Media Notes / E3 in the 2010s and the 2020s

This page covers moments of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) from 2010 to 2019 and 2021, as well as its cancellations in the 2020s and eventual official end in 2023.

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E3 2010

• Microsoft: The main focus this year was the Xbox 360's controller-less system announced in '09, now titled the "Kinect". Kinect games shown were casual titles that showcased using your own body instead of button inputs (such as playing with a baby tiger or navigating a river in a raft). A new Product Facelift of the 360 was also announced, which would feature a smaller and quieter (and shinier) design, as well as built-in Wi-Fi, at the same price as a regular 360. An Oprah-like event occurred at the end of the presentation, where each member of the audience got a free 360. Fans have naturally mocked this, their main complaints being that Microsoft was basically ripping off Nintendo and its E3 presentations, and quite a few people have compared this event to Nintendo's event from 2008. The girl playing with the pet tiger in Kinectimals ("Skittles!") and the people showing off Dance Central had already became a meme.
• Nintendo's big item was the Nintendo 3DS handheld, with 3D capabilities and other enhancements as well as an impressive list of third-party support. As for games, in addition to showing off The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Epic Mickey, Nintendo also announced revivals for several long-dormant franchises: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, GoldenEye (2010), Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and most shockingly, Kid Icarus: Uprising. The showing can basically be summed up in this Penny Arcade comic (middle panel).
• Sony's presentation was pretty average. Aside from a crossover game for the PlayStation Move controller featuring Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper, the biggest announcement came from Valve Software CEO Gabe Newell, who announced that Portal 2 would come to the PlayStation 3 in spite of his previous dislike for the platform, as well as a new Steam-like program to play it on. Oh, they also announced a new Twisted Metal game for the PS3. The true highlight of the conference, and in some cases of the entire show, was when their ad campaign character Kevin Butler gave a speech onstage, one that crossed generational and console lines and spoke to gamers everywhere.
• Konami's E3 2010 also deserves a mention by virtue of being So Bad, It's Good, thanks to vast amounts of Gratuitous English. One. Million. Twoobs.
• Electronic Arts started off their press conference with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and caused the fandom to rejoice when the trailer was posted online. They also showed off their previously-announced NBA Jam revival, and the consensus was that it captured the spirit of the old games perfectly.
• Ubisoft showed off a Michael Jackson game that put an emphasis on dancing using motion controls, as well as a breathing simulator, a new Rayman game, a Continuity Reboot of Driver set in San Francisco and Child of Eden, a Spiritual Successor to the Cult Classic game Rez.

