Uncommonly Itemised: E3

This is Geek Native’s wrap up of E3 2019 and the inaugural article of the Routinely Itemised column, sister to the very Irregular Reconnaissance. Here you’ll find a summary of E3 news on and off the blog.

Update: 24th July 2022 – The first and only ‘Routinely Itemised’ not to be about RPG news. This column was renamed Uncommonly Itemised: E3, and Routinely Itemised exclusively focuses on tabletop roleplaying games.

E3 news from Geek Native

• Keanu Reeves will be Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077. Release date confirmed as 16th of April.
• George R. R. Martin is working with the deadly Dark Souls team on the fantasy Elden Ring. We’ve the trailer and links to official site.
• Set in Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance is a new tactics game and it’s coming to The Switch and other devices.
• The board game powerhouse Asmodee announced a online Lord of the Rings card game.
• Borderlands 2 is super cheap, Borderlands 3 is coming and there are ways to get Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sactuary for free.
• Set 15 years after Dying Light, Dying Light 2 is due out from Techland. Here’s a trailer and concept art.
• Phantasy Star Online 2 is heading westwards, on Xbox One as Microsoft finally lures the game over.
• Obsidian’s next RPG is The Outer Worlds in which you can play the hero, the baddie or just a whackjob. We’ve the trailer.
• Gameplay from Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 in which you’re a caitiff.
• Ubisoft have a new series. It’s called God & Monsters and might remind you of Zelda.
• Nintendo has a new Zelda game coming and its a sequel to Breath of the Wild.
• Set in London in a post-Brexit dystopia Watch Dogs: Legion lets you turn any NPC into a character.
• In the Maneater RPG you’re a shark but it’s exclusive to Epic Games for a year.
• Bandai Namco put a new team in charge of the ‘Tales of’ series. Here’s a first look at their work with Tales of Arise.
• It’s not supposed to be surival horror but the action-mystery GhostWire: Tokyo looks spooky!. Bonus: Ikuami Nakamura’s stage appearance.
• We sort out what you get with Doom Eternal standard vs Collector vs Deluxe.
• New(ish) looking Avengers in Marvel’s Avengers: A-Day and we’ve a poll on the new faces and a trailer.
• Traditional JRPG Oninaki deals with the souls of the dead and dangerous journeys. We’ve character art to show off.
• Developers at Mojang used Minecraft to build a dungeon crawler. We’ve the Minecraft Dungeons trailer.
• Ninja Theory’s team shooter Bleeding Edge opens for alpha testing this month and we’ve a trailer and character art to show you.
• Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps offers up trailer and lots of screenshots.
• RPG Time mixes doodle mechanics and RPG adventures. We’ve a trailer and art.
• The next generation Xbox will be four times as powerful as the Xbox One X.

E3 had more news than all this, though, so let’s take a look around.

E3 industry news

• All the release dates announced at E3, a comprehensive list care of Marie Dealessandri at MCVUK.
• Game publishers move into Netflix style streaming as they lined up to present their cloud and subscription services. Great write-up by Julia Alexander at The Verge.
• Bad news as Animal Crossing: New Horizons is delayed but as Andrew Webster at the Verge points out, it looks great.
• What happened to VR at E3 2019? Scott Stein makes the insightful observation at CNEt.
• A delicate balance of light and dark. At Engagdet, Nick Summers writes up Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
• Halo Infinate will release on PC and at launch, writes Eddie Makuck at Gamespot.
• Matt Kamen at Wired write Final Fantasy VII Remake lives up to its legendary predecessor.
• Sony wasn’t at E3 but we’ve all been talking about the confirmed PlayStation 5 anyway. Tyler Fischer at ComicBook.com cites a games industry analyst predicting Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 will cost $400.

What was your favourite or most exciting development from E3? What did you hope to see but didn’t?

Image credit: The Two Best Waifus at E3.