(Originally published July 16, 2019)

Will this list just be Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order five times? Read on and find out for yourselves.

E3 2019 was one hell of a show. Things technically got off to a start two and a half weeks ago during the EA play showcase. Which leads to my first game of E3 2019 so lets do it to it!

1. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

I fucking love Star Wars. I love nearly everything about Star Wars. The first console that was mine and played many games for was the original Xbox in 2004 and I would either buy wrestling games, James Bond games, or Star Wars games. I remember being obsessed with the Star Wars games for the original Xbox and tracked down all of them. Yes, even the bad Clone Wars game. When I got back from graduating elementary school I played nothing but Star Wars: Obi Wan. I would go on to beat games like the two Jedi Knight titles, Battlefront 1 and 2, and Republic Commando. It took time but I eventually got around to Knights of the Old Republic and KotOR II: TSL.

I wrote up an in-depth nearly beat for beat recap of the gameplay demo which you can find here, and I am aching for more gameplay. It has everything I am looking for in a modern day Star Wars game that acknowledges the past and is in the same vein as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or going back further in the style of the old Jedi Knight games such as Jedi Outcast or Jedi Academy. While I am going to always have a permanent hole in my heart left there by Disney for cancelling Star Wars: 1313, Fallen Order looks like a spinoff of what LucasArts were going for but with a Jedi instead of Boba Fett.

In addition to that we are getting interesting characters (so far). I am happy to see Forest Whitaker reprising his role as Saw Gerrera from The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the hit film Rogue One. We got to see him in his beginnings on Clone Wars, a little older in Rebels, and his demise (spoilers) in Rogue One. What we seem to be getting here in Fallen Order is some point during the era of Rebels and before he was a wanted man by the Empire and someone the rebellion wanted nothing to do with. Aside from Battlefront 1 and 2; this will be the first non-DICE related Star Wars game. Ragtag from Visceral was set to be the first non-DICE related game but unfortunately EA doesn’t believe in Star Wars games that do not have any multiplayer component as they cannot sell any scammy bullshit to pad the pockets of executives. Nevertheless I am going to put all my hope into Fallen Order as the last good Star Wars game I played was Force Unleashed over a decade ago.

2. Fallout 76’s “Wastelanders Update”

I own Fallout 76 on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. However I tend to play it solely on PC as the community on there tends to be nicer and has an actual idea of what to do. During the Bethesda conference it was announced that Fallout 76 would be receiving an update in the fall of this year that would well be worth it. I am obviously referring to the “Wastelanders” update. Which will see the return of the Overseer of Vault 76 and the introduction of Non-Playable Characters. The trailer has the Overseer say “We never expected to see people come back” and we are then introduced to classic Fallout dialogue. By this I mean seeing responses based on your SPECIAL. So for example, if you have a lot of points in Charisma you will get a special response that others wouldn’t see. We also get a proper introduction to the possible beginnings(?) of raiders in Appalachia.

With Wastelanders coming this fall, there had to be something for people at E3 and we sort of got it in the form of “Nuclear Winter”. A 52 player battle royale mode in which the winner becomes the overseer of Vault 51. I am the complete opposite when it comes to battle royale or any type of multiplayer modes in games as I peaked when I was in high school playing Halo: Reach multiplayer on Xbox Live. But I have no problem letting people enjoy what they enjoy so if deathmatch in Fallout is your thing get up on it. They did however have a free one-week trial for anyone who hasn’t played the game to try out both the game and Nuclear Winter. From what I have seen throughout things online it seems people got swept up in all the bad press and now that people have had an opportunity to actually give Fallout 76 a chance, they seemed to have enjoyed it.

This is the start of the Year 2 roadmap of content for Fallout 76 and frankly, I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

3. Marvel’s The Avengers

Nearing the end of the Square-Enix conference I had the Avengers theme (Infinity War version) waiting for the lights to die down and hear a video game equivalent. What I got instead was something better. It was the core Avengers from the 2012 film consisting of Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye who disappeared somewhere through the trailer. It was an interesting shift in the direction that the success of the MCU made people not give a shit about the source material ie the comics these characters appeared in. So instead of having the characters look like their comic book counterparts, people wanted them and would eventually mock the character models for not having the likenesses of a Robert Downey Jr or a Chris Evans. All the backlash didn’t necessarily make me happy but made me lament the toxic gaming community who don’t appreciate the glory of games we’ve had the past fifteen years of.

It would be the equivalent of giving someone a nice ribeye steak and them replying with “no thanks I’d rather have some ding dongs”. The whole thing made me want to rip my hair out. After this debacle we had people taking a crap on 2018’s Spider-Man game from Insomniac about what? The character models. If any of those people are reading this all I have to say is “goodbye we don’t need your vapid opinions” and “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. All I’ve wanted in my time playing video games and reading comics are a team up game. I’m a DC Comics guy and I don’t care that Avenger’s is the competition. I just want to feel the same way I did when I first played Arkham Asylum or Spider=Man.

That being said, The Avengers will not be open world but will have many heroes and have alternate costumes for the heroes. So if you don’t like the way Cap looks or the way Thor looks you could change them. All I hope is that this doesn’t turn into a mix of Destiny’s games as a service gameplay and the possibility of loot boxes or as Jim Sterling talked about “surprise mechanics” but then again it’s EA he’s talking about not Square or Crystal Dynamics.

4. The Outer Worlds

Now this is what I am REALLY looking forward to. The sci-fi RPG from Obsidian that is a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas. However, despite being a spiritual successor to New Vegas the game will be in the 20=30 hour range and not the 100+ hour experience that Fallout: New Vegas was.

The story of the game is a futuristic take on big business. You are in cryosleep and are suddenly woken by a character that looks frighteningly like Rick Sanchez. In the universe of Outer Worlds, big business is in charge of colonizing other worlds and terraforming the environment to support life. The big goal of the game is to uncover what the true goal of these companies are. This game will be reliant on your choices and actions. This will mean more replayability with the different permutations.

Perhaps the biggest thing surrounding this game, (aside from the Epic Game Store backlash) that is positive is the fact that it will be a day one Game Pass game. I never thought I’d say this but I am more excited for this game than Gears 5. I mean, I know that while the Gears of War series has a hardcore audience, this is the game I have been waiting for since I first saw Firefly well over a decade ago.

5. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I need to get this off my chest while I have time, the last Zelda title I completed was Twilight Princess around 2006-2007 and the closest I’ve gotten to that status since has been The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS. While I have been maintaining a section of blindness of this game as it is a remake of the 1993 Game Boy experience rather than the remaster release in 1998 for the Game Boy Color titled The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening DX. While I do own both games I haven’t had enough time to play them.

I am clearly not the target demographic for Link’s Awakening but there really is just something about that art style that is being used for the game. There is however, one thing that I am certain will appeal to purists. That is the feature that was seen in Halo: The Master Chief Collection more specifically Halo 1 and 2 anniversary with the ability to play the game either as it is in the remake or the way it looked over two and a half decades ago.

Well, we’ve reached the part where I bid you adieu. For some more E3 content from Graydon you can find his “Top Ten Tunes Of E3” and his “Faves of E3“.

-Written by Allan Muir