E3 2011

• Surprisingly, Konami's E3 event was pre-recorded and shown before the event actually started. Some highlights include compilations of Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders games, which include the miracle of transfarring, as well as a reboot of the Contra series. Aside from that, however, nothing of major value (or comedy) was released.
• Microsoft's press conference can be summed up by one word: Kinect. Almost every game announced, from Mass Effect 3 and Fable to Minecraft and Sesame Street, relied on the Kinect in some way, though it should be noted that not all of these games required the peripheral, such as Mass Effect 3 and Minecraft which only had added features with it. In fact, the only new games shown that weren't Kinect or Kinect-enhanced were Halo: Combat Evolved: Anniversary and Halo 4.
• Sony's press conference was adequate. The good news was that the PlayStation Vita handheld was named after being revealed last year (and now priced at $250), which has touch screen controls and can suspend play to pick up later on the PlayStation 3 and vice versa. In addition, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was announced, more LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers games are on the way, and Cole McGrath was going to fight in Street Fighter X Tekken.
• Nintendo:
  • Nintendo's press conference was (for Nintendo fans, at least) pretty awesome, with the chief announcement being the reveal of the next home console, the Wii U. The primary innovation of this one was the controller, which looks like a small tablet PC with more buttons, allowing ideas like "asynchronous gameplay" (where the player with the new controller has vastly different gameplay/objectives/experiences than the ones using Wiimotes), or things like not even requiring the TV if someone else wants to watch a show... and after the conference, Nintendo had to reconfirm to confused journalists and fans that, yes, it's a new console, not an add-on for the Wii - a harbinger of the weak marketing that would help doom the Wii U to failure.
  • To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo had plenty up their sleeves. A free version of Four Swords for DSiWare, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the new 3DS Virtual Console, and two soundtracks - one from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, if people were one of the first handful to register their copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D on Club Nintendo (also free), and one of fully orchestrated Zelda tunes for those who plan on getting The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Nintendo also announced they would hold live orchestra shows (titled The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses), conducting music from the Zelda games, in various regions of the world (something that would continue on for years afterward).
  • For the Nintendo 3DS, a slew of games were announced. New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, and Luigi's Mansion games, (later titled Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, respectively), Star Fox 64 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and a handful of 3rd-party games. They also announced a Pokédex app.
  • The 3DS' Virtual Console was detailed to be selling Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, with Super Mario Land, Alleyway, and Radar Mission being the first games released. Nintendo also announced that several classic Nintendo titles (and those Older Than the NES) would get a 3D facelift, starting with Excitebike, as part of the new 3D Classics series - and that this first one would be complimentary.
  • Finally, Satoru Iwata slipped in some brief words confirming that a new Super Smash Bros. game had been discussed for both Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, that the two would interact in some fashion.
• Ubisoft's press conference became infamous thanks to its host Mr. Caffeine. It featured him telling uncomfortable jokes throughout the conference, mispronouncing Tom Clancy's name several times, and repeatedly using the phrase "Doodly Doodly Doop" while making a hand gesture to imitate the sound effect of time travel.

E3 2012

• On the whole, one noticeable trend was the sheer amount of Darker and Edgier Bloodier and Gorier games on display, including Splinter Cell: Blacklist, a Tomb Raider reboot, God of War: Ascension, and The Last of Us. There also seemed to a high number of chin stabbings in trailers and demos. Journalists wrote articles discussing whether this was a good thing, a bad thing, just boring, or so on for weeks.
• Microsoft started with a gameplay debut of Halo 4 and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Additional game announcements included Gears of War: Judgment, Forza Horizon and South Park: The Stick of Truth courtesy of series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The rebooted Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6 rounded out more on-stage presentations, with the expected Call of Duty: Black Ops II ending off the conference. "Smartglass" was the new technology presented as a means for other devices like smartphones and tablets will be capable of connecting to the Xbox 360 console via specific apps either for new modes of play with particular games (ie. using a tablet to create custom strategies in Madden NFL) or other features.
• EA's conference began with a co-op presentation of Dead Space 3, followed with gameplay of Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) (once again helmed by 2010's Hot Pursuit developer Criterion Games) and Crysis 3. The developer unveiled further content for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Finally, Battlefield developer DICE announced Battlefield Premium, a clone of Call of Duty Elite.
• Ubisoft's conference was very strong, especially considering how many of their games were held until other conferences to trumpet their host systems. Just Dance 4 started it off and Far Cry 3 got showcased (as well as the bare breasts of a character, triggering some controversy), alongside the much-anticipated Assassin's Creed III. A Rayman Origins sequel, Rayman Legends, was demoed on-stage with the Nintendo Wii U of the upcoming releases. The presentation was capped by Watch_Dogs, which many considered the best announcement/game of the show.
• Sony started with the latest project from Quantic Dream - Beyond: Two Souls. They quickly followed that up with showcasing a few things not shown during Ubisoft's conference - naval combat in Assassin's Creed III, a 4-player co-operative campaign in Far Cry 3, and a trailer for Assassin's Creed III Liberation, as well as announcing special PS3 and Vita bundles for III and Liberation respectively. About midway through the conference, Sony announced that they were pulling an Oprah and giving everyone attending the conference a free month of their PlayStation Plus service. This segued into the Vita side of their presentation, which started off with a showcase of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and its Vita functionality, capped off with the trailer announcement of Nathan Drake and Big Daddy as playable characters. Dipping back into the PS3 side of things, they showed off a new peripheral called the Wonderbook — an augmented-reality 'storybook' that can be interacted with using the PS3's camera and PlayStation Move. To show off this new gadget, they demoed the latest entry in the mass-multimedia Pottermore campaign, Book of Spells. Finally, they ended the show with a playable demo of The Last of Us.
• Nintendo's conference was rather sparse, especially in comparison to their three previous E3 shows.
  • The final version of the Wii U was shown and playable. Nintendo's first party offerings were dominated by Mario; New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and Paper Mario: Sticker Star were exhibited. Pikmin 3 and Wii Fit U were announced, continuing those franchises, and Nintendo Land, a theme-park styled game featuring mini-games drawn from other Nintendo franchises, and meant to be the Wii U equivalent of Wii Sports. This was the presentation finisher, capping it with an anemic in-game fireworks display (confetti and balloons were supposedly meant to fall as well, but the mechanism failed). Everything else was third-party titles, overwhelmingly from Ubisoft, but Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment also had a good presence with Batman: Arkham City: Armored Edition, and Scribblenauts Unlimited. This lackluster showing ended up being Nintendo's final live E3 show, with special E3 "Nintendo Direct" webcasts taking its place and other "Directs" throughout the year being equally as likely to have bombshell announcements.
  • Before the show, the Wii U had been showcased in New York City; where a project codenamed Project P-100 was shown (later officially titled The Wonderful 101), as was a new WarioWare game called Game & Wario. Another presentation dedicated to the 3DS happened the day after the conference, which included a confirmation of a North American release for Fire Emblem: Awakening; and in the weeks after the show a Nintendo Direct video announced a new 3DS XL model, details on the dev team for the new Smash Bros., and retro game releases on the 3DS eShop.

