E3 2017 Predictions

Written by The GN Staff on 6/9/2017 for 360   3DS   AV   MOB   PC   PS3   PS4   SWI   VR   WiiU   XONE  

It's the start of June which means that E3 is right around the corner and thus it's time for our staff to offer their prognostications about what to expect at the show next week.  Microsoft is poised to take the lid off of their Scorpio hardware, Sony has a slate of new games to show off, and Nintendo is looking to build on the launch of the Switch.  Heck even Bethesda has been using E3 to announce new games.

This year we broke our predictions into three categories.  Safe predictions that are sure to happen, Risky predictions that are less likely to happen, and Super stretch predictions that are mega-ton/didn't see that coming predictions.  Here are our predictions:

Safe predictions
John Yan - Death Stranding and Last of Us 2 get new teasers. Sony loves to give glimpses of upcoming big titles for their platform and Death Stranding along with The Last of Us 2 are two of their biggest coming in the next few years. Expect new looks for both games and maybe a release date for Death Stranding at E3.

Randy Kalista - Bethesda snagged unprecedented success with Fallout Shelter at Bethesda E3 2015. With that in mind, I think all these resurfacing reports of Bethesda's "Starfield" trademark renewal will end up being a sci-fi mobile game, deliverable on stage to people's phones, the moment Todd Howard announces it on Sunday evening, June 11 at #BE3 2017. Again, repeating their success with Fallout Shelter, this Starfield mobile game will be a harbinger to a full Starfield PC and console game launching within five months.

Rob Larkin - Project Scorpio is announced, under a new name, and it underwhelms. There will be some promise behind elevated specs that will make fanboys get fired up but for the rest of us this mid-life bump won't move the needle much at all. 

Nicholas Leon - News about the PS4 exclusive Spider-Man game, as well as some new info on the Star Wars games in development by companies besides DICE. Also, more Amiibos announced by Nintendo.

Dan Colonna - More Star Wars Battlefront 2 details are released - maybe even a new trailer. News about DLC for Horizon Zero Dawn. More details around God of War 4.

Kevin O'Connell - Borderlands 3 will be shown off with a possible release date of next fall.

Matt Mirkovich - Cuphead and other Xbox indie titles are finally getting solid release dates, unfortunately they all time with the release of the Scorpio.

Charles Husemann - Crackdown 3 finally gets a release date and MS reveals that the game will have some extra enhancements thanks to the horsepower of the Scorpio.  Frontier Development announces some decent new QOL enhancements for the next patch along with some new bits about the Thargoids.  

Patrick Aloia - New Bethesda IP, that promotional art was deliberate, and Bethesda is a pretty deliberate company when it comes to releases, even if they obfuscate things on the way to a release. Definitely more Switch third party titles. A Dylan  teaser and  Project Scorpio is finally announced (and I agree with Rob, in that it will likely underwhelm)

Kinsey Danzis - Sony is going to present a bunch of games for PS4 that have been seen at previous E3s (we're talking God of War, Days Gone, and the new Spider-Man game. Microsoft will announce the release date of Project Scorpio but they'll overwhelm the presentation with a bunch of technical lingo that makes it seem more impressive than it really is.

Nathan Carter - Halo 6 will at the very least be announced, though I suspect it will be a few years away before release. Nintendo will have the best showing by announcing boat loads of new and exciting game for the Switch. Sony will disappoint me once again by not announcing a new Syphon Filter

Russell Archey - The Spyro PS1 games will get remastered.  Remastering games seems to be all the rage these days, or at least it seems to be with some properties.  We've seen PaRappa the Rapper recently get an HD upgrade and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is on its way, so it only makes sense for Spyro to get the same treatment.  With Crash and Spyro being two of the most well known franchises on the PS1 and the Skylanders series is still pretty popular, it's kind of a no-brainer to give the purple dragon the HD treatment.

Chapel Collins - The last two years, one of my predictions has been the announcement of Elder Scrolls VI. The last year in particular, I spent a lot of time digging for clues, essentially going full on A Beautiful Mind about it. Eventually, Todd Howard must have gotten tired of me pushing hastily drawn diagrams and letters under his door and made the announcement that Elder Scrolls VI was a long time away. So, in order to keep with tradition, my safe prediction is that we won't hear one word about Elder Scrolls this time around.

