The Best and Boldest: Ted’s Shockingly Bold E3 Predictions
Ted Hentschke
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A dash of Bloodborne 2. A pinch of Halo 6. Generous chunks of Devil May Cry 5. Bring to a simmer. Garnish with Half-Life 3. Pour generous servings directly into the toilet. That’s how you make a quality E3 rumor stew.
Yes, it’s that time of year again! The winds of change are blowing, and the sails of the rumor mills twirl and grind out a fresh batch of quality speculation, ready to mulch into fresh memes and half-baked theories. June means E3—the largest video game conference in the world—and with it the endless torrents of predictions, leaks, “leaks,” speculation, and altogether clickbait nonsense. 2018 is no different, and for weeks my news feed has been saturated by various images of dubious leaked press releases and press conference lineups.
The real question is, why aren’t I getting in on all of these delicious clicks! I’ve been going to E3 for 6 years now, where’s my fucking trophy? Dread Central is heading to E3 in force this year, with all your favorite Teds and Jonathans doing their best to bring you the video game coverage of your dreams. So I’m doing my part to kick things off a bit early this year with my E3 predictions. We’ve got quite the show coming up, so broken down by showcase and developer, here’s what I think is in store for us. Keep in mind, I’m only listing games that would be relevant to DC readers, so sorry if I miss the new FIFA or whatever.
But wait, there’s more! If you’ve checked out my other two prediction articles (as I know you have), you can go ahead and just take a power drill to your frontal lobe right now. All that noise, that’s the cheap stuff we sell to the kids that don’t know better. Naw, you wana E3 like a professional? You gotta predict like a professional. And that means going all in on longshots with only the faintest hope of paying off. Because who wants to be just a guy with a moderate understanding of an industry and measured responses to various hints and announcements, when you can be a God Damned Legend.
God Damned Legend right here
EA Prediction – Dungeon Keeper 3: War For the Overworld
EA is way more than just an industry punching bag at this point. It’s become the figurehead for what everyone assumes is wrong with the gaming industry. Pumping out yearly installments of popular franchises? Check. Charging astronomical fees to unlock your game’s content? Check. Consistently releasing games with anemic content, then demanding pricey season passes to bring it up to the level acceptable in a game released in 2001? Check and check. Never forget, EA was voted the worst company in America. Twice. Back to back performances. That’s right, a company that makes technically impressive yet repetitive sports games and shooters was voted as worse than tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies, agricultural giants, industrial prison systems, and paramilitary organizations. Okay, guys, I agree that lootboxes are annoying, but EA doesn’t literally kill people. There are at least a handful of companies that have that as their main advertised service.
And to think, EA could change the public’s perception and start losing their massive profits if they just got back to their roots and published some sweet indie games that no one remembers. As a self-important alpha bearded meganerd, I think that should be Dungeon Keeper. In a time where God games were flourishing and Peter Molyneux made games instead of dreams, a younger and more fragile Ted fell in love. That love was Dungeon Keeper 2. I spent dozens of hours during my prenatally allocated “computer time” carving out new rooms, setting labyrinthine traps, and training my minions to the highest level for no reason other than to see if I could. To give you a frame of reference, I was so young that I played Dungeon Keeper make-believe on my neighbor’s trampoline. Many hours were willed away bouncing around, debating who got to be the Black Knight and who was the Dark Angel, and which one of us the Dark Mistress was most likely to smooch.
What I’m saying is, the young boy inside me wants more Dungeon Keeper. And not that mobile catastrophe they came out with in 2014. But would this be a bold prediction if I just wanted an older, lesser known franchise to be resurrected? By the great Horned Demon, no! Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld is going to be a battle royale. Think about it (but not too hard). It’s perfect. You drop in from a plane, but instead of just landing, you burrow into the ground. It’s a mad scramble to harvest as much gold and claim as many minion portals as you can before encountering other players. As the game goes on, earthquakes cause the dungeons to scoot closer and closer together. Eventually, the cavernous halls intertwine into one big chaotic fight to the death. EA, take my money!
