To kick off Sony’s E3 2018 press conference, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II was shown, with a new cinematic furthering Ellie’s characterisation into the realm of a lesbian relationship, and gameplay footage showing off the brutal combat you’d expect from the series but revealing the protagonist to be, in fact, Ellie this time around. Stealth mechanics, distracting whistles, salvaging for weapons and equipment, world-class voice acting and desperately intense combat is certainly the order of the day. Be sure to check out the trailer below:

I'm calling it, I'm finally letting go of Alan Wake. There is more to Remedy than its hoodie-and-tweed-wearing writer hero, and more to the studio's trademark brand of pulpy sci-fi than his gravelly, never-ending voice-overs. This is a good thing. Six years on from Wake's last outing, with no sequel in sight and Remedy's odd, live-action hybrid Quantum Break out of the way, Control feels like a clean break for Remedy.
Control is the studio's first game for PlayStation 4 - its first for any Sony platform since Max Payne 2 on PS2 - something underlined by its unveiling at Sony's E3 conference. ("It felt like a good way to announce it this way and make this statement," Sam Lake, Remedy's chief writer and public face of the studio tells me after.) Control is also a clean slate to tell a new story with a more modern approach - albeit one which will still feel familiar to the studio's fans.
The demo shown to press at E3 2018 is a proper peek at what everybody saw during the game's Sony conference trailer. You play as Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope, AKA Beth in Quantum Break), who like all Remedy protagonists is skilled in third-person shooting and physics manipulation while exploring dark, mysterious surroundings. These surroundings will host a big change for Control - a space to explore with a narrative path, but also side-missions and Metroidvania-inspired exploration. At one point in the demo we pass a series of prison cells, the unlucky occupant of one screaming for help. It's a side-mission which we can return to later.

When EA Sports released the free World Cup update for FIFA 18, some players thought it played differently compared to the main game. Actually, it was more than some - there were loads of players who thought it played differently.
These players, who suspected EA Sports had tinkered with the gameplay of FIFA 18 for the World Cup update on the quiet, , with . I've also seen plenty of people say the World Cup mode plays more "arcadey" than the main FIFA 18 game, with overpowered shooting from distance. I've also seen people say , and even spotted the suggestion .
The truth is, the gameplay in the World Cup update is exactly the same as the gameplay in the main FIFA 18 game, Andrei Lazarescu, producer of the Switch version of FIFA and the World Cup update confirmed to me at E3. So, why do players think there's a difference?

Fresh off the back of Microsoft's announcement that even more titles are headed to the company's Netflix-like subscription platform, you can now get yourself a six-month membership of Xbox Game Pass for half its regular price, for a limited time.
At E3, Microsoft was proud to showcase some new additions to its Xbox Game Pass service, with promises of Halo: Master Chief Collection and Forza Horizon 4 later in the year and next year's Crackdown 3 available at launch.
The company also proudly announced its FastStart tech, which uses machine learning to get you playing your Game Pass games even quicker, starting with the June Xbox One update. For now, though, you can get yourself a and gain access to hundreds of existing titles including Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, Spelunky, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+, Halo 5, Fable 3 and many more.

Our E3 bulletins run every day this week. Previous entries: |
E3 2018 has now officially started. This fact is almost completely lost on those who have been working on it and watching it and creating disparate reams of #content on it, who have been processing announcements and livestreams that began last week. The harsh reality of the 21st century is that E3, like Black Friday and Brexit, can no longer be bound by the rules of time and will continue until morale and revenue improves.
As usual, opening was marked by a Nintendo happening, the scale of which has dwindled in recent years from full-bore conference to pre-prepared video, and this year hit its lowest ebb for a while with a performance that was light on wit, heavy on Smash Brothers, and yet which contained possibly the most significant release of the week in the form of Fortnite, which went live on Switch following the conference.

CD Projekt has finally pulled back the curtain on Cyberpunk 2077, revealing the game to press behind closed doors at E3 this week.
I saw a 50 minute live uncut gameplay demo and was blown away by the level of detail in Night City, the open world in which the game takes place. During the demo, a number of eye-catching features of the game were revealed. Here's everything I discovered during our Cyberpunk 2077 behind closed doors demo:
Cyberpunk is a first-person role-playing game. You play the game from a first-person perspective, shooting weapons in the traditional FPS style, with dialogue choices appearing on screen.