Sean Colleli - Nintendo puts almost all of their focus on Super Mario Odyssey, but the game will be delayed until at least summer 2018 and they'll shakily attempt to float holiday 2017 entirely on Splatoon 2 and ARMS, considering all the noise they've been making to market those games. They've done this the past couple years--focus on one IP almost to the exclusion of all others--but lest we forget Zelda Breath of the Wild was delayed twice, ultimately releasing two whole years later than its initial launch window.

Risky predictions
John Yan - Fallout 4 VR will be released the night of the Bethesda Press Event. Fallout 4 VR has been shown for over a year and talk was it was going to be released sometime in early 2017. That didn't happen but Todd Howard has been on record saying you can play it from start to finish right now in VR. If the release isn't that night, I can't see it going much further into the future.

Randy Kalista - Friendly developer rivals start throwing each other under the bus. Specifically, Former president of Rockstar North, Leslie Benzies, comes out, promoting his upcoming open world Everywhere game, and hinting that Red Dead Redemption 2's delay into 2018 is probably because he's not there doing the heavy lifting. The other beef will come from Patrice Desilets of Assassin's Creed fame, saying that his Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey will be everything Ubisoft is too scared to do with the Assassin's Creed series.

Rob Larkin - Sony will show a number of new and exciting games but leave PSVR unloved. This will be a fairly clear signal that the hardware is going to soon be abandoned.

Nicholas Leon - Bioware's new IP will be formally announced.

Dan Colonna - Nintendo gives details regarding their Virtual Console / Classic Games plans for the Switch, and announces pricing for their online plan.

Kevin O'Connell - Forza 7 will be delayed until Christmas and will grow further away from the line of thinking that made Forza 4 so outstanding.  There will be way too many cars to fit into a career sidelined with too many rules so cars you want to drive sit and rust.  The graphics will be outstanding and so will the new weather changes, but the track list will be way too limited.  Look for no change in the absurd DLC system that adds tons of money atop a steep starting price.

Matt Mirkovich - Square Enix comes out and states that the Final Fantasy VII remake is going to launch its first episode in time for Christmas 2017. Kingdom Hearts 3 is a 2020 title now.  Square also decides to back the Switch in the West, hard, and announces the Secret of Mana collection, and Dragon Quest X for western releases, giving American gamers for the first time a chance to legitimately play Seiken Densetsu 3.

Charles Husemann - Microsoft shows the first trailer from Halo 6 and Gears 5.  Both of which have 2018 release dates.  EA takes the covers off at least one new Star Wars game.  

Patrick Aloia -  Blood Borne 2 announcement and release date. I know people think it could happen but I don't really buy it. A new Smash Bros game for Switch, I don't think it will, but it might happen.

Kinsey Danzis - More announcements of PS4 backwards-compatible games. Nintendo will finally tell us how much their online plan will cost. Possible outrage.

Nathan Carter - I will echo some of my colleagues by saying that Sony announces some kind of backwards compatibility or a "Netflix" type system for PS4. Oh, how I so want this to happen as there are so many PS2 games that I want to play again, but I don't have a working PS2 anymore. Nintendo announces a new Metroid Prime. The reason I put this in the risky section Is because I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to announce more stupid Metroid spinoffs that no one cares about instead of giving us a new Metroid Prime that everyone is practically begging them for.  

Russell Archey - Something Borderlands related is shown by Gearbox.  I'm putting this under risky because we know the game is in development and we've seen a bit of a glimpse as to what it could look like, but that's about it.  I'm going a bit further here with Gearbox showing off parts of the game itself, or at the very least a trailer that shows off the new vault hunters, one of which will undoubtedly be a siren because the other two non-Pre-Sequel games have had sirens and only six can exist at one time according to Handsome Jack, but as of the end of Borderlands 2 only two are still alive...okay, turning off the Borderlands fanboyism for a bit.

Chapel Collins - I think EA might really be pulling out all the stops for Battlefront II. We already know they're expanding to include all three eras, a single player story, and much deeper character customization. I think, though perhaps it's just wishful thinking, that when they discuss more about the game, it's going to be massive. I think there's going to be a whole lot of game packed in, and I think it's going to catch everyone off guard.

Sean Colleli - With Quake Champions still penciled in as id's big 2017 release, the Texas-based studio will announce Doom II: Hell on Earth as their big game for 2018. The 2016 Doom reboot was a runaway success, with a great engine and fine-tuned FPS gameplay and id would be smart to not let that goodwill fizzle out. This happened with Doom 3 where id kind of got lost in the weeds just iterating their clunky engine and working on Rage without much to show for it for several years, so hopefully they've learned their lesson and will strike while the iron is hot. We might also get a teaser for a new Wolfenstein from Machinegames, running on idTech 6.