Microsoft: Voodoo Vince 2
In a revelation that will shock no one, one of my favorite pastimes is to memorize useless trivia knowledge on the off chance that I’ll be able to use it one day to feel superior. The amount of pointless statistics, long forgotten analogs, and pseudo-intellectual quotes and tidbits filling up my brain should be considered brain damage. Without me and the handful of you out there like me, this lexicon of pointless nothingness might fade into the ether where it belongs. What does this have to do with Voodoo Vince? Uh…
Similar to Dead Head Fred, Voodoo Vince was a publisher exclusive adventure platformer birthed and developed around the title sounding funny. Also, the games both happen to be quite good (I’m more of a Dead Head Fred guy myself, but that’s just because I’m a Sony shill fanboy with no independent thought). The Xbox is currently hurting for more exclusives, and Voodoo Vince 2 would kill three birds with one stone. One, it would resurrect a long dead franchise, a la Shenmue. Two, 3D adventure platformers are basically dead, so it would also be resurrecting the genre. And third, it would give Microsoft a loveable Xbox mascot that could finally compete with Knack of Knack fame. I mean, let’s be real. You’ll never beat Knack. But it’s a start.
Bethesda: Rogue Warrior – Dark Corners of the Earth
Hey, remember when Bethesda published that revolutionary horror shooter Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? If you don’t, you seriously should check it out. Essentially a crowdfunded fan project before Kickstarter even existed, Dark Corners of the Earth is a testament to how a messy yet fundamentally good idea can transcend budget. It’s one of the first game to use an invisible HUD, had an innovative damage and healing system, and even used a sanity system way before Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Rogue Warrior, on the other hand, is a phenomenally crappy hyper-macho shooter that everyone should be actively trying to scrub from their brains as fast as possible. Based on the exploits of real life crazy person and SEAL Team Six founder Richard “Dick” Marcinko, the game is a four hour thesis project on how not to make a shooter. It’s mostly remembered for featuring the voice work of Mickey Rourke, and for giving us this:
So why these two titles? What sense does this mashup even make? Well, maybe I think it would be genuinely fun to play through a serious horror game as the living embodiment of a machine designed only for killing. You show up, the fish men get all cagey, and before they can even chortle out the first, “you’re not welcome, outsider…” boom! Knife to the throat. Maybe I have a vested interest in trying to bring the horror and action genres together, enticing a new generation to the dark side. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to link the Mickey Rourke funky freestyle. The world may never know.
Square Enix: Nosgoth – Battle Royale
Stop me when this sounds awesome. Let’s reboot the Legacy of Kain games. I know, you already stopped me, but let me keep going. Now, instead of just playing as Kain or Raziel, let’s see what life was like for everyone else in the vampire empire. All these different clans, not to mention the people they enslaved. Let’s focus on the conflict between the vampires and the humans, and maybe make some kind of kickass asymmetric shooter. Let’s give the humans some sweet guns and gadgets, while the vampires have magic and big sharp claws.
If this all sounds great to you, well guess what? You already missed it. Nosgoth is a game that was already drafted, created, and released into Beta before being canned two years ago. I played it a good deal, and was genuinely surprised to see it die off. Was it because of the game’s steep learning curve? Or was it the lengthy development cycle?
For my two cent’s I just don’t think it jumped on the bandwagon hard enough. So this time, let’s fix that! Introducing: Nosgoth – Battle Royale. Because why have 10 players when you could have 100. In this game, players stage a breakout from a vampire transport zeppelin over the lands of Nosgoth. Choosing when to jump to the earth below, they must gather supplies and craft defenses before the vampire slave-hunters show up. Do you work together to survive, or kill your fellow man for better loot? Sounds like a winner to me.
Ubisoft: Warm Fear
I’m going to just own up to this being the weakest shit in this whole article. I’m trying to do a game for every major press conference, but I just cannot for the life of me come up with a single Ubisoft game that would cause me considerable shock and awe. Then I remembered that Cold Fear was a game, and that I kinda liked it. The big gimmick for Cold Fear was that a good chunk of the game took place on a boat, meaning you would have to account for the swaying of the deck during the combat. It was a super cool idea, but if memory serves they eventually just set you down on an oil rig and forget the whole “grabbing a railing to stabilize yourself” gimmick.
