days before this summer sale would have ended, Epic also announced that it'll be giving away a free PC game every week until the end of the year. 

Game publishers have been rather slow to adopt Epic Games’ store so far. Some games may already have deals with the company’s competitors; however, game publishers may take a second look at Epic’s store before publishing new games, considering the significant discount the company offers to developers using its Unreal Engine gaming engine (just 12% compared to the 20-30% they’d have to pay Steam, plus another 5% commission to Epic if they use its gaming engine).

Epics Games Store's New Games

During E3, Epic also announced 15 titles coming to its store, with five of them being exclusively delivered through the company’s online store.

The new exclusive games are:

• Auto Chess 
• Chivalry 2 
• Shenmue 3 
• Untitled Goose Game
• Zombie Army 4: Dead War 

The other 10 games, which are also available from other retailers, are:

• Atomicrops
• Cyberpunk 2077
• The Griftlands
• The Pathless
• Phantom Brigade
• Rune II
• The Sojourn
• Solar Ash Kingdom
• Twin Mirror
• What the Golf

AMD CEO Lisa Su recently announced the company's new Ryzen 3000 series lineup at Computex 2019, but left out one official announcement for its Next Horizon Gaming Tech Day here in Los Angeles: The 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 3950X for $749. This new processor will land on shelves in September. We have more coverage of the Zen 2 microarchitecture and X570 chipset here.

The Ryzen 9 3950X easily outstrips Intel's halo eight-core sixteen-thread Core i9-9900K on the mainstream desktop, at least from a core count perspective, and with Intel's next-gen Comet Lake series appearing to top out at ten cores, it looks like AMD will hold that advantage for quite some time. AMD has already told us that the Ryzen 3000 series offers near-parity with Intel's gaming performance, and adding in the multi-threaded heft of eight more cores and sixteen more threads could allow it to steal the overall performance crown on the mainstream desktop, especially in heavily-threaded applications, like game streaming.

The Ryzen 9 3950X comes with all the hallmarks of AMD's new architecture, including increased a big 15% IPC boost from the Zen 2 microarchitecture, but pairs that with a beastly 4.7 GHz boost frequency, the highest of the Ryzen 3000 series. Ryzen 9 3950X wields two chiplets fused together via AMD's Infinity Fabric and an I/O die. AMD hasn't specified how many of the 3950X's cores boost to 4.7 GHz, and if the chip adheres to the standard boosting behavior we see with current-gen mainstream Ryzen models the boost will apply to two cores. But we think there is the possibility it could have a quad core boost, just like the dual-die Threadripper models that boost on two cores per chiplet. 

The 3950X's 3.5 GHz base frequency, while the lowest of the Ryzen 3000 family, is still might impressive: Intel's $1,700 16-core Core i9-9960X has a 3.1 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost frequency, but you'll need an expensive HEDT setup to accommodate the chip. 

AMD's 105W TDP rating is also an important consideration. AMD and Intel spec their TDP ratings differently, with the Intel measuring TDP at base clock frequencies, which often leads to an understated number due to much higher power consumption when the processor is in high power states, while AMD uses what is arguably a clearer metric that consists of full utilization of the chip in its dynamic range. In short, this means that the Ryzen 9 3950X should be an incredibly power-efficient chip, so cooling should be a relatively simple task and there should be plenty of headroom for overclocking the soldered chip.

Like the other Ryzen 3000 series models, the 3950X will fully support PCIe 4.0 and drop into socket AM4 motherboards, with a few caveats.

Aside from the boosted performance AMD has wrung from the 7nm process node, the company tailored the second-gen Zen architecture to provide a big boost to a number of common workloads, like gaming. AMD's doubling of the L3 cache per chiplet leads to a beastly 72MB of L3 cache for the 3950X. This larger cache boosts the amount of data the processor can hold close to the execution engines, thus defraying the latency impact of memory accesses. AMD also has a number of other improvements to boost gaming performance, but we'll have to hold those details until the NDA release later today.

AMD’s CPU team looks to be firing on all cylinders, having just announced third-gen Ryzen processors that purportedly beat Intel’s line-up in performance and pricing comparisons. Meanwhile, the Radeon Technologies Group desperately needs a win of its own after years of playing catch-up. Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700, both based on the much-anticipated Navi GPU, won’t be the cards to beat Nvidia’s highest-end GeForce RTX models. However, they may be able to knock off GeForce RTX 2070 and 2060, provided the company can price them properly and ship in sufficient quantity.

Meet Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700

The Radeon RX 5700 XT wields 2,560 Stream processors and 160 texture units, divided up into 40 Compute Units. At a peak Boost clock of 1,905 MHz, those CUs facilitate up to 9.75 TFLOPS of compute performance. On paper, that’d put the card somewhere between Radeon RX 590 and Radeon RX Vega 56. However, AMD is specifying clock rates a little differently this time around, so Boost frequency may just be a vanity rating. The more realistic spec is 1,755 MHz. AMD says this Game clock represents a typical rate across more than 20 games it tested, so expect to see cards running somewhere between the Game and Boost frequencies. A 1,605 MHz base clock should be sustainable, even through a worst-case workload like FurMark.

AMD pairs the Radeon RX 5700 XT to 8GB of GDDR6 memory transferring data at 14 Gbps over a 256-bit bus. The resulting 448 GBps of theoretical bandwidth exceeds the 410 GBps available to Radeon RX Vega 56 through its 8GB of HBM2, but trails Radeon RX Vega 64’s 483 GBps.

Like its past reference designs, AMD’s own Radeon RX 5700 XT will be a dual-slot implementation with a centrifugal fan that blows air through an aluminum fin stack sitting on a vapor chamber base, and exhausts waste heat out the back of the card. Many enthusiasts are critical of these arrangements because they tend to be louder. However, we appreciate their self-contained nature compared to axial fans that dissipate thermal energy back into your case. AMD also assures us that it carefully controls fan speed to keep the sound level under 43dB(A). An aluminum alloy shroud and backplate cover the card’s front and back, while high-end graphite interface material ensures maximum heat transfer from the Navi die.

The vanilla Radeon RX 5700 receives a relatively minor haircut, losing four CUs and 256 Stream processors. The remaining 2,304 ALUs and 144 texture units operate at a typical Game clock of 1,625 MHz and a 1,465 MHz base clock. AMD says the 5700 can hit a 1,725 MHz Boost clock, though, and that’s where it calculates this board’s 7.95 TFLOPS compute performance. All 64 of Navi’s ROPs are preserved in moving from Radeon RX 5700 XT to 5700, as is the chip’s 256-bit aggregate memory bus and 4MB last-level cache.

Both cards support PCI Express 4.0 transfer rates of 16 GTps. Of course, as of right now, there are no compatible platforms. PCIe 4.0 support on older AMD chipsets was officially rescinded earlier this month due to worries about signal integrity on motherboards that weren’t explicitly designed to enable the standard. But by the time Radeon RX 5700-series cards become available, X570-based boards and third-gen Ryzen CPUs should be ready to lay a foundation for PCIe 4.0-capable add-in cards.

The two new Radeons come armed with eight- and six-pin auxiliary power connectors. In the case of Radeon RX 5700 XT, a 225W board power rating warrants that configuration. But Radeon RX 5700 probably could have gotten by with a pair of six-pin connectors for its 180W board power. According to AMD, the 5700 XT utilizes a seven-phase power system, while the 5700 sheds one GPU phase, leaving six between Navi and its GDDR6 memory.

As far as performance goes, AMD tells us that Radeon RX 5700 XT will beat GeForce RTX 2070, which means it also shouldn’t have any problem eclipsing Radeon RX Vega 64 through our benchmark suite. Similarly, Radeon RX 5700 is expected to beat GeForce RTX 2060.

Meet Navi: A Brief Look At AMD’s New GPU

Navi usurps its predecessor by virtue of multiple enhancements rolled into an architecture that AMD calls RDNA. Although the company says RDNA is all-new, vestiges of Graphics Core Next are clearly identifiable throughout. But rather than debate how much of a GPU must change to warrant a fresh re-branding, let’s look at some of what RDNA encompasses.

The bulk of this design’s advantage comes from architectural re-organization that translates into more performance per clock. Significant work went into making the Compute Units easier to utilize across a broader range of workloads. And optimizations for single-threaded performance should cascade into lower latency across parallelized tasks. The cache hierarchy also received attention in the form of a new L1 (512KB total) and a better delta color compression algorithm, yielding more effective bandwidth than AMD’s previous generation.

Deep-dive conversations ahead of the Navi announcement made it clear that AMD used some of its Zen design methodologies to enhance the graphics pipeline, too. Clock gating work made it possible to tune performance per watt, addressing one of Vega’s ugliest shortcomings. Meanwhile, less logic per stage helped facilitate notably higher operating frequencies. Together, AMD says those efforts contributed 10% or so of the gains compared to GCN.

Of course, Navi also benefits greatly from TSMC’s 7nm node and the advantages new process technology conveys. The chip is composed of 10.3 billion transistors spread across a 251mm² die. Vega was much larger. Manufactured on GlobalFoundries’ 14nm LPP process, it comprised 12.5 billion transistors in a 495mm² die. It’s no wonder, then, that AMD is citing better-than-Vega 64 frame rates at a notably lower board power.

Beyond its 3D-oriented features, Navi also boasts an improved video engine. Now the fixed-function hardware accelerates VP9 decode at up to 4K90 and 8K24; H.264 decode at 1080p600 and 4K150; encode at 1080p360 and 4K90; H.265 decode at 1080p360, 4K90, and 8K24; and encode at 1080p360 and 4K60. Encoder speed-ups are reportedly as high as 40%.

The Radeon Display Engine also picks up Display Stream Compression 1.2a support, which is significant for its ability to enable 4K monitors at refresh rates beyond 120 Hz without the need for chroma subsampling. Previously, running at 3840x2160 and 144 Hz required an image quality sacrifice to duck in under DisplayPort’s bandwidth ceiling. Alternatively, you could drop to 120 Hz at 8bpc color depth. And if you were using an HDR-capable monitor, you’d have to step back even further to 98 Hz for 10bpc. Now, with the benefit of nearly lossless compression, AMD can drive 4K monitors at up to 240 Hz or 8K monitors at up to 60 Hz through a single cable and not worry about those compromises.

Just bear in mind that monitors need to support DSC as well for the feature to work. AMD eagerly showed off an upcoming 43” DisplayHDR 1000-certified display from Asus with a native 3840x2160 resolution and 144 Hz refresh rate, but couldn’t give us any more information except to say that it will support DSC for single-cable connectivity.

No Ray Tracing Today, And A Tepid Outlook Tomorrow

Navi does not incorporate hardware support for ray tracing in any form. Rather, David Wang, SVP of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, told us that existing GCN- and RDNA-based GPUs would support ray tracing via shaders in ProRender (for creators) and Radeon Rays (for developers). Then, down the road, a next-gen implementation of RDNA will evolve to accelerate “select lighting effects for real-time gaming.” AMD’s vision culminates in full scene ray tracing through the cloud. Could the company mean that it sees heavy lifting handled remotely as gamers stream content? We can’t imagine the PC audience would be overwhelmingly receptive to such a proposition. Regardless, AMD believes it’ll be a few years before real-time ray tracing takes off.

There’s a lot more to say about Navi’s underlying architecture. That’ll have to wait for another day, though. AMD just didn’t give us enough time to sift through many hours of briefings before lifting the veil on its design. Stay tuned as we get our questions answered and dig in deeper.

AMD has announced the latest Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) at the "Next Horizon Gaming" event. As you can probably guess by the Ryzen 3000-series branding, the new APUs are the generational successors to the Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G parts.

Like its antecessor, the Ryzen 3 3200G continues to be a quad-core processor without the simultaneous multithreading (SMT) technology. However, it does come with a few surprises like higher operating clocks and more cache. The Ryzen 3 3200G has a 3.6 GHz base clock, 4 GHz boost clock and 6MB of cache.

The Ryzen 3 3200G employs Radeon Vega 8 graphics clocked at 1,250 MHz, which is 150 MHz faster than the Ryzen 3 2200G's iGPU (Integrated Graphics Processing Unit). AMD includes the Wraith Stealth CPU cooler with the Ryzen 3 3200G. Despite all the aformentioned improvements, the Ryzen 3 3200G still has a 65W TDP (thermal design power) and comes with a friendly $99 price tag.

The Ryzen 5 3400G is touted as having the world's most powerful integrated graphics on a processor. The chip is equipped with four cores, eight threads and 6MB of cache. It runs with a 3.7 GHz base clock and 4.2 GHz boost clock. According to AMD, the Ryzen 5 3400G features high-quality metal TIM (thermal interface material) and support for automatic PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) overclocking.

While it retains the same Radeon RX Vega 11 graphics, the Ryzen 5 3400G's iGPU operates with a 1,400 MHz base clock. Once again, we're looking at a 150 MHz improvement over the existing Ryzen 5 2400G. AMD's Wraith Spire CPU cooler is included with this SKU. Surprisingly, the Ryzen 5 3400G is expected to cost $149, which is even cheaper than the Ryzen 5 2400G that debuted at $170.

According to AMD's internal benchmarks, its Radeon RX Vega 11 is significantly faster than Intel's UHD Graphics 630 iGPU. From a gaming perspective, the Ryzen 5 3400G is capable of providing smooth gameplay above 30 frames per second at 1920x1080 resolution. However, AMD didn't specify which graphic presets were used in the tests.

We're here for live coverage of AMD's Next Horizon Gaming event where we expect to learn more about the company's 7nm Ryzen 3000 processors and Navi GPUs.

AMD has already regaled us with its Ryzen 3000 processors that span from six cores and twelve threads up to 12 cores and 24 threads, all on mainstream motherboards. We expect to learn more from AMD about the X570 motherboard ecosystem, along with more specifics about the 7nm Navi GPUs.

Pricing, availability, and performance details should flow soon. 

AMD CEO Lisa Su took the stage and began the show by talking about how much the company loves gamers and how the company is working to deliver incredible gaming experiences on all platforms with both breakthrough hardware and software. Su said that graphics are at the heart of gaming and that Radeon has permeated desktop PCs, consoles, and now mobile devices with the company's new partnership with Samsung.

Su rehashed that the company is working with Sony to power its new console, and that Radeon will power Google's Stadia. Now the company is powering the Microsoft's Project Scarlett with a custom CPU and Navi GPU.

Su said the company is going to introduce the new Ryzen 3000 series processors, followed by the Navi graphics cards.

Su began by touting the enthusiast community's excitement for third-gen Ryzen. Su touted the 15% IPC uplift, doubled cache capacity, and doubled floating point performance. 

Su discussed the processors that the company announced during Computex 2019, discussing how the company is disrupting Intel at every price point.

Su demonstrated how the 12C/24T 3900X beats Intel's Core i9-9900K in single- and  multi-threaded workloads, and at a lower TDP.

Su also showed how the Ryzen 9 3900X beats Intel at 1080p gaming across eight game titles.

AMD's Robert Hallock demonstrated the Ryzen 9 3900X streaming and playing a game simultaneously at 1440p compared to the Core i9-9900K. The Ryzen 9 3900X hit 59 FPS during the demo, while the Core i9-9900K hit 1.6 FPS, but it's notable that AMD used the "slow" preset, which is ultra-demanding, that wouldn't be used by nearly any streamer.

Su dove in deeper on the Ryzen 5 family. These 6C/12T processors deliver all the benefits of the Zen 2 core and PCIe 4.0 interface at friendlier price points.

AMD claims the processors outperform Intel's comparable models, like the Core i5-9600K.

Su is now switching gears to AMD's Navi GPUs -- the 5700 Series. These new GPUs come infused with the new RDNA architecture that improves performance over the previous-gen GCN architecture. That comes due to faster clock speeds and improved IPC, paired with PCIe 4.0 and lower power consumption. 

AMD retooled the cache hierarchy, streamlined the pipeline, and created a new compute unit (CU) architecture.

AMD claims a 25% increase in performance per cycle and 50% improvement in performance per watt with RDNA.

Su displayed the Navi 5700 XT graphics card.

These 7nm GPUs feature a range of improvements, along with a performance-driven design.

Navi includes a seven-phase power design fed by six-pin and eight-pin connectors.

AMD introduced the Radeon 5700 with 36 compute units and 8GB of GDDR6. Look for our full breakdown of these cards to appear on the site at the end of the presentation.

AMD introduced a new "Game" clock that represents what you would see during normal gaming. This new measurement slots between the base and boost clocks. 

AMD introduced Fidelity FX, a new postprocessing effect that improves game quality. This sounds like an answer to Nvidia's DLSS. AMD made direct comparisons to DLSS, and then introduced Radeon Image sharpening, which is another post-processing technique to improve image quality.

Herkleson introduced Radeon Anti-Lag, which reduces input lag, which Herkelson said will allow you to "beat GeForce gamers."

AMD presented before and after data in popular eSports game with the RX 5700 XT, saying you save 30% of latency on average.

Radeon RX 5700 XT will be available for $449. The Radeon RX 5700 will land at $379. Navi will be available on July 7, 2019, on the same release date as the Ryzen 3000 processors.

AMD is also including three months of the Xbox game pass with new Navi purchases.

Geoff Keighley came out to help Herkleman introduce game developers that are working with AMD.

Keighley brought out The Coalition's studio head and technical director to talk about Gears 5. The developers talked about how they optimized Gears 5 for PCs by using PC-centric features.The developers infused the game with real-time cinematics at 4K resolutions. Because Xbox uses AMD graphics the developers spent more time working on game quality, as opposed to optimizing specifically for different types of GPUs.

The Executive Producer of Borderlands 3 came on the stage to talk about how the Gearbox team uses Ryzen and Radeon technologies to build games. The demo focused primarily on HDR effects and how the company used Fidelity FX to boost performance with rapid packed math. That technology helps improve image quality. Gearbox announced that it and AMD Studios have signed a multi-year agreement for its labs to use AMD hardware for game development. The company also showed exclusive gameplay footage from the upcoming title.

Keighley invited the Vice President of Graphics from Unity on to the stage to talk about Unity's latest news.

Tatarchuk outlined the company's new High-Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) feature.

The company demoed gameplay footage from The Heretic, which uses HDRP. This new feature is optimized for the latest GPUs, but the company also worked closely with AMD to enable higher resolution, built on AMD's Fidelity FX. Unity also worked with AMD to integrate CAS into the game engine, which also uses rapid packed math. HDRP will ship this fall in Unity 2019.3. 