If you watched Bethesda's E3 conference, you saw all of Fallout 76 that the publisher was willing to show last week. If you missed the conference and only care about Fallout and don't want to watch an Andrew W.K. mini-concert or talk about The Elder Scrolls Online before getting to what you want, Bethesda has made the Fallout 76 gameplay portion of the conference available online.
You can hear Todd Howard talk about the new online Fallout here. 
Fallout 76 releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The E3 Nintendo Direct presentation largely focused on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but it scattered in a few surprises along the way. One such surprise was Ninjala, a new family-friendly ninja game where characters compete in battles involving bubble gum and inflatable weapons. I went hands on with the colorful title and spoke with GungHo CEO Kazuki Morishita about the new title.
Ninjala gives Splatoon vibes from the very first glance. The colorful, young characters with stylish clothes and bright hair look as though they could be a part of the same universe as Nintendo’s inklings. However, despite the team’s affection for Splatoon, they wanted to make a brawler instead of a shooter.
Before you can jump into 8-player action and beat up your opponents, you must inflate your weapon. You do this by blowing a massive bubble using bubblegum and funneling that air into the weapon. Depending on which gum you choose, you get a different weapon. Weapons range from baseball bats and clubs to yo-yos. The bigger the bubble you blow, the bigger the weapon is.
Large weapons are slow, but powerful, while short weapons can be made quickly and swung fast. In addition, you can use the bubble as a projectile to stick enemies to the ground temporarily or hold it in your mouth to run up walls. If you get the drop on an enemy and charge up your swing, you can unleash a massive hit and score an Ippon – a one-hit K.O. If you don’t want to challenge other players, you can earn points by defeating drones. However, you don’t earn nearly as many points for destroying these harmless robots.

Battles are frantic and fun. Whether you’re running up a wall to avoid a massive bubble heading your way or whacking an opponent over the head with an inflatable club, Ninjala overflows with goofy action and absurd moments.
GungHo recently released the ultraviolent collaboration with Grasshopper Manufacture, Let It Die. Now, the studio is going in a different direction. Rather than focusing on the hyperviolence, blood, and gore of Let It Die, Ninjala is a cute game about young ninjas fighting each other with unimposing weapons.

“When I made Let it Die, I had a different environment, and what I felt at the time was different than when I was making this,” Morishita says. “When I was making Puzzle & Dragons, I was making a kind of peaceful puzzle game, but then I got under a lot of stress and that’s where Let It Die came from. [Laughs] Then, after that, I came back with Ninjala. So I feel good right now. [Laughs].”
Currently, GungHo is working on maps loosely based on real cities and regions around the world. I played in the New York map, but so far, the team can confirm Japan, Europe, and Egypt as regions players will visit. GungHo is also planning additional support through post-release updates, but Morishita won’t elaborate on the team’s plans.

In addition to team battle and free-for-all multiplayer modes, Ninjala features a single-player mode. Though no details are available for this mode currently, if it’s anything like the single-player modes in Splatoon, I’m looking forward to it.
Oozing with personality and attitude, Ninjala is a fun, accessible multiplayer brawler that seems like a perfect fit for Switch’s audience. NInjala launches in 2019 exclusively on Switch.

Tags: Nintendo, E3

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The Metro Exodus E3 2018 demo was based on the same content we saw back in February for the March cover story, giving the world its first chance to see the boundary-pushing graphics, unforgiving gameplay, and ambitious transition from the linear focused Metro underground to the harsh, more open Russian countryside that convinced us to put the game on the cover of Game Informer. Running at 4K on the Xbox One X console, the game's beauty won over many. But the demo wasn't without its share of gameplay hiccups.
The shooting felt good, and all of the game's systems were online, but we noticed a few rough spots as well. Collision issues made moving across the countryside more burdensome than it should be, framerate drops disrupted the gameplay, and the rowboat Artyom uses to explore the Volga River region outside Moscow was tough to steer. When we brought these issues up to executive producer Jon Bloch, he said the team is keenly aware of the current build's shortcomings and the team has more than enough time to hone the experience. 
"We've never shown Metro on a console this early before, and we felt like it was appropriate for showing off this content on Xbox One X in 4K – it's already there," Bloch says. "Yes, we have some polish to go, and yes, there's still some performance stuff to nail, but it's already in good shape, so trust us when we say this extra time really is focused on polish. We're not still making the game at this point, we're smoothing it out."
Since the game is content complete and feature complete, the 4A Games to-do list in the lead-up to Metro Exodus' February launch includes raising all the levels up to the quality bar the team has set, smoothing out environmental collision both on foot and in vehicles, plugging narrative gaps they noticed once they strung the levels together, and fine-tuning performance.
Given 4A Game's strong track record, we're inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that the game will be running smoothly by deadline. Metro Exodus is scheduled to launch alongside a surprisingly strong lineup (Anthem, Days Gone) on February 22 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