Sooooooo, surfboards. That’s how they avoid a repeat cop-out. The whole game takes place in Hawaii, and you have to “surf to survive.” It’s like Dead Island mixed with Resident Evil mixed with the authentic experience of trying to surf in Oceanside, California. Just chaos, the undead, and a shit-ton of gunfire.
I once got stabbed here.
Devolver Digital: An Actual Dumpster Fire
Like Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, we all know that Devolver is here to just fuck with us. The question isn’t if, it’s how much. Last year’s surrealist satire was art, but even then it revealed some new game stuff. Not ones to be outdone—even when it’s by themselves—I’m willing to bet Devolver kicks the weird up to 11. Introducing, the Devolver Dumpster Fire.
No, I’m not talking about a game. I’m talking about an actual dumpster fire. Not just any dumpster (these are professionals), a specific dumpster pre-picked for the significance it has on the gaming community. Could this be a dumpster full of their own money? Could it be a dumpster full of the E.T. Atari 2600 games? Perhaps it’s just brimming with the applications for the press who couldn’t get in? The real question isn’t why, but what does it all mean?
Now this is art
Capcom: Onimusha – Just Jacques
Most of us gamers fondly remember walking through our neighborhood video game store as a kid. Maybe it was the electronics section at Target or a major retailer like GameCrazy, EB Games, or the now omnipresent GameStop. For me it was a GameStop. I used to spend hours walking through the store as the hall of box cover faces stared at me with the pleading puppy-dog eyes. Each pleading for a home, just begging to be bought and loved. And then, there was this guy.
Hey, isn’t that the dude from Léon: The Professional? Why yes, yes it is! But isn’t this a video game? Right again! In an early attempt to combine the popularity of western cinema with the audacious game design of Japanese action RPGs, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege featured French actor Jean Reno in one of the leading roles. Why Jean Reno? Why cast a contemporary French actor to play a modern day detective in a game previously about fighting demons in feudal Japan? Because that face needs to be on some box art. And you know what? It’s time for that “did you really brush your teeth, young man” scowl to haunt a new generation of children.
Sony: Lair VR
Here’s a term you haven’t heard in a while: Sixaxis! That’s right, you had forgotten that the Playstation 3 had built in motion controls. I remember there was a time when people debated about if the Sixaxis was just as sensitive as the Wii. It turns out it wouldn’t matter because motion controls in a traditional game are about as welcome as having to repeatedly pick ants off of your sandwich. But Sony sure as hell wouldn’t learn that before Lair.
Now I wouldn’t call Lair a bad game, just hilariously poorly handled. First, they claimed that they could only get the level of fidelity they wanted through the Sixaxis controls. Then, when reviewers said the game played like garbage, Sony blamed the reviewers and released an instructional guide on how to play the game. Then, they tried to patch out most of the damage, before eventually giving up entirely and just patching it again to let you use normal analogue stick controls. From “can’t play without it” to “can’t play with it” in record time.
But there’s a kind of audacity to it that I admire. Fuck how people want to play their games, they will use your pointless new gimmick and they will like it. We need that with VR. I want a Lair VR where the only way you can control your dragon is by turning your head. You go faster by sharply leaning forward, and slower by leaning back. You can only spit fire by bobbing your head forward in repeated jabs like a pigeon. And if you want to do a barrel roll, you have to actually do a barrel roll. Now that’s some game design.
PC Gaming: Make Day[9] Laugh
What do I mean by Make Day[9] Laugh? Simple, a game where my only purpose is to amuse Day[9]. Yes, the actual Sean Day[9] Plott. I don’t care how long the wait times are or how crowded the lobbies. This is the game I want. Is this possibly an excuse to just link the video of Day[9] laughing again? More than possibly.
Nintendo: Pikmin – The Cursed Mountain
I just really want to see a horror Pikmin game.
Think you have bolder predictions than me? Let me know in the comments section. For all our E3 coverage, make sure to follow our social media tag #DreadE3 and you can also read all our other coverage right here!
Categorized:Horror Gaming News