Members of Ubisoft's Ghost Recon Breakpoint development team came to the stage to discuss their partnership with AMD. The company fine-tuned the game for Ryzen 3000 processors and the 5700 Series graphics cards.

Lisa Su returned to the stage and congratulated the Ghost Recon team. Su thanked Keighley for coming and he presented Su with a superhero model of herself made by the AMD fan community.

Su said she saved a surprise, or two, for the end.

Su just revealed a 50th Anniversary Edition of the Radeon 5700 XT. This model comes with gold highlights on the shroud, and it comes with faster performance, too. 40 Compute Units and a boost clock of 1.98 GHz. This card will be $499 and available exclusively at AMD.com. 

Su said she has two kids - CPUs and GPUs. Because there was an extra GPU, there has to be an extra CPU. 

Meet the Ryzen 9 3950X. 16 cores, 32 threads, and the 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. This new processor drops into AM4 motherboards and boost up to 4.7 GHz. It comes with 72MB of L3 all packed into a 105W TDP envelope. The CPU will come to retail in September for $749.

• Go to our AMD Next Horizon Gaming Live Coverage for detailed information and insights as the event unfolds.
  

After a short abscence from the E3 video game conference in California, AMD will try its best to make a splash at the E3 gaming conference today at 3 p.m. Pacific Time with its "Next Horizon Gaming" event featuring CEO Lisa Su.

What to Expect

The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley will host the Next Horizon Gaming event at The Novo in the L.A. Live complex in Los Angeles.

When it first announced the show, AMD said: "At Next Horizon Gaming, AMD president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su will present ... details about upcoming products and technologies that will power gaming from PC to console to cloud for years to come. The event will also feature appearances by leading game developers who will provide exclusive looks at some of the most anticipated new titles of the year."

Navi Graphics Cards

With gaming being the main theme, we're expecting that the chipmaker may finally reveal its highly anticipated Navi graphics cards. AMD has said Navi will arrive in the third quarter of 2019, so we think it's likely AMD will use the Next Horizon Gaming event to share more information about the Navi architecture and maybe tease us with an early engineering sample.

E3 is one of the world's biggest gaming events, so we can't think of a better place to unveil a new graphics card. Let's not forget that AMD has a long history of unveiling graphics cards at E3. The chipmaker used the venue to announce the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X in 2015 and the AMD Radeon RX 460 and AMD Radeon RX 470 in 2016. 

What About Ryzen 3000-Series CPUs?

AMD already unveiled its new Ryzen 3000 series lineup at the Computex conference last month, so we're not expecting much in the way of CPU news, except for, perhaps, some more details on the aforementioned processors. 

At Ubisoft's E3 briefing, we got some fascinating news on several upcoming titles, including Watch Dogs: Legion, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and several additions to the Tom Clancy series. The company also announced a new subscription service called UPlay +.

The press event started with the Assassin's Creed Symphony treating the audience to some music from the franchise. The orchestra has a worldwide tour beginning June 29 in Paris. It will also show up in Lnndon, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver, among other international cities.

Prior to the show starting, Ubisoft announced that a story creator mode is coming to Assassin's Creed Odyssey in which you can design quests and write your own dialogue trees. This is available now, for free.

Watch Dogs Legion

Prior to E3, Watch Dogs Legion leaked, in which you can play as any NPC. This was one of the heaviest amounts of gameplay we've seen at E3 so far.

The demo takes place in London, where a group of revolutionaries are building a resistance to the government one person at a time. In a trailer, we saw Ian, a member of the resistance, trying to find someone who can deal with government drones that are spying on people. He finds Alice Pandit, an MMA fighter, but is told to skip her.

He scans more people for skills before finding  Jimmy Shaw, a drones expert who has been jailed before for hacking. He's fighting police, so Ian takes on the cops and a riot drone is deployed. Ian shoots at the drone but becomes injured. He chooses to resist, goes invisible and steals a taxi, with drones shooting all the way.

Ian, a gunner crashes and runs, ducking behind cover, but he gets killed.

Then the player chooses from other characters in the resistance to pick from. It's an old woman, Helen, who is following Ian's mark, the hacker. Helen uses a spider robot to get into a police building and take down the guards, then download Jimmy's record. She fights off drones herself (tripping a bit on the way), and then gets on the bus to leave and follow Jimmy to Camden Market.

We also see Naomi, an enforcer, at Camden Market. She's tracking Jimmy as well, but the place is on lockdown. She hides on a truck, jumps onto a drone and flies with it along it's path. She jumps onto a roof and takes down guards, then sneaks into the building with a mask on. The Kelleys, a crime family, are human trafficking out of the building. She sees Jimmy being tortured by one of them, and she smacks down with the guards.

Naomi clears a path of oncoming guards with a lot of gunfire, as well as an attack drone. She and Jimmy jump off the roof and escape its missiles.

At a bar nearby, Naomi recruits Jimmy. She hands him a small device. Jimmy asks after Ian, who Naomi said didn't make it. Now the player is playing as Jimmy, who puts the device in his ear. Now he's a playable operative. He's part of DeadSec, the resistance.

Clint Hocking, the creative director took the stage, where he invoked Brexit as a turning point for the UK and the world.

"Where London goes, all of us go together," he said, and in the game, London is on a downturn with deportation squads and armed drones. And it's up to Londoners - all of them - to fight against the authorities.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

Jon Bernthal starred in the trailer for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint as Cole D. Walker.  His army, the Wolves is going to battle with the existing Ghosts, who he feels are serving "the machine," rather than the people.

"You are the few with the courage to make history," he says.

Bernthal appeared on stage with his dog, listing off all of the tough men he has played over the years. Walker, he says, is ruthless with his own moral code. 

"There's no briefing, there's no backup... you will face an entire army. My army. The wolves," Bernthal said. The Wolves trained alongside the ghosts, so it's a fair fight.

Then, a trailer played, showing the Ghosts fighting the Wolves in brutal battle in a jungle, fields and with lots and lots of weapons, including drones and rocket launchers.

Laura Chodrey of Ubisoft's Community team then took the stage. She said AI teammates will be coming back for solo players.

"We want to go the extra mile with how we engage with you," she said. She unveiled a program called Delta company for gamers to express their thoughts to the development team.

Nouredine Abboud then took the stage to announce an October 4 release date. The beta will start on September 5. He promised the game will be live for several years. He promised new content and free updates for the upcoming title.

Gods & Monsters

We got a sneak peek of a new game focused on mythology. The game comes from developers who were on the Assassin's Creed Odyssey team.

In a cinematic trailer, we saw a heroine who helps the gods fight beasts, and a short teaser had a cute, bright art style. It comes out February 25, 2020.

UPlay +

There's a new subscription service on PC, including early access to games and premium additions with extra content. There's over 100 games in the existing catalog. It will be $14.99 per month when it starts in September which had a bit of a groan from the crowd.

The list includes games from Rayman, Assassins' Creed, Watch Dogs Splinter Cell and other series.

In 2020, UPlay+ will also be available on Google's Stadia streaming platform.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Quarantine

This three-player tactical co-op game is coming in early 2020. In a cinematic trailer, we saw a man, with veinny patterns running up his arm, pointing a gun at a fast-moving creature. Medical alarms beep and power goes out as a device on his wrist flashes. Some soldiers come in to cover him, and we only hear the firefight.

You face off against a parasite, risking everything to keep your crew alive in a firefight. Episode 1 of D.C. Outskirts: Expedition takes you to the woodlands to attack a presidential compound and hit a traitor. There's also a mission in a national zoo and one at a college with a new game mode that includes investigation to find out what happened to a military convoy.

In Episode 2, Pentagon: The Last Castle, which comes in the fall you play in the Pentagon, you have to secure what's behind the standing walls. There's another 8-player raid.

Episode has a manhunt, but no full title was given.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

We got some updates from the team behind The Division 2. Between June 13th and June 16th, the game will be free for all to play and try.

We got a demo for a mission in which players fight to save the country, not just the city.

Roller Champions

We saw a new game in which roller derby meets baseball and football. It had tricks, tackling and a bit of Rocket League's wall travel.

It's a team player-vs-player sports game. The game is available today on UPlay in pre-alpha on PC.

Then we saw some game play which definitely resembled Rocket League, but with more physicality and a looping race track course. 

For Honor: Shadows of the Hitokoiri

For Honor is getting a limited time in-game event, in which players face the spirit of death. It's available until June 27.

Tom Clancy's Elite Squad

Ubisoft and Owlient are working on a mobile RPG with Tom Clancy game characters, including Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell. 

Brawlhalla x Adventure Time

We got a look at an Adventure Time expansion for Brawlhalla in which Finn and Jake enter the game. There's also a buddy mode with online and local play. That's available today.

Just Dance 2020

It's been 10 years of Just Dance, and a dance crew came out to dance to Panic! at the Disco's "High Hopes," and other songs. It included someone in costume as a panda, because why not?

The game comes this November to Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Wii (yes, the first Wii) and Google Stadia.

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet

We got our first look at the Apple TV Plus original, Mythic Quest, following creative director Ian Grimms and his team making an expansion for their MMO. The show follows the studio as it makes the expansion. In the preview, we saw Grimm's team watching a commercial for the game, but it was instead almost all about the creative director.

Ubisoft consulted on the show, which is a comedy.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

The Mayan Theater lit up for the PC Gaming Show (run by our sister site, PC Gamer) to see what's coming to PC gaming in the next year. The lineup included Annapurna Interactive, Chucklefish, Epic Games Store, Paradox Interactive, Raw Fury, Tripwire Interactive and more. Baldur's Gate 3 and Borderlands 3 also made appearances.

The show was hosted by streamer Sean "Day[9]" Plott and esports presenter Frankie Ward.

Baldur's Gate 3

Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coast were on stage during the show to demonstrate the most anticipated game of the PC Gaming Show, Baldur's Gate 3. The franchise, based in Dungeons and Dragons, hasn't seen a game for years.

There was no new footage or anything different from the recent trailer, but Larian said it was porting as much of the game's handbook to the title, while also adding systems to make the game work well.

The developers also discussed bringing classes to the game in an authentic way, so that players of the paper and pencil game will feel that it's a great reproduction.

There will also be a paper and pencil prequel to this game that takes place between Baldur's Gate 2 and this title.

The team said it will be released "when it's ready."

Borderlands 3

The game is coming out September 13, 2019. Gearbox creative director Paul Sage talked up Moze, a gunner with a mech, flame thrower and a ton of other heavy weaponry. 

He also discussed grenades, because there are more than the last game. There are also shields, including one that extends if you duck, and class mods that give you new skills and enhance what you have.

There are also artifacts that make changes to movement. One causes and explosion every time you slide.

There will be jump-in/out multiplayer and massive bosses in the single-player mode. 

Shenmue III

Yu Suzuki took to the stage to talk Shenmue III. 

"I want to say thank you for all the fans supporting me for the long 20 years," he said through a translator. "The wait is nearly over." Then he rolled a trailer.

In it, we saw Ryo Hazuki training in martial arts, as his master says others have become more powerful. There were environmental shots of the city, as well as Ryo fighting a drunk wielding a bottle. He captures a little girl during a chase. The game comes November 19.

Evil Genius 2: World Domination

From UK developer Rebellion comes Evil Genius 2. The trailer showed a number of playable classes, secret agents and nefarious traps. But a lack of gameplay footage made it hard to see what the game will actually look like.

Telling Lies

Sam Barlow talked about Telling Lies, a spiritual successor to Her Story. The game has footage of a woman who has stolen an NSA project with secret conversations between four characters. You need to piece that footage together to piece together what happened when something goes horribly wrong.

The game looks much like Her Story, with a computer desktop and video clips to watch and re-order. You can tag clips and search by keywords to find new clues in parts of the footage you may or may not have seen yet.

Barlow said there are 10 hours of footage.

The game is "coming soon" to Steam.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

There was a violent trailer for Paradox's Bloodlines 2 with a slightly blurry, dark look. Players need to keep themselves hidden from other vampires. Those vampires, of course, feed on human beings.  It's coming in Q1 of 2020.

In some pre-alpha gameplay footage, we saw environmental shots, as well as the player's first-person vampire powers, like hovering in flight. There's also some knife fighting and combat, as well as the releasing of bats from your hands.

Man Eater

We met a new character in Tripwire's upcoming game, a fisherman with big headphones and bigger guns. We also saw some sharks attacking as he cleaned his boat. He's Pete, the villain in the tale, the best shark fisherman in the Gulf. 

Man Eater is told as a reality show that follows the villain and the player shark.

"It's like GTA [Grand Theft Auto] if you were shark," the developer said.

There are three facets to the game. Growth, which you get through eating, like experience points. Then there's growth, when you change sizes and get a big jump in size and power. And there are evolutions, like metallic teeth, more powerful tails or mutated lungs that let you get on the beach.

TripWire is aiming for a release date before the next E3, its reps said, vaguely.

Starmancer

Chucklefish and Omnilux's new game is about growing a space colony, expanding it and customizing it your way. The gameplay trailer we saw showed a number of customization options, as well as gardens to feed the colony. Of course, it's not space without enemies, and there's a battle system to fight them off. 

Chivalry II

Torn Banner and Tripwire have teamed up for Chivalry II, a first-person sword fighter. The trailer we saw showed bloody fights with brutal decapitation and armies fighting each other. It’s coming in 2020 to the Epic Games Stores.

The main game mode has teams raiding castles and sieging villages. "You're burning houses, killing peasants," one developer said.

The game will go up to 64 players and has horsebacks, which the first title didn't.

The developers also suggested players will be drunk while playing and can beat others with chickens while quoting Shakespeare.

Songs of Conquest

Coffee Stain and Lava Potion's trailer was largely atmospheric, showing off a lush forest environment with rivers, fires, towns and trees where the game takes place. A dark wizard sets the entire map black.

From there, the developers said, you create an animal and set them on an adventure. The adventure/strategy game is about upgrading your town and collecting resources.

There are turn-based battles with your troops. You deploy them (they have stats) and go turn-by-turn against enemies who come through.

The game isn't coming until late 2020.

Genesis Noir

OK, this one was weird. The black-and-white game has you playing as a detective, and the 2D art style is disorganized and gorgeous. We saw the detective dialing a phone, walking down hallways on seemingly meeting a femme fatale, but little other context was given. The game was described as a "cosmic adventure."

El Hijo

In this game, you play as a 6-year old trying to find your mother. The western is a top-down adventure title with stealth, puzzles and bright, vivid art direction. 

Valfaris

Big Sugar's new game showed a massive side-scrolling run and gunner with a heavy metal sound track, massive creatures, fiery explosions and aliens galore. 

Warframe Empyrean

We learned Warframe is getting some updates, but there won't be a full reveal until July 6. The developers showed a trailer devoid of much context, but it looked epic and had lots of combat.

The developers said you'll explore the solar system in the expansion.

Remnant: From the Ashes

Perfect World and Gunfire Games showed off its co-op shooter, Remnant: From the Ashes, with evils taking over the world, including a number of hideous monsters, like demons and massive wolves. We then saw some third-person, over-the-shoulder combat with the evils. The game is coming August 20 on PC, Xbox and PlayStation 4 (PS4). Pre-orders can play the game on August 16.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War

From the makers of Sniper Elite 4, we saw a cinematic trailer for Zombie Army 4: Dead War. It showed men with guns in a hellish warzone with lots of fire. A man on the ground was corned by zombies and took them out with his gun as a colleague came to save him. They escaped a massive demon with a flamethrower, and a guy with a sniper took him out, resulting in an explosion of gore.

Yet another of our heroes had a gatling gun, and in the trailer she made a distraction to help get the team together. Then there was more zombie combat before the team gathered up to face the entire horde. The game is coming in 2020.

Cristales

Modus Games' "love letter to classic RPGs" showed off a distinctive art style that switches between that shows the past, present and future simultaneously. Learn from the past, make changes in the present and change the future. Those three times are split on screen to show you everything at once. It's coming in 2020.

AutoChess

AutoChess takes chess to a wild new level with odd pieces. The game, adapted from mobile, is being built on Unreal Engine 4 and will be on Epic Games Store. 

Mosaic

Our next trailer was bleak, showing a man standing in the rain playing a mobile game. We saw a busy city and the man swimming in the ocean. The game is called Mosaic and is coming in 2019.

Midnight Ghost Hunt

Coffee Stain's new game showed Ghostbuster-like characters hunting for paranormal activity in a haunted house. They use a meter to find where ghosts are, blast out their proton packs and get to hunting. We saw a chair turn into a ghost behind a character, so clearly there will be some surprises. The first-person gameplay footage showed household items being weaponized and, of course, ghosts being busted.

You can play as ghosts or hunters in a 4v4 game mode. The ghosts are actually hiding and try to stay hidden until the clock strikes midnight, but they can fight back against the hunters.

An alpha event will take place later in the summer.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall

We saw the turn-based strategy game, which includes massive mechs, dinosaurs with lasers and more. You can create a paradise or a vast military choice, your choice. There's a massive stats trees for growth, including doctrines and technologies.

Battles could be as short as 2-3 minutes, but games at the end could be 20 minutes per side, the developers said.

The game will come out August 6 on PC and consoles.

Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy

Big Sugar's sequel showed undersea exploration in the dark with a moody atmosphere, as well as brighter exploration in a forest-like area. There's some combat in a top-down view and a large game map with a forest, desert, winter mountain and more. It's one of the more distinctive art-styles of the show, with a simple aesthetic with lots of colors and environments. 

Funcom Games

Mutant Year Zero: Seed of Evil, Conan Unconquered and Moons of Madness (Halloween 2019 release) all made very brief appearances in Funcom's sizzle reel.

We also saw Conan Chop Chop, which originated as an April Fools' joke but clearly isn't. There are rogue-like elements and a chibi-style art direction. Huge swords, lots of blood and massive beasts from Conan lore are all in there. It'll come September 3, 2019 to PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS4.

The Last Oasis

"We must move forward, or die beneath the sun."

In this trailer, a group tries to survive in a punishing desert, using sand-based pirate ships. They foraged in the occasional trees and grass and battled with other clans. We also saw vehicular-based. It's coming September 3 to Steam.

Griftlands

This one's a very cartoony, turn-based fighter with beautiful 2D artwork. The alpha is available July 11 on the Epic Games Stores.