TT Games has been steadily releasing Lego titles for more than a decade now, bringing notable franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Marvel and DC comics to life in charming, family friendly games. While the frequency of releases has been reliable, its quality has occasionally slipped. If you were frustrated with the state of Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 at launch, , either. TT Games has been examining how to revitalize its games moving forward, starting with the upcoming Lego DC Super-Villains. I played the E3 demo and chatted with Arthur Parsons, head of design at TT Games, about what the studio is doing to make the best possible game – for both returning players and newcomers. 
There’s a lot to unpack with this game, so I’ll focus on the big things first. Lego DC Super-Villains is the first time that players will get to play through a campaign centered around the best part of most stories: the bad guys. “Everyone loves playing as Vader or Voldemort, or whoever the bad guys are,” Parsons says.” And because of the wealth of source material here, TT Games had a lot to work with. “DC’s villains, I think they out of every IP we’ve ever touched, they’ve got the best roster of villains. By a long way.”
Players have been able to play as the baddies in free play in the DC games, with one exception. “In Lego Batman 1 we had villain levels, but you had to complete the whole hero bit first,” Parsons says. “They were actually the most fun bit of Lego Batman 1, but we’ve not been there since. When it came time to do another DC game, villains was the obvious choice. It effectively feels like a new IP.”
While you’ll interact with bad guys like Lex Luther, Joker, and Harley Quinn, there’s also another major player in town: you. “For the first time ever, the customizer is important to the game,” Parsons says. “Normally it’s an afterthought; it’s just something for free play. This time around, the first thing you do is create your own villain who joins with the Legion of Doom. But the villain that you create is actually important in the story, and you can upgrade them along the way, so they have the ability to absorb energy, so you get new powers and new abilities, and it’s a character who weaves in and out of the story all the way right through the end.”
If you don’t care all that much about your character, you can pick from a variety of presets or have the game come up with a random selection. Lego veterans know the depth that players have with their created characters, and it’s fully on display here. You have a wide array of options at your disposal, from decals, body parts, and weapons, right down to your villain’s backstory. Your character has an absorption ability, so he or she can acquire new powers throughout the campaign. When it’s over, it’s possible to end up with an overpowered jack-of-all-trades style villain, who can deftly handle gold and silver blocks, laser-cutting puzzles, and anything else that gets in the way – similar to how the unlockable Stan Lee character acts in the Lego Marvel titles.
The demo is a silly escape from Stryker’s Island, where Lex Luther and Mercy help my created character out of the prison. As we move from one brick-bashing location to the next, I also get to play as Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, Joker, and Harley. There isn’t anything particularly mind-blowing about any of it, but it does highlight some of the refinements that TT Games has made – refinements that are a long time coming. For example, when you encounter a situation that requires a specific character’s ability, control will automatically leap to that villain.
“We’ve put a lot of attention on accessibility with this game,” Parsons explains. “We don’t want kids to get roadblocked, we don’t want anyone getting frustrated not knowing what to do.” In one area, I climb to the top of an area with wall jumps. Once I get to the top, Cheetah jumps away from the opening to prevent her from accidentally falling back down. “I know that’s not much of a touch, but all those little things, people just get through the content nice and easy and they don’t get roadblocked,” Parsons says. 
Parsons says that his team went back to the studio’s earlier games as an exercise, and played through them again. It ended up providing them with some great internal feedback, including the realization that it’s quite easy to get stuck on the first levels of their games. “We can’t allow that to happen. I know when I play games, and you get to a point where you get frustrated or there are roadblocks, you put the controller down, and sometimes you won’t come back. That’s just unacceptable. We create all this content, and we spend a lot of time creating it, and we want everyone to be able to get through it.”
Technical issues have been a problem for the Lego games, too, and those have been given special attention. Sometimes, the solution comes from avoiding problem areas altogether. I build a drivable gadget with Joker, and after I place the final brick, the character automatically moves a little bit away from the creation. “You know far too well that some games in the past once you build something, sometimes you get embedded in it or wedged into things,” Parsons says, “Little things like that help stop these little niggly bugs and irritants that are going to come through.”
One such irritant is the platforming. It’s never felt great in the games, and characters have a tendency to fall during lengthy jumping sections. Parsons says it’s being addressed with DC Super-Villains. “People won’t notice, but there will be slight magnetism, so if you’re doing a jump and you kind of drift, we’ll sort of auto drift you back, but you won’t notice it. In terms of refinements from say, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 to this one, there will be several thousand, but people won’t necessarily notice them because they’re all little tiny bits here, there, and everywhere. It’s that constant evolution. We do try to get better and better at what we do.” 
Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 ended up being a bit of a wake-up call for TT Games. As I mentioned in , it was loaded with technical issues that made it difficult to play. “Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 in my mind is a great game, but there were a few bugs and glitches when it came out,” Parsons says. “They’re all fixed in a patch now, but the problem is they shouldn’t be there in the first place.” He says his team is working to do everything they can to make sure this game ships bug-free. “ The way we’ve had to do that is actually lengthen our debug phase. It’s more than double for this than if we were doing a normal dev cycle. The results of this should be that when people get it in their hands it’s slick and it’s clean.”
We won’t know until the game’s October 16 release date if they’re successful, but what I played was rock solid. I appreciate the little quality-of-life touches , such as automatically switching characters during some sections in single player. After years of playing the games, I’ve gotten used to some of the peculiarities. But as Parsons says, his audience is constantly changing. “As kids graduate up and start playing Fortnite, there’s a whole new package of kids that come and are going to play it. Despite all the Lego games we’ve made, this could be someone’s very first Lego game.”
Hopefully, the little touches and improvements will make life much easier and more fun for those new players. Me, I’m just eager to hang with Joker and his friends.