Super Stretch
John Yan - Sony PlayStation 4 gets backwards compatibility for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 games. The Xbox One's doing well with its backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games. Sony will blow people away saying they are going to put in backwards compatibility for not only PS3 games, but PS2 as well. Sony's PlayStation Now isn't doing that well, so they'll keep it around to supplement what everyone really wants, to play with their old discs in the current console.

Randy Kalista- Project Scorpio will not have any number attached to it. It will simply be called "Xbox" forevermore, and it will update more along the lines of a smartphone than previous console generations. You'll simply be buying an Xbox 2018, or an Xbox 2020 from now on, whatever year the updates arrive. Xbox then fulfills the dream of the Xbox One. No physical media—every game is downloadable on day one. Some form of the always online and 24-hour check-in requirement goes into place—they'll just make it sound more palatable. This new Xbox Games Pass, which is fashioned as "Netflix for Xbox" is the foundation for this new Xbox. Why is it called Project Scorpio? Because in Greek mythology, Scorpio (Xbox One) got stomped on by Achilles (PS4), but Scorpio still killed Achilles by stinging his Achilles Heel (hardware consoles). Boom.

Rob Larkin- Third party developers will take up the mantle and give PSVR a stay of execution by making a few key announcements that get people excited about the tech.

Nicholas Leon - Skate 4, hidden under months of development, finally makes an appearance at E3. It's the pinnacle of skateboarding games, prompting all of those fake skaters like me to go out, buy a board, and humiliate themselves on it. We'll also see a Telltale partnership with David Lynch for an adaptation of Twin Peaks. It crushes the competition, merging interactive storytelling with the quirky style of the show. 
And finally, after years of waiting, clamoring fans will finally get the crossover they've been waiting for: the toys-to-life General Mills and Kellogg's game: Cereal-landers.

Dan Colonna - Microsoft announces a huge push for Xbox Play Anywhere, with Halo 5 and newer releases at the forefront. Beyond Good and Evil 2 suddenly reappears with a finished-looking gameplay demo.

Kevin O'Connell - The Mass Effect trilogy will be remastered and released as a collector's set. ME 1 will be upgraded heavilly and all 3 will include necessary DLCs. Price around $89.99 for regular, $119.99 for special edition.

Matt Mirkovich -  Bayonetta 3 is announced for the Nintendo Switch, meanwhile Bayonetta 2 gets a PC release. Mother 3 is available in the US right after Nintendo's E3 announcement reel. 

Charles Husemann -  Sony announces a new handheld and promises to actually support it and release games for it.

Patrick Aloia - Switch VR announced that is exclusively used for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, cost $1,500, there's only 7 of them

Kinsey Danzis - Bioware confirms production of Dragon Age 4 with a presentation that grossly overestimates how far along they actually are in the game. Hideo Kojima sneaks onto the stage in the middle of their presentation. He throws copies of Death Stranding into the crowd. It has been secretly completed. Everyone is cheering. At least seven fights break out. Police must be called. Kojima vanishes into the shadows.

Nathan Carter - Sony will make me the happiest gamer alive today by announcing a new Syphon Filter

Russell Archey - Nintendo Switch gets a Virtual Console with every VC game that has been released on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS AND you don't have to repurchase any games bought on the Wii U or 3DS.  Now don't get me wrong, I have no idea what the process is for getting a game onto the Virtual Console, but it always boggled my mind how the games on the Wii VC weren't already on the Wii U's VC.  As for not having to repurchase previous purchases, I know that going forward that's apparently the case, but will they also go backwards so to speak, as in if you purchased a game already on the Wii U or 3DS VC, will you be able to just re-download it at no additional cost when it's released?

Chapel Collins - THE ELDER SCROLLS VI: HAMMERFELL!!! It's going to be set during the war against the Aldmeri Dominion, your character is going to be a soldier, there's going to be pirates .

Sean Colleli - Nintendo announces two new Metroid games--Switch and 3DS--to end the interminable drought since Other M. While the rumor mill keeps talking about new Metroid, the odds of it happening are slim considering Nintendo doesn't seem to know what to do with the property after they flubbed Other M and Federation Force was an embarrassing flop. Everyone seems to want a good new Metroid game but then again Nintendo has never exactly been tuned into the pulse of what their fans want.