Ancestors

Ancestors director Patrice Desilet's game about human evolution will allow him to tell a wide-ranging story, he said. You play as our last common ancestor and explore, expand your territory and clan, evolve and eventually reach Lucy. The game comes out August 27.

No gameplay or trailers were shown.

Zoo Planet

The developers showed a gameplay video of Zoo Planet, with realistic looking animals like bears, zebras, elephants and wolves. The game lets you run a zoo, care for the animals, clean up after them and create habitats for the wildlife.

Developers said people who want to go the zoo will be educated, including about the welfare of animals and about conservation. It's out November 5 on Steam.

Per Aspera 

Raw Fury's space game takes place in a world where we reached Mars. Now humanity is putting human minds in machines so they can build a home there. We didn't see any gameplay, but it's coming 2020 to Steam.

E3 2019, one of the largest video game industry conferences, is here. And today, the PC Gaming Show is returning to the show with big reveals.

The show, hosted by our friends over at PC Gamer, will be sponsored by Epic Games and hosted by streamer Sean "Day[9]" Plott and esports presenter Frankie Ward. It starts at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET on today at Los Angeles' Mayan Theater. You can watch the show live below:

What to Expect at the PC Gaming Show 

This year, the show will be filled with developer interviews, demos and trailers at the PC Gaming Show. Of course, there will also be some gaming announcements with Epic revealing new games, including exclusives, coming to its store.

Other developers will take to the stage as well, including Annapurna Interactive, Chucklefish, Digital Extremes, Digital Uppercut, E-WIN, Fatshark, Fellow Traveller, Frontier Developments, Funcom, Modus Games, Paradox Interactive, Perfect World Entertainment, Raw Fury, Rebellion, Re-Logic and Tripwire Interactive, among others.

"This year's livestream will present more announcements and new trailers than any previous PC Gaming Show," said Evan Lahti, PC Gamer's editor-in-chief.

Here at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles ahead of E3, Bethesda showed off its latest titles to a rowdy audience, highlighting the importance of community.

Senior vice president of marketing Pete Hines took the stage to lead the affairs, promising to "go deep on Doom Eternal."

Todd Howard, head of Bethesda Game Studios, starting the show with Fallout 76, highlighting the game's difficulties and "well-deserved criticism." He then turned it over to other big games. He also confirmed Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 are in development, but didn't show them at the briefing.

Doom Eternal

The flagship game of the briefing was Doom Eternal, which debuted on stage with a hyperviolent trailer with fluid gameplay shooting through hordes of enemies, including one with a light-axe. The game is launching November 22.

Marty Stratton, the executive producer and Hugo Martin, the creative director took the stage. Earth is being consumed by demons, and you have to cross dimensions to fight them off. Those include heaven and the Sentinel homeworld.

Martin praised his game's level design, saying it provides constant new experiences. In a bit of gameplay footage, we saw the Doomslayer breaking down walls, swinging through fire, jumping over pits and, well, you know, shooting demons. There were also some jump scares and bosses in there, including one whom the hero feeds its own eyeball.

In more footage, we saw our hero blasting through demons with a grenade gun and shotgun, sawing one's head and arm off, and poking a spider-brain monster in the eye with its own leg bones.

There's also a multiplayer mode, Battlemode, where two player-controlled demons take on a slayer. Bethesda called it a "first person fighter" that involves strategy for the demons and skill for the slayer.

The collectors' edition includes an actual helmet that you could wear, if you want.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Bethesda is promising that Wolfenstein: Youngblood will be bigger than ever with a bigger story, co-op and plenty of Nazis to slaughter.

Youngblood is set in the 1980s. BJ is missing in action in Paris, and his twin daughters Jess and Soph have to find him.

In the trailer, the two women wear cybernetic suits and hunt Nazis in a bloody rampage with big guns and lots of knives. We saw action set pieces jumping between roofs and on the streets of Paris. The game is coming July 26 on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Orion for Cloud Streaming

Bethesda announced its group of technologies to improve cloud streaming. It called out Stadia and xCloud as platforms that could potentially use it, and suggested it will reduce costs for publishers and gamers, and that it would let gamers stream games at the highest settings.

This technology lets you stream content up to 20 percent faster, per frame, the company said. It can also use 40 percent lower bandwidth. It didn't go deep into how the technology works.

It works at the engine level, so developers should be able to work this into games.

Bethesda showed a phone streaming a version of 2016's Doom on stage at 60 fps without any lag or latency.

Those who want to try can go to slayersclub.com tonight to join the Doom Slayers Club for early access.

Deathloop

Arkane Studios announced its newest action game, Deathloop, calling it "innovative, stylish and different from anything we've ever done before." It features Colt and Juliana, two deadly rivals, in a world where looks can literally kill. It takes place in Black Reef, where Colt wants out but Juliana feels free. Both rivals are after each other and other enemies. 

The story seems stuck in a time loop, though it wasn't fully explained. But player actions will change the story. The game has no official release date.

Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot

In Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot, you'll use Nazi tech to fight against the Nazis in VR. It's coming in July.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Bethesda revealed new server capacity has been added to the game to support all of the new players.

Zenimax Studios also showed off a trailer for the story line, Elsweyr. It, of course, had dragons. A cat person (yes, a person with a cat head), fought a dragon on horseback until it was knocked off. Then more traditional characters showed up to fight it, and eventually an entire army. (Honestly, the crowd's reaction seemed liked they wanted the dragon to win). An arrow to the heart killed the dragon, and the cat person survives. Happy ending.

The Dragon Guard will be back in the fall story line, Dragonhold. There will be a dungeon DLC called Scalebreaker coming later this year.Rage 2

Rage 2 is getting new features this week. It includes new vehicles, a pilotable mech, new enemies, new gameplay modes and more. The Rise of the Ghosts Expansion will have new areas, new story and new weapons.

Commander Keen

Zenimax isn't just working on the Elder Scrolls Online. It also showed off a new mobile game, Commander Keen. 

The game was originated by Id software in the '90s, but is coming to iOS and Android this summer. There are two characters: Billy and Billie, following in their fathers' footsteps. They build gadgets to attack enemies and move through the environment.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

The next game from Tango Gameworks, Ghostwire is an action-adventure game in a city filled with supernatural evil.

Ikumi Nakamura, the game's creative developer, painted it as a mystery. People are vanishing, and you have to find out why.

The trailer, which had no actual gameplay, showed an empty version of Tokyo, with people disappearing and leaving their clothes behind. An empty high-heeled shoe moves up an escalator. Cars are stopped in the streets. Men in umbrellas face an assassin with a bow and arrow in the street. Then things get paranormal, as flowers die and turn into a demon creature, and people in masks show up. 

"Don't fear the unknown. Attack it.," our hero says. No release date was announced.

Fallout 76

The Fallout 76 team was big on thanking gamers for growing with them. But they focused on a new expansion, "Wastelanders," to keep the game going. There are human NPCs, which got a huge shout. There's also a new questline, full dialogue trees and more.

"This is a long term story we're telling," the audience was told. Wastelanders will be free for all Fallout 76 players.

There's also a new game mode, Nuclear Winter, a 52-player battle royale mode to be the overseer of the Vault 51. This mode will be free.

Fallout 76 will get a free trial week from June 10 - 17.

Elder Scrolls: Blades

The Elder Scrolls: Blades team is promising a custom jewelry system, a new dragon questline and new arena battles for it's mobile system. And it's available tonight on the App Store and Google Play.

But Blades is also coming to the Nintendo Switch, should you want a more console-style experience. It's coming this fall and will still be free. The game will have motion control and will have cross-platform and cross-progression with the mobile versions.

Microsoft debuted its next gen Xbox here at its press conference at E3. Microsoft is calling it Project Scarlett, and it will release in Holiday 2020. No pictures of the system were shown, nor was a price announced.

The next gen console uses AMD's Zen 2 architecture and Navi graphics, which Xbox boss Phil Spencer said it co-engineered with AMD. It also uses GDDR6 memory and an SSD that doubles as virtual RAM.

"It's not just PC, it's not just console, it's not just mobile," one Xbox team member said in a trailer.

The company said it will have ray tracing and frame rates up to 120 fps.

Halo: Infinite will launch alongside the system, and you can read more about that here.

The company hinted that streaming services will be a big part of the console, but didn't specify how. Project xCloud will be coming to existing Xbox Ones, howeer, so it's very possible this will have a similar offering.

Previously, competitor Sony had detailed that its next-gen PlayStiation would be based on AMD's Zen 2 8-core processors and Navi graphics, support ray-tracking, and, in some circumstances, offer 8K graphics. The company also said it will use an SSD out of the box and have a custom audio chip.

Phil Spencer took to the stage  at Xbox's E3 press conference, calling it a "decisive moment of discovery" for the Xbox team. The show kicked off E3 from the Microsoft Theater here in Los Angeles.

"This today is the largest showcase of games on any stage, anywhere this year," Spencer said. He said 60 games would be on stage, including 14 from Xbox studios and 34 games premiering on Xbox Game Pass.

The company showed of tons of games, an Xbox Game Pass program for PC and updated us about cloud gaming and new hardware.

We're expecting announcements, potentially related to next generation hardware, cloud streaming and a slew of games from its own studios and third party partners.

Next Gen Xbox: Project Scarlett

Phil Spencer revealed the next Xbox on stage, coming from the same team that designed the Xbox One. It will come Holiday 2020.

"It's not just PC, it's not just console, it's not just mobile," one Xbox team member said in a trailer.

It's using Zen 2 and Navi from AMD, and it's 4 times more powerful than Xbox One X. The memory is GDDR6. The video promised frame rates up to 120 fps, ray tracing and variable refresh rates. And of course, there's an SSD, which will also be used as virtual RAM. First and third party game studios are working on games for the console already.

It will be backwards compatible, and the video said four generations of content will be available on the one system.

Halo: Infinite

Halo: Infinite will launch alongside the system. In a trailer, we saw a soldier rushing to keep a door closed, but ultimately climbing to escape and then falling. We then track to a man holding a hologram of a woman talking to a child and delivering a message to him. He then sees Master Chief floating outside the ship.

The man runs to override Chief's damaged systems, and then sparks him alive to a reboot. We see the man through his visor HUD.

"We're going home!" the man shouts. "Welcome back, Chief."

But the Spartan can't easily move his hands, and when diagnostics are run, Cortana isn't detected. Chief asks for a status report, and the man shows him that they lost the battle. There's nothing left.

The ship rocks and MAster chief takes jumps out of the ship.

Project xCloud

Xbox Ones will be used as personal, free Xbox servers, or you can use a console in their data center. This will be in preview in October, and you can play games wherever you go.

Xbox Game Pass

Head of partnerships Sarah Bond promised every Xbox Game Studios shown today would come to Game Pass game one. Batman: Arkham Knight, Metro Exodus, Hollow Knight and Borderlands: The Handsome collection are all available today.

She also highlighted the importance of playing on PC and announced Xbox Game Pass for PC. It will cost $9.99 per month.

"We have curated over 100 games just for PC," Bond said. Imperator Rome and Football Manager 2019 were on them, as well as the entire Halo: Master Chief Collection and Halo: Reach. Xbox Game Pass for PC launches in open beta. Other titles include Rise of the Tomb Raider and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.

If you want PC and Xbox, Microsoft announced Game Pass Ultimate, for Console, PC and Live Gold for $14.99 per month. There's a $1 special going on during E3.

Xbox Elite Controller Series 2

There's a new Elite controller with adjustable tension thumbsticks, higher precision control, redesigned trigger grips and bumpers, shorter trigger hair locks, and a rubberized grip. There are more thumbstick and pad options, three custom profiles for different games, and it work son Xbox One and PC. It works over Bluetooth, has a recharagble battery (50 hours per charge)and what appears to be USB Type-C from the trailer. 

Gears 5

An odd tariler for the game showed our heroine, Kait, remembering lots of characters from the past niame, including hero Marcus Fenix, before transforming into a villainous creature and screaming.

Gears 5 will release September 10, the team announced. The Ultimate edition will get you in four days early. 

Ferguson announced Escape mode. In Escape, you and your squad get into a squad base, plant a bomb and then try to escape on time. Then we saw a trailer with real fire and smoke on stage for special effect, showing some brutal attacks, the bomb being planted and combat with the hive (there was no real gameplay. It was all CGI). Besides amazing lancer attacks, we saw a sick electric knife and some more standard guns.

You can also create custom hives for your friends to take on. Then, we saw the pre-order bonu. The damn Terminator is coming to Gears 5 as a playable character.

Rod Ferguson announced a Horde Mode coming to Gamescom on August 19.

Xbox Game Studios and Other Games

The company announced that Double Fine Productions is joining Xbox Game Studios, a huge coup for Xbox. The company is behind Pscyhonauts and Broken Age, among others. Tim Schafer of Double Fine took to the stage. He offered to make "Halo stuff, Forza stuff or Excel stuff," but then showed off Psychonauts 2. The trailer featured crazy platforming , in which Raz climbed through a world full of teeth. No release date was announced, but ti's coming to Xbox and PC.

The briefing started with a trailer for Obsidian Entertainment and Private Division's The Outer Worlds, showcasing the game's first-person shooter gameplay, moral system and a corporate colony facing an uprising. The game is coming to PC and Xbox One on October 25.

Rahni Tucker and Don Matthews from Ninja Theory next took the stage. The company recently joined Microsoft via an acquisition, and the company showcased Bleeding Edge on stage. The trailer depicts a 4 vs. 4 online melee title with hints of other battle royale and fps titles, but with a wackier, more violent spin. A technical Alpha starts June 27.

Next up was Ori and the Will of the Wisps with a violent spider creature chasing our hero through forest, lava, and d other magical worlds. That game comes to Xbox One and PC on February 11, 2020.

Minecraft Dungeons is an adventure game in the blocky universe, with RPG elements and a grid-based battle system. The trailer showed a party system with several classes, though they weren't detailed heavily. That's coming Spring 2020 to PC and Xbox with 4-player local and online co-op.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

We also saw a game powered by Satellite data and Azure AI, capture in real 4K. The flight sim looked photorealistic and showed scenes in San Francisco, Egypt, Seattle,  New York and more.

Jedi: Fallen Order

Respawn and EA's Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order showed off new gameplay with brutal lightsaber takedowns, wall running parkour and brutal ship battles in a trailer for the game coming to Xbox and PC November 15.

Blair Witch

We saw the world premiere of a new horror title, Blair Witch, taking place in Sept. 1996, our protagonist finds himself lost in the woods with his dog as evil demons creatures attack. We saw splices of the game taking place in doors and with a flashlight and a camera. It's coming August 30.

Cyberpunk 2077

Then CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 showed up on screen to applause.We saw V demanding money from an acquaintance. There's a CGI shootout with the cops and a chase in a self-driving car, and V's partner dies in the fight. But V doesn't get his money. Emerging from the bathroom, he's attacked, starting a fight involving cybernetic strength, blades coming cybernetic enhancements and a ton of blood. We also saw Keanu Reeves in a starring role, which brought the house down with applause.

Reeves took to the stage, detailing a branching storyline, open world and customizable characters. "You play as an outlaw, an enhanced mercenary working in the sleazy underbelly of the city," Reeves said." Then he promised to reveal the releaes date, and delivered. Following a small smattering of first-person gameplay, we found it will release April 16, 2020.

Spiritfarer

Then, another world premiere: Spiritfarer. The cartoony sidesscroller allows building, caring for animal friends working in a garden and explroing a new world on a pirate ship. 

Lego

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

The game is coming in 4K with a new campaign: The Last Khans. It will release in the fall.

Forza Horizon 4 x Lego Speed Champions

Lego cars are coming to Forza. Yes, you heard that right. It's a mix between Forza Horizon 4 and Lego Speed Champions. The expansion is coming June 13. The trailer played to the Lego movie anthem "Everything is Awesome." 

Battletoads

And oh, yeah, Battletoads is back. A new trailer introduced the characters in an HD cartoon style with 3-player couch-co-op with fighting, platforming and racing.

We also saw the papery: The Legend of Wright and a tariler for games including Star Renegades, PAthalogic 2 and Afterparty, as well as The Good Life and Cross Code, all launching on Xbox Game Pass.

Borderlands 3

In the trailer, Lilith is recuriting. We see some Mad Max-style races, robots mechs, and were introduced to the characters. The signature cel-shaded art style hasn't gone anywhere, and there's plenty of big guns and ultraviolence to go around. The game will have our heroes taking on a cult, and that means plenty of baddies to shoot at. That's coming September 13, 2019.

Dying Light 2

Dying Light 2 comes to Xbox One and Windows PC. You polay as Aiden, who is infected. It comes Spring 2020.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The game is coming 2020 and will feature all nine films in one game.

12 Minutes

This game from Annapurna Interactive showed a couple at dinner, where the husband seems to know of something haunting. He's been in the situation before, and hears the police coming in because she may have killed him. We see the husband fight, and then end up alone in the apartment. The wife comes in again and several situations play out over and over. Seemingly, depending on how the game plays out, the interactive thriller has you changing scenarios in the time loop.

State of Decay 2: Heartland

State of Decay 2: Heartland will have two different paths in its game. WE saw two different characters and stories playing out in the trailer, and of course plenty of zombies. They build forts and tents, and of course there's lots of bloody corpses. It's available now.

Phantasy Star Online 2 

Yeah, you read that right. Phantasy Star Online 2 is getting a western release with online cross-play in Spring 2020 It has all of the battles you expect and is entirely free to play, which gives me some pause.

Elden Ring

A collaboration between Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin debuted to rapturous applause. It's the next game from From Software. We saw lots of limbs intertwined, dust falling from a space hammer and a red-haired knight. A ring has been shattered, and now there's evil afoot and the sky is burning. A girl who was wielding a hammer starts to crack into pieces. 

Tales of Arise

The new Tales game from Bandai Namco is coming in 2020.

Crossfire X

Crossfire X is an Xbox console exclusive, coming from the world of PC. The trailer showed very little, but there wre battles, buildings falling down and lots of tank, helicopter and shooting action. It will be on Xbox One in 2020.

Yesterday, Google announced pricing, release plans and data requirements for its Stadia streaming service. That includes a recommended minimum of 10 Mbps down for 720p resolution at 60 frames per second (fps) and stereo sound, 20 Mbps for 1080p resolution at 60 fps with HDR and 5.1 surround sound and 35 Mbps for 4K gaming at 60 fps with HDR and 5.1 surround sound.

