Due to internet connectivity issues, I missed the first 15 minutes of the show. I will update the beginning of the article mometarily.
But hey, I got in just in time to watch them pimping the newest Just Dance! So, I have that going for me.
No big surprise that the wonderful Aisha Tyler is our Ubisoft E3 host once again. And she is once again wearing treacherous, ankle-threatening heels which are, frankly, terrifying and impressive.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Tom Clancy’s The Division makes a repeat appearance, the first being Microsoft’s early morning conference.
From what we’ve seen so far, it looks like an interesting mix between The Last Of Us-style psychotic post-apoc factional warfare, and classic Clancy tactical shooter mechanics. The soldiers’ high tech gadgets paint an interesting juxtaposition against the devastation of the setting. During the Ubisoft briefing, we got our first good look at the story behind the Division — how our New York devolved into the shattered, apocalyptic mess of The Division’s New York.
As it turns out, the world has been ravaged by a horrible, highly fatal disease, causing our whole fragile system to go beyond falling apart to actively tear itself apart. It’s your classic, “scraping by for survival turns otherwise normal people into psychotic, aggressive monsters.” In earlier gameplay footage, it was common to hear people wonder aloud whether the voices we heard during the gameplay were in-character voices, or a crew of players organizing themselves via voice chat. It turns out that the latter was true, so The Division would seem to be placing a high premium on the multiplayer co-op aspect.
The Crew
The Crew makes a lofty promise: A single world with an open road system spanning the entire USA from coast-to-coast.
They did show a gameplay trailer, but the whole thing was a car going 100+ MPH. So it’s not like we got very detailed looks at many of the settings, but they sure looked pretty as they blurred by!
The rendering and lighting technology does look top notch, which is important for the immersion of a racing game like this.
Creative Director Julian Gerrety (sp?) took to the stage to talk about the game, stating that there are multiple 2 hour+ long missions that take you across the entire country. According to Gerrety (?), the team has gone through an extensive testing process, and the feedback they received has driven a number of features that will ship with the final game.
Co-op missions and crew battles will likely dominate the competitive multiplayer scene. And we saw our second beta announcement of the show: It starts July 23rd. The Crew is set to release 11/11/2014.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity
Assassin’s Creed: Unity took the stage next. And I gotta say, I was salivating at the image of the guillotine, er– I mean…
The French Revolution is a wonderful setting for the new game, Paris is a beautiful choice for the next historical-realization Assassin’s Creed treatment, and the French Revolution is a very exciting time perfectly suited to AC’s dominant narrative themes.
In classic Assassin’s Creed marketing fashion, there was an extensive, big-budget pre-rendered short film before any game play footage was shown. And of course it was beautiful, and of course it had badassery coming out the wazoo, and of course it told you next to nothing about the actual gameply.
Luckily they followed through with some gameplay.
The protagonist Assassin is named Arno. He boasts a wrist-mounted crossbow, a pistol, and a french cutlass by default.
The developers behind AC:Unity claim that the system has been rebuilt from the ground up to improve flexibility and diversity of play style. Now, the AC series is well-beloved, to be sure, but it certainly suffers from a bit of the stale, been-there done-that. Hardcore fans are going to pick up Unity no matter what, but if Ubisoft wants to maintain the vast sales numbers it has enjoyed so far, I think we’ll have to see some really new stuff from the newest of our pointy-hooded protagonists.
The combat doesn’t appear to be materially different from any other AC we’ve already played. So there’s some legitimate concern that combat may become more of a chore than a joy, as it has a tendency to do (if you don’t feel like being creative and making your own fun with the arsenal of tools at your disposal).
One thing did jump out: It looks like there will be a lot more traveling through the inside buildings without loading screen transitions (like Taverns, etc from previous games).
The most impressive thing about the gameplay footage, though, was the rendering of the crowds. These riotous crowds are absolutely massive, and AC:U’s ability to faithfully render so many entities while looking so damn pretty is pretty amazing in and of itself.
Of course there’s been a lot of clamor for a non-western Assassin’s Creed setting, but that aside, the French Revolution seems like an absolutely perfect choice of setting.
Check out the Assassin’s Creed: Unity gameplay trailer right here on BSR.
Shape Up
Next we see an Xbox One exclusive called called Shape Up.
“Fitness is boring.” says Charles Huteau, creative director for Shape Up. But he goes on to promise that your workout will finally become an “epic game.”
The game uses the Kinect camera to record your previous performances and makes you battle against your previous self.
I’ve never spent a lot of time with any of these fitness games, but I do applaud the attempt in general.
After getting a better score than his previously recorded workout, Huteau said, “In your face, Charlie from the past.”
So in the name of… um, funsies, I guess? They pit a slightly out of shape American (in a… neckerchief? Ascot? It’s not the best look I’ve ever seen paired with a red t-shirt) against a pretty in-shape french guy. Frankly this whole thing was just kind of embarrassing to watch. They also accidentally highlighted one of the game’s weakness, the American guy —Gary from San Francisco — technically won. But if you watch the video, the French guy’s push-ups went lower, so the French guy probably did a lot more work than the other guy. This is the problem with Kinect- or Wii-type fitness, a camera and/or a balance board can only see so much, and it’s unlikely to tell you when you’re doing it wrong. (And doing it wrong can be really bad for you.)
Valiant Hearts
Next we got a not-very-informative look at Valiant Hearts, set in WWI between 1914-1918. It was created with the engine powering Rayman, and boasts a unique illustrative aesthetic. There’s also a sad puppy in the teaser that was a bit too Jurassic Bark for me — it made me sad.
The trailer was sparsely punctuated with actual gameplay footage, leaning heavy on the narrative aspect instead. The story does look a lot more affecting and sincere than the animation style might suggest.
Rainbow Six: Siege
Yves Guillemot emerged to show us one last game at the tail end of the show. Spoiler alert: It was Rainbow Six: Siege.
What we watched was labeled as pre-alpha footage, but it looked absolutely gorgeous. We watched a classic, Counterstrike-style rescue-the-hostage multiplayer match.
The match is between “Team Raven” and “Team Rogue.” In an interesting AI moment, the hostage herself actually spots the counter-terrorist’s little snake-drone camera, which was sent in to check out the scene. She crawls towards it and begs for help. A nice touch of emotional impact.
The breaching team surveys the area and plans their assault while the terrorists run around the house reinforcing various entryways and windows, and laying booby traps. The rescue team decides to drop onto the roof via helicopter. They hook in and vertically rappel down the outside of the unassuming suburban house via rappel lines. An explosive breach-and-enter scene ensues.
Highly destructible environment means there are no permanently safe place to turtle. We also watched the hostage-takers reinforcing and booby-trapping various entrances. The walls of the house are blown apart by bullet fire and grenades alike. It looks like your classic Counterstrike style gameplay, but brought up to date with some of the latest in FPS multiplayer tech.
The gameplay footage is intense, fast paced, and strategically interesting. The use of tech like remote-controlled snake-cam drones add a lot of complexity to the battle — not to mention the tactical wall and floor breaching. It looks like there are about a thousand ways the match could have played out.
Ubisoft knows what it’s doing with this stuff. Yes, it has been six years since our last official Rainbow Six title, but frankly, this looks amazing.