The folks over at PC Gamer have done some math, and that can add up really, really quickly.

Specifically, they suggest that it "works out to around 15.75GB per hour of 4K streaming, 9GB per hour of 1080p, or 4.5GB per hour at 720p." At 4K, that would mean hitting 1TB of data in 65 hours or 113 hours for 1080p.

And if you have a data cap, that means you could hit it relatively quickly, especially if you do anything else online, like streaming video or uploading and downloading large files.

When asked for comment, Google said that it "will have more to share on specifics closer to launch, this announcement was mostly about games and pricing."

Google Stadia will release in November, with a $10 Pro tier that allows up to 4K gaming streaming, 5.1 surround sound and some occasional free games. For $129, a Founder's Edition will include a dark blue controller, three month subscription (and three months for a plan) and a Chromecast Ultra. The Stadia Base plan will go up to 1080p and won't require a subscription. On either plan, new games will have to be purchased separately.

The list of games that will be available on Stadia includes Destiny 2, Baldur's Gate III, Gylt, Mortal Kombat X, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Get Packed, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Doom Eternal.

Update: June 7, 12:40 p.m. ET - This story has been updated with comment from Google.

Pegged for office work or entertainment, Philips has released its new E9 series of curved monitors, which includes a 32-inch monitor with QHD resolution and Philips' Ultra Wide Color technology, said to bring a wider spectrum of colors via "adjustments" to the chemical makeup of the color chips and LED backlights. It also released an additional 32-incher, plus a 27-incher that has Ultra Wide Color but lesser FHD resolution. All of these new additions use the familiar 1800R curvature.

The new black / silver monitors use VA panels with Phillip’s Flicker-Free technology and LowBlue Mode to ease eye strain and provide a more comfortable viewing experience. The FreeSync panels have 178-degree viewing angles. The panels include two 3 W speakers and a stand, which has tilt functionality (5 degrees backward, 10 degrees forward). 

What about that so-called Ultra Wide Color? According to the specs, these panels cover 102 percent of the NTSC and 122.6 percent of the sRGB color gamuts. These values are a bit less than what we saw on the E8 series surprisingly, 103 percent and 126 percent, respectively.

As noted, there are three monitors in the line – two 32-inch models, one QHD 2560x1440, the other FHD. The 27-inch model is also 1080p. Note that you might not want to sit to close to a 32-inch 1080p monitor as the DPI (dots per inch) will be a bit too light for some. 

All the new monitors sport a 250 nits brightness with a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 75 Hz refresh rate and 5 ms (GTG) response time. 

The 32-inch WQHD (328E9FJAB) has an MSRP of $349.99, the 32-inch FHD (32E9QJAB) $249.99 and the 27-inch (278E9QJAB) is priced at $215.99. All monitors are available now.

Want to comment on this story? Let us know what you think in the Tom's Hardware Forums.

AMD’s rumor mill, it definitely be a turning. According to Red Gaming Tech and OC3D AMD’s delayed Navi architecture could be launching as early as July this year. Indeed with Lisa Su announcing that: “you will hear more about Navi in 2019,” multiple sites are now reporting on a new source who’s suggesting that the company is very happy with the outcome of Navi so far, and expecting an announcement at E3 this year, followed by a hard launch one month later.

Based off of the TSMC’s 7nm architecture debuted at CES with the Radeon VII, Navi is supposedly aimed at the low-mid range GPU portion for now, designed to tackle the likes of the GTX 1070 Ti/RTX 2060 respectively. What is surprising about this rumor is there’s no mention of a high-end Navi variant until early 2020, suggesting that Navi as a whole is a replacement for the now aging, and much refreshed Polaris graphics architecture.

Looking back at the original notes we have from AMD on Navi’s architecture, the big key word that keeps popping up is its “scalability”, although there’s no actual confirmation on what that exactly means, whether it’s a multi-die chip similar to Ryzen, or just a better scaling architecture than GCN’s max 4,096 stream processor limitation, it’s an exciting prospect to see AMD break down that artificially imposed barrier, and opens up a lot of options for the company.

If this is true, it should give the Radeon VII a healthy-ish shelf life, and at least give the company a chance to stymie the oncoming tide of Nvidia’s high-end flagship GPUs, at least for the time being.

The big mystery now is going to be how exactly Navi will fit into the lineup. We know Arcturus, Navi’s successor should be launching some time in 2020 as well, as a true high-end successor. Yet Navi itself is being labelled as AMD’s prodigal son. Is it purely because of it circumventing GCN’s limitations? Who knows. If I were a betting man, and I’m afraid to say I am, I’d put my money on Navi being a true new architecture 7nm test, with the following Arcturus cards being enterprise oriented, followed by a big Navi, high-end flagship in 2020 with a 7nm+ refresh.

Biggest Games You'll Want to Play

Though every Electronic Entertainment Expo comes packed with big news and announcements for PC gamers, this year's E3 is especially loaded with exciting reveals.

From long-overdue open-world cyberpunk games to former Xbox exclusives embracing Windows, this year's E3 slate has a lot to offer the PC platform. We've rounded up this list to showcase the expo's heaviest hitters coming to PC.

Credit: CD Projekt

This story was originally published on Laptop Mag.

Cyberpunk 2077

We know almost nothing about this game, but that's just enough to be excited for it: It is being developed by CD Projekt Red, has a dope cyberpunk aesthetic and has been in the making for almost a decade. It's got guns, mind hacking, hot cars, robot legs and all that other good stuff that fans of the future want in their video games. Plus, it's microtransaction-free and, on PC, void of DRM. Remember, the guys and gals behind this are the same folks who made The Witcher 3, so we know the game will respect its fans and be of the highest quality. The only real question remaining is: When will it be released?

Credit: CD Projekt

Fallout 76

Fallout 76 is a multiplayer game with nuclear armaments, meaning that, like the games in the Civilization series, this will be a title with its own uniquely, beautifully toxic online community. Trolls will be rampant, nuclear chaos will reign, and all the fun of single-player safety will be drenched under a hefty pile of multiplayer fallout. It's a new dawn for the Fallout series and one that might take the franchise in an exciting new direction.
Credit: Bethesda Softworks

Team Sonic Racing

E3 has us feeling the need for speed, and Team Sonic Racing is here to give us our fix. Featuring more of the fast-and-furious racing gameplay from the Sonic & All-Stars Racing series, this game features just Sonic characters — or, at least, that's what we've seen so far. But who knows which other characters will end up in this game? Secrets abound as Sonic and company get behind the wheel for another (likely) awesome racing game by lauded developer Sumo Digital.

Credit: Sega

Gears Tactics

Gears Tactics is, in a strange twist, a PC-exclusive Gears (aka, Gears of War) game. It focuses less on Gears-centric third-person shooting and more on tactical unit-stationing and turn-based strategy, a la Xcom. It's undoubtedly an interesting genre-hybrid and has the potential to be great. Gears is finally taking risks with its brand, and we're excited to see the results.
Credit: Microsoft Studios

Gears 5

Gears 5 has dropped the "of War" part of its name, but it still looks to be firmly about war and bloody, gruesome combat. Starring Kait Diaz, the daughter of Reyna Diaz, the plot looks to be darker than usual Gears fare, especially because of its focus on Kait's hallucinations and visions. Couple that with the exploration of environments not yet seen in the Gears franchise, and G5 looks to be another step toward growth in the franchise, right alongside Gears Tactics.
Credits: Microsoft Studios

Halo Infinite

We know next to nothing about Halo Infinite, beyond two simple facts: Master Chief is in the trailer, and the game is coming to PC in addition to Xbox One. That's right: A new Halo game is landing on Windows 10 within close proximity to when its console counterpart arrives. Get hyped! Odds are good that you'll be able to shoot some aliens and drive some warthogs, so there's that to look forward to as well.

Credit: Microsoft Studios

Metro: Exodus

Metro: Exodus looks to continue the story of the franchise's previous two (excellent) installments, Metro: Last Light and Metro 2033. Starring a young man named Artyom, Exodus will be about his and his peoples' quest to exit the subway stations of Moscow and reclaim the surface world from mutants in a post-nuclear Russia. Based off the game's E3 showing, Exodus seems like it will sport the grim, determined atmosphere and rich, subversive storytelling of its predecessors. We look forward to what Ukrainian developer 4A Games has in store for us.

Credit: Deep Silver

Battlefield 5

Battlefield 5 is covering its bases and making sure it's got everything gamers want: a fleshed-out campaign, an intense historical setting, epic multiplayer action and, for the very first time, a battle-royale mode. Given that the series has featured 32v32 multiplayer for quite a few installments, adding an additional 36 players to get us to the royale genre's standard 100-player count seems like a logical next step. We can't wait to see what that mode, and the rest of the game, look like against DICE's reimagined World War 2 backdrop.

Credit: Electronic Arts

Unravel Two

Unravel Two is the impossibly cute, completely unexpected sequel to one of EA's best, most heartfelt games. It's a platformer starring a little bundle of yarn that walks, jumps and goes on grand adventures, and it's easily one of the biggest smile-inducing series on the market right now. For all the original Unravel's charm, there was a pervasive sense of melancholy underpinning the game. The sequel ventures away from atmospheric, existential dread by adding a co-op mode. You and a friend can become red and blue Yarnies and keep each other company through the sequel's emotionally taxing, Laika Studios-esque journey. Plus, EA announced the game and released it at the same time, meaning it's available right now!
Credit: Electronic Arts

Anthem

If you smashed Destiny and Iron Man together, it'd probably look something like Anthem. Featuring high-flying supersuits and a lot of monster bad guys to be shot, this game looks like it'll have something for everyone. There's classic BioWare RPG choice-making, supersuit customization and class variety, and total co-op integration, so groups of friends can fly around and blow stuff up together. The game is also very easy on the eyes. We can't wait to see the full scope of Anthem when it arrives early next year.

Credit: Electronic Arts

Madden 19

For fans of U.S. football who are dying to play Madden on PC, here's your chance! It's the biggest, most well-known annual football game there is, and it's finally returning to PC after a decade-long hiatus. At long last, EA has heeded our demands for shoulder pads and yard gains.

Credit: EA Sports

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

We're now entering Round 3 of Crystal Dynamics' rebooted Tomb Raider saga, and based on the E3 preview, this seems like one heck of a finisher to the trilogy. Featuring further enhancements to the series' ultra-gritty, guerilla-style stealth gameplay and high-octane platforming, Shadow of the Tomb Raider seeks to surpass both of its predecessors in every way imaginable. The graphics are shinier, the gameplay is refined and the adventure looks to be bigger than ever.
Credit: Square Enix

Just Cause 4

We're not excited for this one just 'cause it's more explosive mayhem in the JC universe. We're excited because this game is the first in the series to incorporate extreme weather, meaning you’ll be able to go up against tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards and sandstorms. And these aren't just aesthetic touches, mind you — they'll impact gameplay, including the physics of Just Cause 4. That sounds like the kind of feature that will serve as a great stress test for a brand-new CPU. Plus, it looks like loads of fun.

Credit: Square Enix

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

Ubisoft went all out with The Division 2. On top of promising more of the same tight third-person-shooter action on a grander scale, Ubisoft stated that players will get to enjoy eight-player raids, character subclasses and a first year jam-packed with free expansions. That's right, free expansions. Ubisoft has finally figured out the right way to navigate the industry's murky DLC waters.

Credit: Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Odyssey seems to be a game all about choice, even more so than the other Assassin's Creed adventures. It lets you make the usual AC combat choices but now also lets you choose your own dialogue and protagonist. While the de-emphasis on stealth and parkour seems strange (and kind of antithetical to the series' title), what we've seen of the core gameplay looks exciting. As of E3 2018, Odyssey seems like it's shaping up to be a retooled and upgraded version of AC Origins, and that's not a bad thing.

Credit: Ubisoft

My Friend Pedro

This game's got it all: a talking banana, slow-motion gunplay and epic stunts. My Friend Pedro puts you in the shoes of a guy who's encouraged by Pedro (the banana) to destroy anyone in his way. This mission requires you to ride skateboards into peoples' heads, ricochet bullets off frying pans to kill goons and do a whole lot of other nonsensically brilliant stuff. My Friend Pedro looks like it's gunning to be the best new shooter of 2019.
Credit: Devolver Digital

Maneater

If you've ever wanted to role-play as the great white from Jaws, this game looks like it'll be your next open-world action RPG addiction. Maneater's gameplay revolves around growing your shark over time, making it stronger and stronger until it's ready to devour even the most dangerous humans in its way. The game has a progression system loaded with upgrades, vast stretches of water to conquer, and tons of enemy sea life and humans to battle. Given Maneater's unique premise and equally original gameplay design, this is definitely an upcoming PC game to keep an eye on.
Credit: Tripwire Interactive

Sea of Solitude

Sea of Solitude is an upcoming adventure game with one heck of a spooky premise: A lonely girl must confront her dark side. There's nothing metaphorical about that dark side, by the way; in the opening seconds of the game's debut trailer, when the girl reaches down to touch her reflection in water, it reaches up and smacks her hand away. The trailer is loaded with frightful moments, all delivered in a beautiful, watercolor art style that meshes surprisingly well with the game's sinister tone. We can't wait to find out what this third-person nightmare simulator plays like when it arrives in 2019.

Credit: EA

Bitmain is a small company from China that makes ASIC miners for cryptocurrencies, and it’s about to be every gamer’s best friend. The company today announced the Antminer E3, which is an ASIC miner engineered for mining Ethereum. In theory, these new ASIC miners should alleviate some of the pressure that the GPU market currently faces.

Last year, around this time, an as-yet little-known GPU-mineable cryptocurrency called Ethereum started to gain traction in the market, and its value began to skyrocket, which kicked off the great cryptocurrency craze of 2017 in earnest. Within weeks of Ethereum’s breakout, the GPU market started to feel the brunt of the excitement, and by June, graphics card prices had begun to spiral out of control. To date, we’re still feeling the “Ethereum Effect,” with graphics cards selling for far more than MSRP (if you can find them).

Recently, GPU mining profits have started to dwindle, but a cursory check online for cryptocurrency mining discussions indicates that the lower profit margins aren’t scaring off the large scale-mining operations as fast as you might hope. Though, if history is any indication of the future, as it often is, Bitmain’s Antminer E3 Ethereum ASIC miner could disrupt the Ethereum GPU-mining market.

You may recall that several years ago, you could mine Bitcoin with your home PC. These days, it’s not possible to mine Bitcoin at a profitable rate with a standard PC. The Bitcoin mining market is now dominated by ASIC miners, which are engineered to do one thing: mine Bitcoin. These specialized devices are more powerful, and significantly more efficient at mining than graphics cards and CPUs.

Ethereum is a lot like Bitcoin, in that it is built on a blockchain with an immutable ledger, and it has a finite number of coins. However, Ethereum was supposed to be ASIC-resistant because it relies heavily on fast memory, whereas typical ASIC miners feature powerful processors that can crunch the numbers, but not much in the way of memory.

Bitmain didn’t reveal the full details of the Antminer E3, so we’re not sure how the company solved the memory challenge. However, the specifications that Bitmain did release indicate that the Antminer E3 ASIC miners will soon render GPUs obsolete for Ethereum.

Bitmain said the upcoming Antminer E3 ASIC would offer 180MH/s of mining performance and consume 800w of power, which is an unheard of level of efficiency. To put that into perspective, our scrapped together “profitable” Ethereum miner pumps out 93MH/s from a combination of one R9 380, one R9 380X, one R9 390X, and one R9 Fury. That machine draws roughly 950w from the wall, which is profitable, but the gains are dropping, and it may soon be untenable to operate it. Our system isn’t the most efficient miner, to be sure, but it doesn’t make sense to spend the money on an “efficient” GPU miner with 10-series cards.

The biggest death knell for the GPU Ethereum mining market is the Antminer E3's price. Bitmain is asking $800 for each unit, which massively undercuts the current rate for a GPU-based system. To get 180MH/s out of a GPU miner, you would need six GTX 1080 Tis or nine GTX 1060s. In today’s GPU market, you’re looking at well over $6,000 (probably closer to $7,000 once you add power supplies and other equipment) to build a rig like that with GTX 1080 Tis, and roughly $4000 for the GTX 1060 rig. And that's you can get your hands on the cards in the first place.

With those numbers, it’s easy to see that Bitmain’s ASIC has the potential to kill GPU-based Ethereum mining rather quickly. However, it’s too early to get excited about the death of GPU-based mining. There are many cryptocurrencies out there, and the death of Ethereum mining could simply direct GPU miners to another coin.

Bitmain expects the first batch of Antminer E3 units to roll out between July 16 and July 31. The company was accepting pre-orders today, but the first batch sold out before we caught wind of the announcement.

Intel announced its plans to release Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors during CES, shortly after AMD’s ThreadRipper reveal. We got a chance to check out the 12-core Intel Core i9-7920X in action during a mixed reality demo of Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality by Owlchemy Labs.

What is mixed reality, when it comes to demos? Basically, it's when you overlay footage of the physical world on top of VR recordings. Typically, captured VR footage depicts only a first-person view, but with Unity, you can illustrate four panels in desktop view. This allows you to cast not only a first-person perspective in one panel, but also a third-person perspective and the alpha channel. A separate camera and green screen can then capture footage of the player in the physical world, and using MixCast to align the physical camera with the software camera overlays an image of the player in the virtual world.

That’s all swell, but you need plenty of system resources to be able to render mixed reality efficiently. You have to keep the game running at 90FPS for an optimal visual experience while capturing physical footage. Additionally, because the desktop image is divided into four panels, you would need a 4K monitor to view each individual panel at FHD. Couple that with players who want to stream their footage, and you’ve got yourself a taxing workload.

One method used by streamers to deal with the workload is utilizing two systems; the primary system is configured with a decent CPU and GPU, which are responsible for rendering the gameplay, capturing the physical footage, and overlaying it on top of the third-person game perspective. The secondary system contains a CPU and is used solely for streaming. However, Intel posits that you really need only one CPU, and therefore only one system, to run mixed reality well. Intel's suggestion, of course, is its new Skylake-X platform. 

MORE: The Skylake-X Mess Explored: Thermal Paste And Runaway Power

To demonstrate Skylake-X's prowess, Intel showed us Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality and captured physical footage of us playing the game to use in mixed reality. The system contained an Intel Core i9-7920X, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, and 32GB of DDR4 memory. Virtual Rick-ality requires, at a minimum, a Core i5-4590 with a GTX 970 to run adequately, but streamers use CPUs with more cores, such as an i7, to produce better streaming playback. If we were to take Intel at its word, then even an i7 will struggle when adding mixed reality to the, er, mix.

We donned a Vive headset and were promptly teleported into Rick and Morty’s garage, where we got to play around with various handheld objects. Our mixed reality footage briefly displays the CPU utilization chart, which shows utilization rates under 60%. However, the chart was obscured during most of the video's duration, so we don't know if the utilization rate exceeded 60% at any point. Also, the system wasn't streaming the footage (which partially defeats the purpose of this demo), so the i9-7920X wasn’t handling as tough of a workload. If, however, the sub-60% utilization proves to be accurate, this means that the 12-core i9 has a decent amount of headroom to work with.

Intel has released the Core i9-7900X, and additional Skylake-X CPUs are on the horizon. Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality is currently available on Steam and Oculus Home.

We first played Absolver at last year’s E3, and the development team at Sloclap was back again this year with an updated version of the game. In our 30-minute demo, we learned about the mechanics of the game, which centers around a list of melee attacks known as the Combat Deck, and we quickly found out that Absolver is one of those games that will take some time to master everything it has to offer.

Show Me Your Moves

During our demo, we paired up with a member of the development team who acted as our ally, mentor, and sparring partner within the game. To start, we learned about the use of light and heavy attacks and how to quickly dodge hits from foes. Depending on the character you choose at the beginning, you can parry incoming attacks, dodge them completely, or even absorb a portion of the damage inflicted on you. But before we could get a taste for combat, we had to learn about the game’s Combat Deck, which dictated our moves in a fight.

Each character had a specific combat stance along with a small number of attacks associated with it. This was the foundation for the Combat Deck where we could mix and match these moves to create combos to fit our fighting preferences. To make the Combat Deck even more complex, each attack fitted into one of four directions within the stance. The front-left and front-right positions meant that we faced forward towards the opponent; the back-left and back-right directions indicated that our back was to the enemy. Some attacks within the Combat Deck are only available if you’re facing a specific position, but this didn’t limit the way we created combos because some of these moves, like a kick from the front-right position, naturally changed the direction of the stance. This resulted in a lengthy (and deadly) combination of punches and kicks that naturally flow. 

Learn From Experience

As you make your way through Absolver, you’ll meet other players who have different combat stances along with a new set of moves. By fighting (and defeating) each foe, you’ll slowly gain the ability to learn their stances and moves and add them your Combat Deck. We also found out in our demo that each move isn’t restricted to any specific stance. For instance, we started with a traditional martial arts stance called Windfall, but we also used another stance called Stagger, which was reminiscent of the drunken boxing combat style. Some attacks were based on the Stagger style, but we could combine them with attacks from the Windfall stance. Some Stagger-based attacks were stronger than the Windfall moves, so it was best to use them as finishers or as a quick series of counterattacks.

Executing these moves at any point in the game isn’t difficult. The real challenge comes in combat, where you can’t just mash buttons and hope to land a few blows. You’ll have to wait for the right opening in your foe’s defenses to unleash deadly combos or a quick jab. However, you’ll then have to time your dodges or parries based on the opponent’s movements if you want to stay alive. At first, the combat system almost makes it seem like another fighting game similar to the Street Fighter or Tekken series as you chain attacks and block or evade enemy hits, but the ability to customize your moves opens the door to many different types of fighting styles. We were told that there were about 200 moves in the game overall, so don’t expect other players to use similar attack sequences. Absolver also employs the use of melee weapons such as swords, which can drastically change a player’s fighting style.

Practice

Absolver easily falls into the category of games that are easy to learn yet hard to master. With so many moves and stances available, you’ll find yourself making new attack combos for hours on end before testing them in combat situations. However, each fight is also a challenge because you have to evade, block, or absorb enemy attacks to stay alive. With each encounter, you become more familiar with your chosen fighting style and learn more about how to take down each foe. The road to perfecting combat will be long and difficult, but for those who relish the challenge, Absolver might be the game for you.

Competitive multiplayer games remain exceedingly popular. Playing against a computer-controlled opponent is one thing, but taking down another human player in a video game is a completely different experience. It’s no surprise that in the wake of some of these multiplayer games, such as the Call of Duty titles, Overwatch, and even Rocket League, there is a rise in the number of professional eSports players. As such, some companies continue to make multiple peripherals to give these players the edge on the competitive circuit where money is at stake. One of these companies is Evil Controllers, and we were able to meet its founder, Adam Coe, to talk about his company’s latest controller--the Evil Shift, which is coming later this summer.

New Paddles

Evil Controllers’ focus is on the console market. In the competitive circuit, the basic layout of both the Xbox One controller and the DualShock 4 isn’t enough for professional teams because of the location of specific buttons and the lengthy reach required by the finger to activate it. The popular method for solving this problem is the inclusion of paddles, which work as an alternative button for a similar command on the controller. The paddles are usually located at the rear of the controller, with long protruding arms so that they’re easier to reach. Companies such as Scuf Gaming and even Microsoft, with its Xbox Elite Wireless Controller, use paddles in their controllers. 

However, Coe believes that the traditional paddle solution isn’t perfect due to its hinge-like attachment on the controller. In addition, some controllers utilize four paddles on the controller, but a player might use only two, because the inner two paddles are harder to reach. The company's solution in the past was to incorporate small buttons, which it calls Pro Buttons, in lieu of paddles.

With the Shift, though, it's ditching the Pro Buttons in favor of its own take on the paddle design. Instead of a long stick, the Evil Shift will include paddles that look more like large buttons, and they'll be placed on top of a special switch (instead of the hinge design) so that it will activate whether you tap it from the side or directly on its top. We asked for more specifics on the switch and how it works, but Coe told us that it’s still in the prototype phase.

There will be a total of four paddles on the Shift, and they’re still located on the back of the controller and near the hand grips for easier reach. As we found out when we held the Shift, the placement is both a blessing and a curse, because even though it’s easily reachable by the fingers that wrapped around the grip, the paddles themselves were also too easily activated. A slight nudge or press could set off an ability or bring up a menu that you don't want.

More Hardware Changes

Other controllers employ a physical trigger lock, which stops the trigger buttons from moving all the way down, in order to simulate a hair trigger mechanism. This feature is prominent in shooter-based games where you want to quickly fire your weapon without the long travel time of the trigger. In the Shift, the trigger buttons will include a modified spring so that you can implement lighter presses to simulate the same hair-trigger action without the trigger lock--which means you get the same sensitive controls without losing the full range of motion.

The letter buttons, or the shape buttons on the DualShock 4, are also modified with an attached elongated stick underneath. The result is a shallower travel distance of 0.3mm. On the original Xbox and Dualshock 4 controllers, pressing a button pushes down on a rubber pad that makes contact with the circuit underneath to activate a command. According to Coe, the use of the stick method means a faster response while also providing a tactile feel with each press.

The finished product will also come with three pairs of thumbsticks of different sizes (small, medium, and large), which you can change at any time without any additional tools. We also noticed that these custom thumbsticks don’t employ a magnetic feature, which was included in the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. The magnets on Microsoft's top-tier controller weren't too strong, which meant that they could easily fall off if you drop the controller (or hurl it across the room in a fit of rage).

For the Shift, the thumbsticks fit directly on top of the directional mechanism on the circuit board. At launch, these thumbsticks will have a convex surface, but Coe is open to the idea of adding concave thumbsticks if enough members of the community want it.

Profiles And Button Remapping

In addition to the hardware modifications, the Shift also has some extra software features. For instance, you have full button remapping support on the entire controller. All you have to do is press and hold the Back button (or the Share button on the DualShock 4) and press the button designated for assignment. After the company logo on the controller blinks, you can then press the command you wish to input on the specified button. The Shift can store up to 15 different profiles of these custom button maps, and you can switch between them by simultaneously pressing the right button on the directional pad and the A button (X on the DualShock 4).

However, we noticed that there isn’t any visual indication on the controller as to which profile you’re using or if you've successfully selected a different profile at all. In addition, pressing any of these buttons during gameplay could activate another unintentional command. Coe wanted the remapping feature to work without the use of tools or a software app, and for the most part it does. However, there needs to be a way to show which profile you’re using.

A Potentially Expensive Advantage

By no means is the Shift a perfect controller, but it manages to pile on a plethora of features and lets you tinker with them without the need for additional tools. Extra parts, specifically the thumbsticks, are secure when you place them on the controller, and the new paddle design is a welcome change.

With this many features, you can expect it to be an expensive piece of hardware, although Coe said that the cost was “in line with other products in our lineup,” which ranges from $70 to $350 for modified controllers. You might want an extra edge in the heat of digital combat or race, and the Shift can easily provide that much-needed advantage and then some.

Croteam’s The Talos Principle came out on December 2014, but the studio isn’t finished with it just yet. The developers had a small trailer located in the Devolver Digital parking lot at (or at least near) E3. Inside was a spacious area where we tried the same game, only this time in virtual reality. We strapped on an HTC Vive and spent the next 40 minutes trying to solve some of the puzzles at the beginning of the game.

Exploration

In terms of movement, Croteam utilized the touchpad on both controllers. The left touchpad allowed for 90-degree turns to the left or right, while tapping on the right touchpad let us to move forward, backward, left, or right in small increments while facing forward. We could also press down on the top edges of both touchpads to “warp” ourselves to distant locations.

We use the word "warp" because the game utilizes a variation of the usual locomotion features we saw in other VR titles. Whereas other games will transport you to a different location with a flash or fade in/fade out transition, The Talos Principle VR takes you to your specified spot in a transition akin to a warp effect seen in Star Trek. We didn't find the effect nauseating, but it could be problematic for some people.

On paper, the movement controls make sense, but they didn’t perform as smoothly as you'd expect in practice, especially on the right touchpad. We initially used the left pad as intended: to turn around in a fixed position while we used the right pad to warp around the game map and inch closer to objects. This method worked for a few puzzles where all we had to do was place objects in a general location in order to get a beam of light to activate from one node to another (we grabbed objects with the triggers on the controllers). However, there were later puzzles that required more precise object placements, which meant that we also had to stand as close to that precise spot as possible. The right touchpad controls came in handy in this regard, but it unfortunately conflicted with the warping feature, which was on the same pad. There wasn’t a way to turn off the warping, so it took longer than expected to get in the right spot in order to solve a puzzle.

The Details

In terms of grabbing objects with the controllers, we were told that it was possible to grab only one object at a time, which did slow down the rate at which we could solve puzzles. However, this is an appropriate method because it lets you focus on holding a puzzle piece with one hand while using the other hand to move around the area. We also used the same controls to solve small puzzles that incorporated Tetris-shaped blocks. It’s also worth noting that the Vive controllers' side buttons allowed us to jump. We rarely did so in the demo, but it was nauseating when we did.

Graphics-wise, it seems that the game looks similar to its PC and console counterparts. It felt like we were actually in the small wooded areas, which were dotted with man-made puzzle structures. It was a strange transition from being in that world for 40 minutes and then, after we took off the HMD, realizing that we'd explored a small world from the air-conditioned interior of a small trailer in downtown Los Angeles.

Not Bad, But Needs Work

Putting The Talos Principle in the virtual reality space is a welcome addition to the platform. There are numerous times when we saw a game on PC or console and briefly remarked that it would also work well in virtual reality (with a few tweaks, of course). Croteam was able to nail down the unique aspects of The Talos Principle and translate it to virtual reality, but it still needs more work, especially when it comes to movement and teleportation. There’s a fine line between enjoyment and nausea in VR, and developers need to make sure that they’re playing on the safe side, because a highly regarded title can easily be dismissed if new mechanics make it harder for players to enjoy the experience.

We first tried an early version of Playful’s Lucky’s Tale three years ago on an early Oculus Rift dev kit at E3. (Has it really been that long?) It was clear this was going to be a real game, and a platformer at that, which made it markedly different from anything we'd tried so far. Eventually it would ship as part of the original Oculus Rift bundle, putting its install base at exactly the number of Rifts shipped.

Fast forward to E3 2017 last week, where Playful announced Super Lucky’s Tale for Xbox and Star Child for PlayStation VR, both of which should be available later this year. Survival as an independent and relatively small developer in the embryonic stage of a platform’s life is a feel-good story we’d be hard-pressed to headline any differently than by using the name of this studio’s signature title.

In speaking with Playful CEO Paul Bettner, with whom we also spoke at E3 in 2014, it’s clear that luck has only played a minor role. It takes more than that to transition from a small spot in the E3 Oculus booth in 2014 to featured roles in both Microsoft’s and Sony’s big tent extravaganzas three years later.

Where some exciting new VR games announced during E3 are recast versions of PC or console games (Doom VFR, Mario Kart VR, Fallout 4 VR, Skyrim VR), Super Lucky’s Tale goes from VR to console. Meanwhile, Star Child is Playful’s first foray onto Sony’s platform. There was plenty to discuss around these efforts, but we also talked about what Playful has learned about VR since those early days and what else it has in store, including taking the Lucky character to other entertainment mediums. We also debated the future of VR, the dearth of VR games at E3, and whether we’re on the cusp of VR 2.0, as well as what future mixed reality versions might look like. Finally, we discussed some of the challenges of fragmentation in VR input schemes and tracking.

The Next Lucky’s Tale: The Playground Platformer

Tom’s Hardware: What’s new about Lucky’s Tale?

Bettner: It’s a full-blown sequel. It is a way bigger game, more rich, more of what people want in a platformer. Lucky’s Tale 1 was the first platformer game we ever made. And it was a pretty short title, and kind of lightweight honestly, but made amazing by VR. With Super Lucky’s Tale, especially since we were making it for everyone to enjoy on TVs, not in VR, it really needed to step up in terms of being a platformer that people expect when they get a mascot level platforming game on a new piece of hardware.

Tom’s Hardware: Why do you think platformers haven’t been as popular in the last several years?

Bettner: Somebody said “it’s the 15-year rule.” Something’s popular and then it needs some time to rest, and then you see a resurgence. And it’s not just us. You’ve seen the debut of a new Mario game this year, you’ve got a Crash Bandicoot reboot, you’ve got Bubsy -- that’s a lesser known IP, but even those games are starting to come back, and it seems like this is going to be the year of the platformer.

Tom’s Hardware: What do you mean by a more full game? More levels? More Characters?

Bettner: In Lucky’s Tale 1, we had a signature move with his tail swipe, but it was not really everything I love to see in a platformer in terms of the variety and the depth of the controls of the character, the variety of the different types of worlds. Lucky’s Tale 1 was mostly traditional: In every one of the levels . . . you start at the beginning, you get to the end, you’re done.

We’re calling Super Lucky’s Tale a “playground platformer.” My favorite way to look at this genre is it’s a place where we get to do anything. You can play a traditional level, and if the next level is a crazy mini game where you’re flying through the air or you’re riding on a giant mech, that’s ok. This genre of platforming gets to draw from lots of different genres and mix them together. So there’s a lot more of that variety in Super Lucky’s Tale.

Building More Characters

Tom’s Hardware: What are the things people will be delighted by? I always found in the original Lucky’s Tale I was constantly being delighted by something.

Bettner: We have all the things that Lucky’s Tale had: we had super vibrant environments, a really cute character. One of the things that we’re carrying forward that was very relevant in VR but surprisingly works well even on the TV is Lucky notices you. He’s aware of you as the player. We kind of described it as this "Calvin and Hobbes" kind of relationship, and you’re like his imaginary friend. In VR that made a lot of sense, because he’d look up at you and he’d wave. But we kept that alive in this version we’ve built for the Xbox, and it still works.

But one of the things we’re building on for Super Lucky’s Tale is this diverse cast of characters and the story part of that. In Lucky’s Tale 1 you encountered a little of the story in the beginning, like when you’re in Lucky’s house and Piggy gets stolen . . . and you don’t really get any story again, honestly, until the end, but really in between it’s all platforming.

I love platformer games from the 90s, like the Rare games [Donkey Kong, Banjo-Kazooie], for instance, that would introduce characters you would meet along the way as you’re doing all your coin collecting and you’re finding secrets, but you’re also encountering these characters that have these little stories, and there’s a lot of that in Super Lucky’s Tale. Even the demo we have here has a whole little story where you’re meeting one of the bad guys -- his name is Master Mittens -- and he’s trying to foil you along the way, but he’s also teaching you a little bit.

Tom’s Hardware: Do you think that’s something you can build more on in the future?

Bettner: That’s inherent to our mission. When I look at my favorite other game companies, whether it’s Nintendo, or even Blizzard with the things they’ve done recently -- Overwatch is a good example: It took a genre, the first-person shooter, and I’m not sure that people would have said that a first-person shooter really needs characters! You’re literally in the eyes of the characters; you never even see who you are necessarily. But Blizzard understood that the most enduring, beloved brands in our industry are driven by characters people fall in love with and cosplay and create these long term relationships with.

Tom’s Hardware: A lot of these character-based games have also produced movies, television . . . is that something you think about too?

Bettner: A lot. We’re having some really interesting discussions about that now, because some of the folks that work in other industries, like film or TV, they see what we’re doing, like with Lucky . . . we’re talking to this — I won’t name them — big TV network recently, and they were looking at Lucky and saying we don’t see something like this come along that often where it’s not pandering to children, it’s just a genuine family friendly thing ... like the really classic things like the Mickey Mouses of the world. I would love to see our franchises and our IP go to different categories. We talk about ourselves more as an entertainment company rather than a game studio.

The Challenge Of Going from VR To 3D Gaming

Tom’s Hardware: Now developing for non-VR platforms, what are some of the major differences? It always seemed to me having to take into account latency, some sort of interaction, all of that created an extra burden on the development process. I would naively think it would be easier . . .

Bettner: Well it would be if we had just stuck with what we were doing then. There are things we did then that we discovered makes our job easier now. One of the examples of that is that in Lucky’s Tale 1, you don’t ever have to touch the other thumbstick on the controller, because your head is that other thumbstick. You don’t have to think about the camera, because you can look wherever you want. Your head is the camera. Bringing the game to the TV, that’s not true any more, necessarily, but we didn’t want to bring that thumbstick into play, because we love the fact that you can just play Lucky’s Tale by moving the character around and jumping.

So can we take the lessons that we were learning about how to build a platforming environment -- like literally having to design the levels where you’re always facing north and still make that work on a TV, and when you play the demo you can see that we’ve put a lot of effort into trying to get to that middle ground where the world still feels like an open explorable world. It’s really our work in VR that’s allowed us to get to the point where we knew how to do that. 

One other example on the technical side: Oculus had a min spec that they told us close to when they were close to shipping it. ‘Here’s the min spec. You guys need to run 90Hz on this.’ So we put all this work to get the game engine, which runs on top of Unity, to support that. Well then coming into our relationship with Microsoft, we already had an engine that was very optimized to render twice, at 90Hz, and when we got our Xbox One X dev kits, it wasn’t a trivial thing because Microsoft said ‘but you have to run at 4K now.’ So it was twice as many pixels as we were having to worry about before, but we were already having to render twice in a VR headset, so taking that and making it run at 4K 60Hz, we were already 85% or 90% of the way there.

Tom’s Hardware: And the target platform is always going to be known. Even though Oculus said here are the min specs, you still didn’t know if people were going to try to run it below that . . .

Bettner: Of course they always will . . .

Tom’s Hardware: . . . here you have a very predictable set of hardware . . .

Bettner: We do on Xbox, but Super Lucky’s Tale is actually what Microsoft is calling a Play Anywhere title, which means you can buy the digital copy on either Xbox One S, Xbox One X, or even Windows, and you can play across all your family of devices, including your PC. And in that place, we don’t even have a min spec defined yet. I’m sure we will have one. We’re going to be running on the Xbox One S, so I think probably our min spec is going to be similar to that category of hardware when we finally ship later this year.

Note: Super Lucky's Tale will be available for Xbox One X on Nov. 7, 2017, for $29.99.

Star Child

Tom’s Hardware: Switching to Star Child . . .

Bettner: It’s debuting with Sony, and we’re showing it off here running on the Sony PSVR, which is our first title we’ve ever done for that platform.

Tom’s Hardware: Before we get into the details of building that, let’s talk about that game. What were you trying to achieve, what’s the story?

Bettner: Star Child is what we’re calling a 'cinematic platformer,' which is the same phrase another great game that debuted at this show -- The Last Night [from an Indie studio called Odd Tales, it was the subject of some controversy, because its creator tweeted something that indicates the game will take on the Gamergate movement], a cyberpunk game that Microsoft showed off -- and they’re also using that term (cinematic platformer) which is like Inside [Playdead], which draws its roots to older games like Out Of This World [Delphine SW] or Flashback [Delphine SW] or even Oddworld: Abe’s Exodus [Oddworld Inhabitants] . . . these 2-1/2D sidescrolling games that still have a rich story and are presented in a cinematic format. We set out with this game with that challenge.

With Lucky’s Tale 1, it was 'can you make a third-person, character-action platformer work in VR?' And with this game, very early on with the prototypes we’re like ‘can you actually make a sidescroller work in VR?’ And can you get this specific cinematic stage presentation in VR to work, because it works great on TVs for games like Inside, but there’s actually all these challenges inherent to making it work in virtual reality, specifically around the fact that you could just look anywhere. A lot of those games are all about keeping your attention focused right here, and having the story happen right in front of you. Really getting that game off the ground has been all about figuring that problem out.

Some of it is the same stuff we did for Lucky’s Tale. There’s this very intentional shrinking of the scale of the world. If you remember from Lucky’s Tale, our approach to VR generally is to treat the experience like it’s a stage in front of you, rather than you’re in the eyes of the character. The techniques we used are a lot like Disney does in their parks, with things like forced perspective and tricks we do with scale.

We also do this vignetting at the outside of the experience. If you look too far to the left and right, it just blends out into the horizon and into a kind of solid color. It works really well for trying to keep your attention here.

Tom’s Hardware: Were there any particular differences in developing for Sony’s PSVR vs other VR platforms?

Bettner: There are a significant number of differences. PlayStation is just a different type of hardware, [particularly] the underlying architecture of the CPU and GPU in that device. But also the way that PSVR handles rendering frames and handling what on Rift they call asynchronous time warp -- the ability to always run the camera at a certain frame rate, and in Sony’s case this is 120Hz, even if the engine isn’t always outputting at that frame rate. There are parts of Star Child where the frame rate is variable, but you never perceive it because Sony’s hardware masks that.

The other thing that’s compelling about Sony’s PSVR is their approach to the way they handle the controller. I remember the first time I tried a PSVR two years ago at E3, and the fact that you can see the controller in there I think is a really great solution. Wireless VR isn’t really a thing, except on the mobile end, so playing to those strengths instead of asking a player to stand up and turn around and wave their hands everywhere is the kind of stuff that in a living room environment can be challenging, at least right now.

Note: There is no release date or price for Star Child.

State of VR: Fragmentation? VR 2.0?

Tom’s Hardware: You brought up controllers, and you developed Lucky’s Tale before there were the Oculus Touch controllers.

Bettner: We’ve created some little joyful interactions where if you’re just playing and your hands come down to your lap you’ll just see them as controllers. If you reach far enough out, they turn into hands, and you can play around with Lucky a little bit, and pet him.

As an aside, we’ve done further experiments with that. We’ve done prototypes where you could reach into the world and scoop up coins. It’s really fun stuff, but we kind of pulled a little bit back from that because I’m not ready to commit full hand-tracked motion control for the games we’re making, because the input landscape is too fragmented still. I’ve just got to imagine that in a couple of years, that’ll get consolidated and a lot cleaner to address from a developer standpoint, especially if we all just agree that it’s either a controller or a hand.

Tom’s Hardware: Clearly we have a better idea now of the size of today’s market. Sony with PSVR changed that. There will be things that will change it further still. Time will change it. But a year and a half ago, we didn’t know. So company’s like Playful that were doing things a year and a half before that were taking a big risk. But now you’re seeing more of the big publishing houses jump in, transform games, or creating new ones.

Bettner: But you’re still also seeing, and what I’ve been hearing here at the show, where is VR? There was an expectation that this would be the biggest E3 for VR yet, and it’s not, really. Sony had some exciting new games to show off. Microsoft didn’t mention VR during their press conference. People take assumptions from mobile especially of this annual hardware refresh cycle. Version 1 of VR launched last year, and people came into this year saying, alright, v2 this year’s going to be amazing. That’s not how the industry, and the companies that are investing heavily in this technology are looking at it, I don’t think. v2 will be next year. Maybe even 2019.

Some gamers can look at that and say I guess VR’s not a thing anymore. But the other conclusion you could draw is that this is really just a preparatory year. Companies are kind of inhaling, because they’ve been investing and this stuff takes time, and when v2 does show up, the second generation of VR and AR and mixed reality, that it’s gonna be even more advanced than what people are expecting, because these companies are taking their time.

Tom’s Hardware: I think we’re on the verge of v2 on the hardware side. You’re seeing these self-contained HMDs, you’re seeing WiFi added to the HMDs.

Bettner: Perhaps companies are looking at things they could have released this year, and saying no, let’s do a little bit more, let’s wait to see these other technologies come online like wireless, like inside-out tracking, better input controls using your hands, and they want to see more of those things get to maturity, and then release a better product.

When we were working with Oculus we saw this very much first hand, because Oculus’ initial plan was to actually ship the Rift a year before they shipped it, but the tracking just wasn’t there yet, so they held off, and even then people still give them a hard time and say they should have held off a little bit longer and bundled the Touch controllers.

Tom’s Hardware: We talked about the Touch controllers, but there was also room-scale -- that might have part of the original plan, but we didn’t see that for a while. Then there’s different input controls on the horizon, eye tracking, potentially inside-out tracking, and combining that with a self-contained HMD, that creates a whole other place you can go, and then add world scale. At some point as a developer creating something new you have to draw a line somewhere and say something like, well, I’m not going to be on world scale for a couple more years.

Bettner: That’s a great example because we drew that line with Lucky’s Tale originally at the controller. We knew Oculus was working on this more advanced, room scale, touch-based sort of stuff, but I’m glad that we did because we ended up with a game that now works best with an Xbox with a controller on the couch. Every time we design a new game we have to decide where are we going to draw the line for this title, and the hardest thing is honestly input. The headsets, the visual experience, and now that you can imagine every headset is going to have six DOF tracking, and it’s probably going to even have room-scale style tracking and potentially world-scale tracking -- and I can know that and know pretty much what to target in the future. But when it comes to input, that’s just not the case. And it’s even not the case with the R&D that’s happening across the companies. They don’t know yet, and they’re trying lots of things.

There’s this split opinion about whether all the future things are just going to be hand based, and motion controlled based, or there are a lot of people in the industry who say that the controller as a fundamental thing is already an evolved device for this abstract mapping of small motion of your fingers into this great degree of freedom you have in a game, and that’s not going anywhere, because that’s a great thing.

Tom’s Hardware: I loved at IDF last year watching as you could take physical objects and bring them into the physical world. And you could go on, say, a scavenger hunt in virtual reality and have to find things, and then show them in VR, and it opens up all sorts of possibilities. It’s why something like Toybox (Oculus’ demonstration tool for what was possible with Touch controllers in VR) was so engrossing, because it wasn’t a thing, it was just a demonstration sandbox of things you could do. We need more of those.

Bettner: When it comes to mixed reality and augmented reality, there’s an entirely new category of games people haven’t even begun to dream about. A friend of mine, Graeme Devine, who heads up games at Magic Leap, has this game he talked about at Dice. I just call it the Haunted House game, and you imagine that you’re in a world where everyone is wearing augmented reality and mixed reality headsets. So however many years in the future you think that’ll be. You’ll be sitting at your table eating breakfast and right behind you there’s this ghost there, but she’s not really that scary, she’s a little bit creepy but also a little bit friendly, and she says ‘I need you to help me; there was a murder that happened in this house before you moved in here, and I need you to help resolve it because I’m trapped here.’ And she leads you to your own kitchen and there’s a chalk outline on the floor. And this game progresses over the span of several weeks, of her showing up at various times, giving you clues, like go to your medicine cabinet and there’s something there . . . and she’s telling you this story about your own house, and you’re living this adventure.

I hear that dream he has, and I think that’s a whole new way of thinking about games and entertainment that doesn’t even exist right now. I like to think about ambient entertainment. It’s not something you’ll even go to a device to play, you won’t necessarily sit down to play it, it will just be there in your life.

Colonizing Mars is still a pipe dream in the real world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t imagine the process of creating a Martian colony for the human race. Haemimont Games' upcoming Surviving Mars aims to do just that, and we played an early prototype of the so-called “survival city-builder” at E3.

Groundwork

Most city-building games have a simple beginning act: The map is placed in front of you and you immediately start the process of building roads, utilities, and buildings. That isn't the case withSurviving Mars. Because you’re building on a completely different planet, you’ll need to pick a commander to lead your colony and, more importantly, choose a space agency to sponsor the trip. Choosing the agency is important because your chosen organization will provide you with the necessary funds to get your colony rolling.

Before you blast off, you’ll need to choose what goes into your payload on the maiden voyage to Mars. This can include raw materials for construction, generators to power your buildings, and even a few rovers to build structures. The only limit to your payload is the cost, which is determined by the amount provided by your space agency sponsor. When you do arrive on Mars, you’ll have to pick a landing zone. We were told that we could pick any location on the planet. Within our chosen landing area was a spacious piece of red land spread across a massive grid, and we had to choose our starting point based on the resources available on the ground combined with the percentage chance of establishing a colony on any given tile.

With a landing zone picked, our spacecraft landed. Dust kicked up in the wake of the thrusters that slowed our descent, and when the shuttle finally made contact with the Martian surface, two rovers emerged from it ready to take our commands. The first order of business was to construct a power source--solar panels--as well as another structure to store the solar energy. The game featured day and night cycles, so the panels only worked when the sun was up. Based on our available resources, we couldn’t build a massive farm of solar panels. This meant there was limited energy to power our buildings, so we created shifts for each building to make sure they were only active during the daytime. We also constructed additional pylons (see what we did there?) to connect the power source and the reservoir to other buildings that required power, such as our excavator, which was built to gather additional resources for construction.

The Human Element

One more thing: these first steps to building our colony didn’t even involve any human settlers. We were commanding mechanized vehicles to lay the groundwork for the eventual arrival of our first settlers. Once a power source and excavator were constructed, we created water reservoirs and massive oxygen tanks for our future inhabitants. We even built a fuel refinery to mine for additional resources so the shuttle that brought the rovers and buildings materials could leave and bring humans to Mars. With an air, water, and power source available, we built a domed habitat to house future residents.

This is a change of pace for a city-builder game because it emphasizes infrastructure before adding residents. Similar titles, such as Cities: Skylines, which is also from Surviving Mars publisher Paradox Interactive, will have you juggle the increasing resident population while also expanding your city. Then again, creating a city on Earth is easier than settling a new planet, so it’s probably best to take things at a slower pace.

Our first dome had space for a few structures, but we were told that there were different types of habitats that ranged in size and shape. Furthermore, we could specialize the type of people or economy that existed inside each dome. For example, we could create a dome specifically for researchers of new technology and then build an even larger dome for our very own Las Vegas on Mars. As you build more and more domes, you’ll also have to monitor individual people's needs, which include food, health, sanity, and morale.

Survive

For the most part, you’ll simply have to ensure that you have a thriving population on Mars, but there are also some additional challenges that you can tack on to keep it interesting. Creating your first colony on a foreign planet means that you’ll have to contend with new forces of nature, such as heavy dust storms and the occasional asteroid bearing down in your new backyard. There are also so-called “mysteries” that you choose at the beginning of the game so your settlers can investigate it with the proper technology and resources when they land. One of these mysteries is an unidentified rock formation that’s different than anything else seen on the Martian surface.  

There isn’t an endgame, per se, but the idea of setting foot on another planet and then creating a self-reliant colony should be challenging enough. The work required to make a habitat for humans requires time, resources, and funding. If you lack one of these three elements, the human survival rate on Mars can drop to dangerous levels, but it’s additional layer of danger that makes Surviving Mars a potentially captivating city builder. The studio provided an interesting demo, but there’s more work ahead before the game is available sometime in 2018.

In addition to the Dirt series, Codemasters is also the team behind another franchise of racing titles: the F1, or Formula 1, games. At E3, the studio was on hand to show off the latest installment, called F1 2017, and we spoke to creative director Lee Mather on some of the changes coming to the annual title.

More Control

F1 2017's appeal lies in its depiction of a full-race weekend. In addition to the qualifying and actual races, you’ll also participate in a few practice “programs” that teach you the layout of the track, how to conserve your tires, and the correct angle required to make turns on corners. Mather mentioned that the upcoming game will feature two additional programs that focus on tires and fuel conservation to teach you the best way to stay in the lead without making unnecessary pit stops. In the real world, most F1 races are won or lost depending on when drivers decide to change tires or take on extra fuel, so the programs will also add another dose of realism to the title.

You can tweak different parts of your car during a race, such as brake bias, suspension, and even tire pressure. For this year’s game, Mather and his team will let you also tweak the engine and gearbox to make your car perform even more closely to your custom preferences for each track. Your changes can also have an effect during the race--the engine and gearbox will suffer wear and tear, so you’ll need to monitor them every few laps. In the past, the points you earned after each race went to numerous upgrades for your car, such as overall fuel efficiency, weight reduction, and engine power. Mather said that this method will be obsolete in the new game; the development team will replace it with a “skill-tree” progression system that will determine your team’s overall direction for car development. 

More To Do

If the pressure of an F1 race weekend is too intense, you can try the new Challenges mode, which features 12 classic F1 cars such as the McLaren MP4/4, which was piloted by both Ayrton Senna and his longtime rival Alain Prost, and the Ferrari F2002 driven by Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Mather told us that there’s even a short story-like introduction to these challenges. In the game, all of the old F1 cars are owned by someone with deep pockets who wants you to race them around the track. These challenges are a mix of overtaking races or simple time trials so that you can experience the power (and lack of safety options) that comes with these classic vehicles.

As far as multiplayer is concerned, Mather said you can create races with multiple criteria, such as specific classes and specs. You can even have a race where players will all have identical cars to make sure the victor is determined through driving skill rather than vehicle choice.
You’ll also get to try out some new layouts to existing tracks.

You'll now be able to choose a female avatar when you make a new character, which is a welcome addition. It should be noted, however, that F1 2017 wasn’t the only racing game this year to introduce women to the virtual racing scene. Forza Motorsport 7 will also include female drivers when it debuts.

For new players, including those of us who only played last year’s game, there will still be video tutorials, but new on-screen prompts will further help new drivers acclimate to the fast-paced races. As helpful as these videos are to teaching the fundamentals, they’re nothing compared to actually trying out newly introduced maneuvers and techniques on a practice track. Codemasters’ latest release, Dirt 4, had a mix of video tutorials and practice events to go along with the clips so new players would get hands-on experience as soon as possible. It might be too late in the development cycle to add a similar feature to F1 2017, but we believe Codemasters should try and implement it in next year’s iteration.

For Niche And Newcomers Alike

For the die-hard fans, F1 2017 seems to have even more things for you to tweak to create a perfect car setup for any track. The additional programs can also help form a strategy that ensures the minimum amount of pit stops for tire changes and fuel refills. The addition of classic cars is a bonus for any longtime fan of the sport. With the help of driving assists and tutorial videos, newcomers can also try their hand at Formula 1 racing. However, Codemasters can do better, as we saw in Dirt 4, and the developer should try to improve the way it introduces the mechanics of F1 racing to those unfamiliar with the sport.

Before the gaming industry descended on Los Angeles for E3 last week, Elite: Dangerous players were treated to a surprise in the game with the first sightings of the Thargoids, a race of aliens that were also included in Frontier Developments’ previous games. At E3, we sat down with senior designer Sandy Sammarco to talk about upcoming content and how the Thargoids will play a part in future events.

The Alien Threat

For context on the Thargoids, we have to go back to 2015, when players first started to discover strange artifacts that had some relation to the alien species. The following year, players discovered additional evidence of the Thargoids, such as alien structures called barnacles, unknown probes, and alien wreckage. Some players even experienced the Thargoids interfering with their frameshift jumps between systems. Sammarco said that all these events led up to the recent reveal of the aliens and update 2.4 coming later this year in Q3, which is simply called “The Return.” Full details on the update are coming soon, but Sammarco let us know about a few things players can expect to see later this year.

According to Sammarco, the update was in development for the past year. The recent meetings with the Thargoids are a ramp up to an eventual confrontation, and Sammarco brought up the fact that players still only have access to human-specific weapons and armor, which probably means you’ll get try new alien technology in the fight against the Thargoids.

As if that wasn’t enough, Sammarco then showed us a clip portraying another piece of content. It featured a ship flying at a low altitude across an unknown planet. On the surface was a large object that resembled a wreck, but as the ship moved closer, it turns out that it was another alien structure. The ship then produced a rover that moved closer to the structure, which, to our surprise, opened to reveal a series of tunnels. Inside were floating units called Scavengers, which were moving from one place to another. As the rover moved further inside, unknown objects popped underneath its tires. Eventually, the rover approached a massive central room... and then the video cut to black. Sammarco smiled and even though we, understandably, had some questions about the clip, he didn’t provide any comment about what we had just witnessed.

More Work

In addition to “The Return” update, Sammarco also briefly mentioned Frontier’s additional work on the game in the near future. “The Return” marks the end of Horizons, which is Elite: Dangerous' second season, and even though new content will arrive as part of the update, the studio is also working on refining existing gameplay features and “making the player experience better.” Similar to the new update, Sammarco mentioned that more details about these changes are coming in the future.

In the meantime, non-PC players will also benefit from the new updates and changes. He mentioned that Frontier is also working on updates to support the upcoming Xbox One X console. Those on the PlayStation 4 will soon join in on the action when Elite: Dangerous comes out on June 27. Sammarco mentioned that players on Sony’s console can use the DualShock 4’s Sixaxis motion controls to move their ship. The touchpad in the middle of the controller is also used to access different mechanics within the ship. Those with a PlayStation 4 Pro will see an additional set of visual options for the game.

When “The Return” launches, all three platforms will have players combating the new alien threat, but it won't be the end of for Elite: Dangerous. Sammarco called the update “the end of the beginning and the start of a new story.” The Thargoids are just the tip of the iceberg, and Frontier Developments has more planned for its massive space-faring game. For now, we’ll just have to wait.

At first, Rare’s Sea of Thieves didn't seem too appealing to us when it was revealed at E3 a year ago. Nevertheless, we tried the game at E3 this year, and it quickly reminded us of the mantra that you should never judge a book, or in this case a game, by its cover. In less than an hour, the short demo completely turned our view of Sea of Thieves around. However, there's a growing concern about the lack of content in the final version of the game.

Set Sail

When we played the demo at the Xbox Showcase, we were joined by three other players. Sea of Thieves requires four players to work together in order to complete quests or fight opponents. In other words, this is a multiplayer-only title. You can choose to either play with friends or join a random party. For our demo, our team had to pick from one of three activities: Solve a riddle to find legendary treasure or travel to one of two islands and use the map to take three chests and share the loot.

We decided to track down three chests on one of the unknown islands. In other to travel to the location, we had to get on a ship and work together as a crew to reach the island. Once onboard, we had to prepare the ship before we left the pier. Sails needed to be unfurled, and the anchor had to be lifted.

Once our teammates figured out the location of the island, we took charge of the helm and set a course for treasure. However, traveling the open seas isn’t as easy as it looks. Similar to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Skull & Bones, we had to find the right angle for the wind in order to rapidly move across the waters. This meant that while we were steering, our crewmates were busy turning the angle of the sails in order to catch the strong winds from the west (we were heading in a northern direction). If the winds shifted, we then had to change the sails' angles again.

Surprisingly, this constant ship management didn't belay the fun; in fact, it emphasized the game’s core teamwork mechanics. The journey would be boring if the only person contributing on the ship was the helmsman while the rest of the crew just admired the scenery. By constantly checking the maps and adjusting sails, the entire crew contributed, which was more fun all the way around.

At one point, we veered too close to a small island (that wasn’t our destination), and a portion of our ship was damaged. A few seconds later, our ship started take on water. While our crewmates repaired the damage with wood stored below deck, we grabbed our bucket in the inventory and (comically) used it to carry the water that flooded the decks and throw it overboard. (We also had to make sure that we were anchored so that the ship wouldn’t wander into the open sea). After 30 seconds of repairs, we pressed onward and eventually found the island that was depicted on the treasure map.

Because the island didn’t have a pier, we had to drop anchor less than a mile outside its radius. This meant that we had to not only swim the rest of the way, but we also had to evade the hungry sharks that patrolled the area. We managed to dig up one piece of treasure when we saw another ship in the distance. This was the other group of players that was also trying out the demo at the same time. Our crew hurried back to the ship and started to chase them down.

Enemies Ahead

We eventually tracked down the other crew to another island, and it allowed us the opportunity to finally use the ship’s cannons, which another crewmember fortunately loaded before we even left the pier at the start of the demo. All we had to do was aim and fire, but because of our distance to the island, most of the shots ended up on the shore (the other crew was on higher ground).

However, we could close the gap by launching ourselves from the cannon like a circus performer.

Without even thinking twice about it, we climbed into the cannon and “flew” to the island. With a pistol, shotgun, and saber in our inventory, we attempted to take out the other crew. Because of the limited amount of ammunition for the firearms, each shot had to be precise and lethal. A missed shot meant that we had to endure a long reloading animation, during which time another player could get the drop on us. In the heat of battle, we shot at anything that moved, which wasn’t the best idea. Some players even opted to use their swords in order to save ammo, but they had to get up close and personal, which is within the shotgun’s lethal range, in order to take out their target.

In a nutshell, our early attack didn't end well, but it allowed us to explore the afterlife. Death in Sea of Thieves is temporary, as we found out. We ended up on a ghost ship called the Ferry of the Damned, and after a short time a door opened below deck that let us back in the world, specifically on the location of our ship.

When we got back, things went from bad to worse. The rest of our crew made it to the island to fight the other players and left our ship in the open. Somehow, it took damage again, but we couldn't save it in time. As the helmsman, I stayed onboard until it completely sank (insert somber music here), and then miraculously managed to swim to the surface and onto the island to join the rest of the crew. After some more fighting with the rival players, we eventually won and found out that the island we were on had another piece of treasure. Even though we eventually found it, we couldn't go anywhere without a ship. Someone in our crew had to die in order to respawn a new ship to come rescue us and, more importantly, keep our hard-earned loot.

The Empty Sea

Before we could decide on a sacrificial lamb, the developers told us that time was up on the demo. We walked away amused at the many shenanigans that ensued during gameplay, but we were also impressed at how fun and exciting it was to work with other people to steer a ship, find treasure, and even fight other parties.

There's a content issue, though. Most of what you can currently experience in Sea of Thieves was in the demo, and although it's a fun ride from start to finish, performing those same actions for an entire game can become dull. Sure, it’s fun to work with friends to maintain a ship and hunt for treasure, but there needs to be more for you and your crew to do in the game world. Rare plans to release the game sometime in early 2018, and we’re hoping that the studio is able to fill its pirate world with numerous activities and surprises.

The demo changing our minds in the first place; additional content would seal the deal.

All The E3 VR Games

Every year during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (more commonly known as E3), the biggest names in the video game industry congregate in Los Angeles to reveal the hottest new titles in development and announce release dates for the games we know are coming. Now that virtual reality hardware is part of the video game industry, we expected to be bombarded with news of exciting new concepts and perhaps a few triple-A titles.
Our expectations of a mass influx of VR games proved to be somewhat over-optimistic, but the few games that are coming look excellent, nevertheless.

Here’s a list of all the VR games that developers talked about at E3 2017.

Lone Echo / Echo Arena

Lone Echo is a story-based single player game with cutting-edge graphics fidelity. In it, you play as Jack, a cybernetic AI android stationed at a mining facility on the surface of Saturn. The game is set in zero gravity, and the developers provide two forms of locomotion: You get wrist-mounted rocket boosters as though you’re wearing an Iron Man suit, and you can also use the environment to get around. For example, you can grab onto nearby objects to pull yourself toward them and push yourself away.

When Jason Rubin, Oculus’s VP of Content, revealed Lone Echo during the Oculus Touch Game Showcase at Oculus Connect 3, he called it “one of the single largest VR productions to date.” Rubin didn’t talk about the release date at OC3, but we have the answer now. Ready At Dawn revealed that Lone Echo would hit the Oculus Store on July 20.

Ready At Dawn also revealed that it split the game into two separate entities. Lone Echo’s multiplayer component is now a separate game called Echo Arena, which the developer plans to release alongside the Lone Echo single player campaign on July 20. Echo Arena will initially be free for everyone with an Oculus Rift thanks to Intel’s desire to jumpstart an eSports following for the game; Intel paid Ready At Dawn to waive the price of the game for a limited time.

Fallout 4 VR

Last year during the Bethesda E3 press presentation, the company revealed that it had a team of developers toiling over Fallout 4 to adapt it to virtual reality. Bethesda didn’t show anything about the title last year, but the company said it had figured out a locomotion system that didn’t involve teleportation.

During this year’s presentation, Bethesda confirmed that the game is called Fallout 4 VR, and it revealed the first footage of the game in action.

Fallout 4 VR is a rebuild of the complete Fallout 4 game, and as such the game carries a triple-A price tag: Bethesda said it would launch in Q4 for $59. The Vireio Perception development team better start looking for a new game to add room-scale support to.

Doom VFR

Fallout 4 isn’t the only triple-A property that Bethesda announced at E3 last year. The company had a VR version of the lauded Doom series on hand for journalists and industry insiders to try. The Doom VR game featured a fast-paced teleportation action that struck a balance between not making people sick, and not killing the vibe of the gameplay.

At this year’s E3 presentation, Bethesda revealed a gameplay trailer that gives the public a glimpse of the excitement that can expect from Doom in virtual reality. Bethesda also updated title of the game. Doom VR is now know as Doom VFR. The company is leaving it up to you to figure out what the "F" stands for.

Doom VFR is a standalone game in the Doom series, not a remake of the recent Doom game. Bethesda plans to release the game in Q4 this year. You can pre-order it on Steam for $29.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim is one of the most desired and requested games for VR. Ever since the days of Oculus developer kits, people have tried to hack Skyrim to work in VR using tools like Vireio Perception and Vorp X. Soon, you’ll have an official channel to explore the vast world of Skyrim in virtual reality.

Bethesda revealed that it’s bringing Skyrim to PlayStation VR later this year. To be clear, this isn't a limited VR experience; the developer is porting the entire game over to virtual reality, so you can enjoy complete immersion into the Elder Scrolls universe.

Bethesda said Skyrim VR will hit the PSVR in November. The company didn’t say if the game would eventually make its way to Steam VR for Vive owners to enjoy, though, the company said it plans to support "as many platforms as [it] can."

Space Junkies

Ubisoft announced that it’s developing a new IP called Space Junkies. The game will be a VR-only title for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and it will feature 1v1 and 2v2 air-based combat. Space Junkies players get jetpacks that let them bring the battlefield into the air.

Ubisoft said it built a new VR game engine, which it called Bridgitte, to help create VR environments.

Ubisoft didn’t say much else about the title other than that it plans to release the game in the spring of 2018.

Transference

Ubisoft partnered with SpectreVision to bring emotional storytelling techniques from cinema to the virtual reality medium. SpecterVision (co-founded by Elijia Wood) and Ubisoft’s FunHouse division are building a psychological thriller that could make you question reality.

Imagine living through someone else’s memory. Then imagine not being able to decipher the difference between your reality and someone else's. SpectreVision and FunHouse seek to explore that idea with Transference.

We don’t know much about the game yet, and Ubisoft said it doesn't plan to launch it until the spring of 2018, so it may be a while before we do.

Star Child

When most people think about virtual reality games, they imagine a first-person experience that transports you to a new place. VR games don’t have to be first-person experiences, though, and no company knows that as well as Playful. Playful developed a third-person platformer game called Lucky’s Tale, which ended up bundled with every Rift HMD back when the hardware launched.

Now Playful is back again with another third-person VR game called Star Child. Whereas Lucky's Tale was an Oculus Rift exclusive, this new game is exclusive to the PSVR. It's slated for release in 2018.

The Inpatient

Supermassive Games announced The Inpatient, a psychological thriller set in the Until Dawn universe.

The story of The Inpatient unravels 60 years before the events of Until Dawn, in the Blackwood Sanitarium—the same setting as the first Until Dawn game. When The Inpatient begins, you wake up in Blackwood Sanitarium with no recollection of how you got there. Jefferson Bragg, the owner of the sanitorium, greets you and assures you that he’s there to help. But how can you be sure?

Supermassive Games didn’t announce a release window for The Inpatient, Sony said the game is a PSVR exclusive.

Bravo Team

Supermassive Games is a developer that likes to keeps its employees busy. The company made three announcements during the PlayStation E3 press conference: a non-VR game called Hidden Agenda, the Until Dawn prequel (The Inpatient), and a first-person cover shooter called Bravo Team.

Bravo Team puts an emphasis on teamwork. The game features a single-player mode where you work with AI teammates as well as an online co-op component that lets you and a friend work together to stay alive. Bravo Team features intense firefight action that demands that you use the environment for cover.

Supermassive Games said Bravo Team is in development for PSVR, but the company didn’t say when it would be available.

Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV

SquareEnix is building a VR game for fans of fishing games and the Final Fantasy series. (We're not sure how much overlap there is in that Venn diagram is exactly, but hey, who are we to judge.) Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV is a first-person virtual reality fishing simulator set in the universe of Final Fantasy XV.

Join the characters from Final Fantasy XV on a fishing trip and catch your quarry in the serene environments found in the FFXV game. Just be sure to watch your back, because there's more than bass and walleye in those waters.

SquareEnix said Monsters of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV would makes its way to PSVR in September.

ROM: Extraction

First Contact Entertainment released ROM: Extraction last year on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and the company is preparing the bring the FPS game to the PlayStation VR later this year. First Contact Entertainment said the PSVR version of the game will include exclusive content for the platform. The upcoming version of the game features a handful of new levels and new unannounced game modes.

First Contact Entertainment is also embracing Sony’s new Aim Controller rifle peripheral and is developing a handful of new gun models that are compatible with the controller.

First Contact Entertainment said ROM: Extraction would hit PSVR this fall.

Moss

Playful isn’t the only developer toying with the third-person perspective in VR games. Polyarc revealed a third-person platformer title for PSVR called Moss.

But Moss offers a unique take on the idea of a third-person perspective, though. Your role is that of a giant who helps the hero of the game, Quill--who is a sword-wielding, gauntlet-wearing mouse--in his quests by manipulating the world around him in ways a teeny tiny mouse could never imagine doing.

Polyarc said Moss would be available in time for the holiday season. The game is a PSVR exclusive.

Archangel

Archangel from Skydance Interactive is a high-intensity, first-person mechanized combat game for virtual reality. In Archangel, you pilot a six-story-tall mech and steer it into battle against waves of enemies. Your mech is on rails (and by proxy, so are you), but within that gameplay the company figured out an effective means of locomotion that doesn't make you sick.

Partially, it's because your mech moves slowly, as you might expect a giant machine to, but because you feel like you're inside of a vehicle, your brain accepts the movement and vestibular disconnect just as it does when you're, for example, speeding down the highway in a car.

Skydance Interactive told Tom's Hardware in March that Archangel would land on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PSVR in July. At E3, the company revealed that PSVR would get a two-week timed exclusivity period.

No Heroes Allowed!

Sony’s first-party developer, Japan Studio, revealed its virtual reality RTS game, No Heroes Allowed!, at the Tokyo Game Show in 2016 as a PSVR title for the Japanese market. During Sony’s E3 presentation, the company revealed that No Heroes Allowed! would make its way to western markets, too.

In No Heroes Allowed!, you are the God of Destruction in command of a monster army.  You and your cohorts, Badman and Badmella, are on a quest for domination of the tiny virtual tabletop world in front of you. (Speaking of third-party gaming...)

We still don't know when No Heroes Allowed! will land, though.

The Persistence

Firesprite spoke about The Persistence, a procedurally generated first-person sci-fi horror game that puts you in the shoes of a random passenger of “The Persistence”—the first spaceship to ever travel faster than the speed for light.

While traveling to a distant black hole, something happened that mutated the members of the crew. The only people left on the spaceship are locked away in cryo-sleep, and in an attempt to save the rest of the passengers, the onboard AI system awakens one person at a time so they can try to sneak past the mutants, fix the ship, and return to Earth.

Because The Persistence features procedural map generation, the layout is different every time you play the game. It also features random character generation.

Every person on the spaceship has different traits and abilities, and not everyone has the skill set to complete the task. Your success relies on the luck of the draw as much as it does your ability to use your cunning to outwit the mutants around you.

The Persistence doesn’t have a release date yet.

Superhot VR

Superhot (the developer) brought Superhot (the game) to virtual reality as an Oculus Touch launch title in December. In May, the company expanded the game’s distribution to the Steam VR platform to allow Vive owners to join in on the slow-motion firefights of Superhot VR.

At E3 2017, the company revealed that it’s taking Superhot VR full circle with a PSVR version launching this summer. Superhot didn’t announce a definitive release date, but the company said the game would arrive “in just a few short weeks.”

Sparc

At E3, CCP Games made a surprise announcement about its upcoming VR eSport game, Sparc. The developer that brought us the Eve Universe of games, including the VR dogfighting game EVE: Valkyrie, announced that Sparc would launch as a PSVR timed exclusive. CCP is no stranger to timed-exclusivity agreements. The company famously inked a deal with Oculus to bundle EVE: Valkyrie with the Rift HMD for a limited time.

CCP said Sparc would land on PSVR this fall. The developer didn’t say how long the exclusivity period would last, but don’t expect the game on Vive or Rift before 2018.

Farpoint Cryo Pack DLC

Impulse Gear released its debut game, Farpoint, alongside the PlayStation Aim Controller on May 16, and the company is already preparing to roll out the first extra content package. The DLC update, which is free, is called Cryo Pack, and it adds two new frozen regions to the alien planet that you can explore. The Cryo Pack DLC includes re-skinned enemies that blend in with the icy environment as well as a new suit for you so you can survive the sub-zero climate.

The Cryo Pack DLC will be available on June 27.

The Talos Principle VR

Late last year, Croteam released a VR remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter, and in February the company revealed that Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter and Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE are both in development. Croteam also revealed that its only non-Serious Sam game, a first-person puzzle game called The Talos Principle, would make its way to VR this year.

Croteam didn’t announce the release date for The Talos Principle VR, but the company is showing the game to the press in private sessions outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, which suggests that it's preparing for the game’s release.

Do you ever reminisce about how games used to be made? We do. We developed a fondness for the Zelda franchise as children when we first played Ocarina of Time. As we got older, we went back to the series’s roots by playing the original Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past, and quickly fell in love with the early franchise’s charm. Nowadays, few games evoke a similar emotion. That silence was broken earlier this week when Tunic was showcased during the PC Gaming Show. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Tunic was also going to make an appearance at the Media Indie Exchange?

Tunic is an upcoming bird's-eye view action adventure RPG from Finji. In Tunic, you control a cute fox wearing a green tunic (if that isn't an obvious Zelda reference, we don't know what is). You wash up on a mysterious island and have to find the means to defend yourself. Initially, you'll find a stick, which does poor damage and cannot be swung efficiently. As you progress through the demo, you'll eventually find a sword and a shield, which makes combat slightly more bearable. We say "slightly" because quite a few enemies have attack patterns that require precise timing to combat (Dark Souls fans, rejoice!) 

The art style is cutesy enough to attract casual fans, but the emphasis on exploration, puzzle solving, and combat is gratifying enough to captivate so-called hardcore gamers. There are also a ton of hidden passageways and secrets to keep completionist gamers busy for hours on end. The demo alone has nearly four hours of content, so we can't wait to see what the full game has to offer.

Tunic will debut in 2018 on PC, Mac, and consoles, although the exact consoles haven't been specified.

Games, Games, And More Games

Another E3 has come and gone. For three days (although the additional press conferences made it a full six days), the gaming industry descended on Los Angeles, where some of the most popular developers and publishers revealed new games, additional content for current titles, and even a new console. As always, E3 provided some memorable moments in addition to the newly revealed games, and if you couldn’t make it to the show this year, don’t worry: There’s always next year. But for now, here are some highlights from one of the industry’s largest tradeshows.

The Public

In the past, the show was accessible only to the press and members of the industry, but this year, for the first time, E3 was open to the general public. For $250 (or $150 for those who bought the limited number of early-bird tickets), anyone could attend the show. The additional influx of people meant that an already-crowded event had even more attendees. Lines to check out some of the latest games were full in a matter of minutes, with people waiting hours just to see a single title.

Earlier And Earlier

A few years ago, most of the major press conferences for the show were packed into one day. The Monday before the start of E3 was then called “Day 0,” as Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony all showed their latest projects in their respective pressers. EA then decided that it no longer needed to be part of the show and created its own event in Los Angeles, called EA Play, that took place around the same time as E3. This year, the event was at the Hollywood Palladium, and the company’s press conference kicked off the E3 festivities a few days early, on June 10.

Welcome To Bethesdaland

Like EA, Bethesda also hosted its own off-site presentation, but it went the extra mile by making it a unique experience. The theme to this year’s show was “Bethesdaland,” and the company transformed the Los Angeles Center Studios space into a small theme park that included a ferris wheel, small packs of popcorn, and of course some Nuka-Cola Quantum. In addition to the theme park attractions, fans also lined up to play some of Bethesda’s titles and for a chance to snag one of the many pins related to each Bethesda game.

The Xbox One X

Before the start of the press conferences, the talk of E3 was the reveal of the price and release date for Microsoft’s Xbox One X. The console was initially revealed at last year’s Xbox E3 presser, and over the course of the year we found out its specs, features, and some of the titles that will support it at launch. When it comes out on November 7, you’ll have to pay $500 to get it.

MORE: The Xbox One X Is (Not) Liquid Cooled

Some Love For The PC Gamer

Despite Microsoft’s massive focus on the Xbox One X, it reserved a corner of its booth to show off Windows 10 and PC gaming. In addition to the OS, there were also some PCs, such as the one shown here, that sported heavily-customized cases. Microsoft also introduced PC-focused titles  at the second annual PC Gaming Show, including Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Attractions

With the public now roaming the show floor, companies had to find more ways to convince people to check out their booths. This massive dragon, which was made to advertise Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World, loomed like a behemoth in the South Hall. Many people (including us) couldn’t resist stopping in their tracks to snap a quick photo or two. Other booths also featured live shows or gameplay.

Take A Break And Play

Even though the main focus of E3 is on digital titles, there’s some time to play some analog games, as well. For example, at Square Enix’s booth, people queued up to play the Final Fantasy trading card game. The company had a few tables next to its booth were players could try a few decks and get a taste of the card game’s unique mechanics.

The booth also featured some of its upcoming titles that fans could try out, such as the Stormblood expansion for Final Fantasy XIV and the remastered and expanded version of Final Fantasy XII, which is titled Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age.

Celebrities Abound

Because E3 is in Los Angeles, the probability of seeing a celebrity on the show floor is higher than at other events, and more often than not, these celebrities have a camera crew that follows them as they create new content to promote their brand. We first saw WWE superstar Xavier Woods (left), aka Austin Creed, at GDC earlier this year when we went head to head against him in a VR racing game. At E3, he was back to show off more games to his YouTube audience, and he brought another colleague to help out: WWE superstar Samoa Joe (center).

VR Is Here To Stay

Despite the smaller-than-expected focus on virtual reality at E3, there were still a few VR projects for fans to ogle. This included Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies. For now, the game will be a VR-exclusive title, specifically for PSVR. However, we surmise that it might come to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in the future, because this latest entry in the franchise will debut not just on the PlayStation 4, but on the Xbox One and PC as well. Other VR titles at E3 included Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo Sport and Ready At Dawn’s Echo Arena.

The Beginning Of The Brotherhood

Last year, Ubisoft didn’t release an Assassin’s Creed title because it wanted to take extra time to look at feedback and determine what it can do to improve future installments. The first step in that new direction is Assassin's Creed: Origins. This time around, you'll head to Ancient Egypt where you'll witness the birth of the Assassin Brotherhood through the eyes of a new character named Bayek.

A Fox Wearing A Tunic

E3 was rife with AAA titles presented by big-name developers. However, the E3 Media Indie Exchange (MIX) hosted a number of indie games that you wouldn’t normally find on the show floor. Out of the dozens of titles we saw, Tunic caught our attention the most. In this game, you take control of an adorable tunic-wearing fox who arrives on a mysterious island. The play style emphasizes exploration and puzzle solving, which is largely reminiscent of the bird's eye-view style of the Zelda franchise’s early titles.

The game was filled with hidden passageways and secrets that you won’t be able to pick up on initially, but replaying the game will let you discover these tucked-away pieces of content.

Use Sound To Guide Your Way

Stifled is a survival horror VR title that throws you into the dark. In Stifled, everything is pitch black, and the only way you can navigate is through echolocation. Using the mic, you can make sounds that will briefly highlight the immediate area; the louder the noise, the more of your surroundings you can see. However, fearsome creatures stalk in the darkness, and you need to be totally silent if you want to sneak by undetected. If the fear squeezes a shriek out of you, well...you probably don’t want to find out what happens next.

The Return Of The Classic RTS

Microsoft dropped a bombshell during the PC Gaming Show by announcing Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, 20 years after its initial release. The upcoming game isn’t just a modern port; it’s a top-down remake. Every graphic, from the terrain, to the character sprites, to the animations have been redrawn to reflect a modern system’s capabilities. Gameplay has been rebalanced so that the metagame won’t be dominated by a handful of units and factions. Even the beloved soundtrack has been recomposed and re-recorded by an orchestra.

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition looks to be a labor of love for Microsoft, and hopefully the much-needed bug fixes and modern aesthetic will bring old players back and “wololo” new players into the fold.

A Race For Revenge

Even though it wasn’t on the show floor, Ghost Games showed its first gameplay video for the upcoming Need for Speed: Payback. The game’s initial trailer made it look like something out of a Fast and Furious movie, but the developers promise more than that. It will put you in control of three characters as they blaze a path of revenge against The House, a dangerous group that controls multiple facets of Fortune City, including the casinos, criminals, and most importantly, the police.

Take To The High Seas (Again)

Skull & Bones, a new game from Ubisoft Singapore, made its debut this week. The naval combat game borrows heavily from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in terms of its gameplay mechanics, but the rest of the content is something that the studio will develop on its own. At E3, we tried a player-versus-player mode called Loot Hunt, and when the game comes out later this year, it will also have a single-player experience wherein you’ll travel the ocean in search of enemies (some of which will be other players) and precious loot to upgrade your ship with cosmetic items or offensive capabilities.

The Return Of ‘Metroid Prime’

Before E3 opened its doors, Nintendo hosted an online stream where it showed some of its upcoming titles, one of which was a new Metroid game titled Metroid Prime 4. All we got to see was an extremely short teaser video, but we know that the game is being developed for the Nintendo Switch. The last Metroid game with the “Prime moniker” came out in 2007 with the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Nintendo didn’t provide a release date for the new title, but we can expect more information to arrive at some point in the future.

Mixed Reality Demo Streaming On A Single System

Mixed reality--in this case meaning the act of simultaneously showing viewers both the real world and whatever someone is seeing within a VR HMD--is a technique involving a camera, a green screen, and a powerful VR-capable system. This effectively creates an image of you within the VR world, and as you can imagine, this could be a great source of entertainment for developers and Twitch streamers alike. However, all of the above is an incredibly hefty workload, and 4-, 6-, and even 8-core processors will struggle to handle it while simultaneously streaming.

During E3, Intel showcased the prowess of its upcoming 12-core Skylake X i9-7920X, which was capable of handling a mixed reality demo and stream of Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality without breaking a sweat.

Thin, Light, And Powerful

Nvidia’s Max-Q design, which it announced during Computex, promises thinner and lighter laptops without significant performance compromises. One such Max-Q model was displayed at the Origin PC booth, and it certainly lived up to Nvidia’s thin-and-light expectation: The Max-Q laptop runs about 19.3mm thick and weighs 4 lbs. It can also support up to a GTX 1070, which was previously unheard of for a laptop with those physical dimensions.

We reported earlier this week on a new version of Alienware's Area 51. The enthusiast desktop PC, originally launched in 2014, will get internal transplants in the form of AMD’s ThreadRipper or Intel's Skylake-X or Kaby Lake-X high-end desktop CPUs. We learned a few more details while visiting with Dell/Alienware during E3.

First, Area 51 will be an OEM exclusive for AMD's ThreadRipper for 2017. You’ll be able to build your own of course, or buy made-to-order PCs from builders or systems integrators, but among the primary system manufacturers--Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, etc.--Alienware will stand alone for this year. If it’s a feather in the cap of Dell to have this exclusively, it’s certainly a good sign for AMD, getting the whole-hearted support of a prominent OEM so early in the life of its new CPU. 

Area 51 is ultimately configurable. We saw a version with three AMD Radeon 580 GPUs, and we saw a version with AMD’s yet-to-be-released Vega GPU inside. A Dell representative opened the Area 51 so we could see, but we couldn’t touch, and we couldn’t take pictures. An AMD representative was on hand to condone the viewing.

We also pressed Alienware about cooling, given these new high-end desktop processors. The chassis hasn’t changed (it’s still that same trapezoid-ish shape, with no alterations for air intake or exhaust), but the system’s liquid cooling required for ThreadRipper and Skylake-X demanded fans spinning at higher RPM, a bigger radiator, and changes to the hoses. An Alienware representative at E3 couldn’t recite the exact details. 

Dell partners with Asetek on the cooler. The company designs and builds its own motherboard.

Alienware wouldn’t give us price ranges. You can guess that it’ll be expensive, given what’s going on inside and that you’re not building it yourself. However, Alienware said that the customer it's targeting with Area 51 is the so-called “mega-tasker,” a term onerously (criminally?) coined by Intel, and one that is sadly catching on. Don’t worry, though: you’re forgiven if you’re merely a multitasker. 

But Area 51 could also be favored by those conducting more high-end design work, and, yes, people with more money than sense. At least, that’s our interpretation of what Alienware said. What a representative actually said was that some people just want the fastest thing available, no matter if they need it and no matter the cost.

Ubisoft’s Skull & Bones was a surprise announcement at this year’s E3, but we recognized its mechanics from another Ubisoft game: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

Black Flag was successful because of its naval combat, which was something we hadn’t seen in a game for a long time. Ubisoft Singapore, the studio behind the game, is hoping that lightning strikes in the same place twice with Skull & Bones.

The game mode we played at E3 was called Loot Hunt. Both teams, which were called the Cutthroats and Raiders, had to sink a passing convoy, steal as much loot as possible, and escape the area without being sunk themselves. After a brief tutorial, we had to choose from one of three ships: the slow-yet-powerful Enforcer, the fast-moving Bruiser, or the long-ranged Marksman. Depending on the ship you choose, you’ll have to work together with your team to not just take the loot, but also to make sure your opponents leave without any of the spoils.

If you played Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, then you already know how to play Skull & Bones. With a few presses of a button, you can command your crew to unfurl the sails when the wind’s in your favor or fold it up if you need to make a quick turn. With the right analog stick (the demo was on the Xbox One), we could turn the camera left or right so we could use the side cannons. There was also a pair of front-facing cannons in case we wanted to attack head-on, and a tertiary cannon that could launch projectiles at long distances. Each ship also had its own special ability, but due to the chaotic nature of the game, we didn’t get to use it during the match.

When Loot Hunt started, it took some time for the convoy to show up on the map. During that time, our team had to get in position, but there were also some smaller ships that carried loot. If we took out one side of any ship, it would sink, and these stray ships didn’t have much in the way of defenses, so it was easy loot at the beginning of the game. As a Bruiser, we could quickly move through the sea, but our firepower wasn’t as strong so we needed assistance from the Enforcer and Marksman to make an impact on larger ships. We tried out this strategy when the convoy came out. Together with another player, who was playing an Enforcer, we isolated one ship from the convoy and easily took it down after a few broadside passes. To collect loot, all we had to do was steer the ship into the sinking ship’s general area and collect its cargo.

For the rest of the match, we were lucky to collect even more loot. We worked together with teammates to take out more ships from the convoy, and we even managed to steal cargo from a ship that was initially destroyed by the other team. Those who collect the most loot are considered to be a high-value mark, which puts a massive target on your back for any opponent looking to turn the tide of battle in their favor.

For a majority of the game, the sinking of your ship wasn’t permanent, and you could respawn with a new vessel and try again. However, the late game portion of the Loot Hunt brought on a horde of other pirates that had massive ships that moved quickly through the waves. There were no respawns during this time, and we had to reach the escape point to safely bank our loot. The strategy here, at least for our vessel full of riches, was to make it to the escape point as fast possible. We barely made it out of the area--and we only managed that because an Enforcer ship on our team distracted an opponent. With the loot squarely in our column, we patiently waited for the rest of our team to reach the escape point intact. At the end of the match, we easily won by over 1,000 points.

Despite its similarities to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Skull & Bones is still an enjoyable game. There was an exciting tension that built as we hunted ships and collected loot, and then it got even more intense as we navigated the seas and traded cannon fire with opponents. We played a total of two matches, which took 30 minutes, but it went by so fast that we wanted to play more. Alas, a long line of other people wanted to try the game.

As fun as it was to play with and against other people, our lingering question was on additional content, specifically in terms of the single-player experience. Arnaud Vaudour, a producer from Ubisoft Singapore, told us that there will be an open, yet shared, world for the single-player campaign. As you explore the seas for riches and combat, you’ll also encounter other players. He also said even though the Loot Hunt game had three ship types, the main game will have more types available. You’ll also be able to customize multiple parts of the ship to specialize in multiple areas such as speed, power, or defense. In addition, you’ll also have some cosmetic parts you can use to give your ship a unique flair.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the single-player section at the show, but Loot Hunt was convincing enough that Ubisoft Singapore might be onto something with Skull & Bones. For years fans praised the naval action in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and now it’s finally back under another name. One can only hope that the developers have more than enough content to add to the final product so we’ll keep wanting to come back and roam the seas. Otherwise, the gameplay might turn stale within a matter of months.

Microsoft’s marquee racing game is back. Forza Motorsport 7 was announced earlier this week as part of the Xbox press conference, and yesterday we were treated to a behind-closed-doors meeting where we learned more about the game Turn 10 Studios' plans for it, especially for the PC gaming crowd.

Forza Motorsport 7 will be the first numbered game in the series to make its way to the PC. If you remember, the studio also worked on a minor Forza title called Apex, which was available on the Windows 10 platform last year. Since then, the developers used that, as well as Forza Horizon 3, as a jumping point to create Forza Motorsport 7.

The changes to the game start with the campaign, which is now called the Forza Driver’s Cup. The career will span across six major championships, and each one has a plethora of races for you to try out. Some of these contain special challenges, while others require you to have a specific car. In any case, you won’t have to wade through multiple menus for long, as you’ll easily find a race to compete in in a matter of minutes.

The developers said they wanted a track to offer a different experience every time you visit it. This means you can try it out at a different time of the day, or even under different weather conditions, such as an overcast sky or under a barrage of rain. The studio further added an extra layer of realism to the cockpit view, where the car’s windshield wipers and side mirrors slightly shake due to the heavy forces inflicted on the car as it rapidly makes its way around the track.

You’ll gain a slew of rewards after each race, which could include additional credits, mod cards, or even gear for your driver. The game will be the first in the series to feature female drivers, and it will show your full driver avatar so other players can see your gear.

For those who want more immersion, Turn 10 Studios mentioned that the game will support every fan-requested wheel at launch. You can even play the game on PC with the DualShock 4 controller and Logitech’s lineup of PlayStation 4-specific wheels. In that same spirit of immersion, we asked about the potential of VR support for the game. Creative director Bill Giese said that it won’t be there at launch, but the team is talking about the idea of VR support, so don’t count it out just yet.

Just like Forza Horizon 3, the game will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so you can play it on Xbox One and Windows 10 if you buy a digital copy. It will also support crossplay, so you can play on your PC and still compete with friends playing on console. As far as PC features are concerned, the studio said that it will support a 21:9 widescreen ratio and unlimited framerates. And, just like on the Xbox One X, the game will support 4K resolution on the PC. In fact, there’s even a PC demo on the show floor, which is using Nvidia’s GTX 1080 Ti GPU.

The studio also release the minimum and recommended specs for the game, which you can view below. There will be a third “High-End” spec for the game, and Giese said it's coming soon. The list doesn’t specify an AMD equivalent CPU, but you can always check out our CPU hierarchy page to see which processor is right for you.