E3 2013

• Microsoft basically had to do some damage control, as the Xbox One reveal a few weeks prior failed to impress gamers, partially from its actual gaming capabilities being Out of Focus in favor of TV and movies, but mainly due to the reveal of its restrictive DRM features.^note It required a constant internet connection to run daily authentication checks (and Microsoft was openly dismissive of people who didn't have good internet service), and wouldn't play used or borrowed game discs without an elaborate process that may involve extra fees. Their presentation addressed the former point well, with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and its open-world mechanics, Respawn Entertainment's new Titanfall First-Person Shooter/Mecha Game, Ryse: Son of Rome, an exclusive-Xbox One reboot of Killer Instinct (though oddly enough, not developed by Rare), Crimson Dragon (now headed to the Xbox One), Dead Rising 3 exclusive to the console, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Battlefield 4 with timed-exclusive Downloadable Content, and Minecraft. To compete with the PlayStation 4, Microsoft will partner with Twitch for live-streaming integration (by comparison, Sony would use Ustream on their console), getting rid of the dreaded Microsoft Points once their console launches, offer Xbox Live gold members free games every month and a Product Facelift for the Xbox 360 with a look similar to the Xbox One. However, the DRM issue still loomed large, and pricing for the console had been called steep by the audience at $499 US, and quite a bit more in other territories. Post-conference, further details regarding the launch of the Xbox One in only 21 countries was not pleasing to certain audience members. Notably, after the jabs they received throughout E3 over the new DRM system (particularly Sony's, see below), Microsoft announced the week afterward that they were abandoning it in favor of the policies used on the the Xbox 360.
• Sony debuted the PlayStation 4 for the first time since its official reveal a few months back, including showing off the physical console. Sony representatives continued to reiterate their stance on supporting independent developers with exclusive releases for the console. As far as other games go, while The Last Guardian was still missing-in-action, Final Fantasy Versus XIII was officially retitled as Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III was finally announced as in development (it would not be released for another 6 years), alongside the world premiere of gameplay from Destiny. Sony then made one of the most talked-about moments of the show by taking dead aim at Microsoft and its then new DRM policies, proclaiming that the PS4 would have no DRM that wasn't on the PS3 and mocked Microsoft for adding complications. Sony promised that the PlayStation Network would continue to work on the PS4, carrying over from the current generation to the next; unfortunately, online multiplayer still required a PlayStation Plus subscription for the new console. To end off the conference, Sony listed the retail price of the PS4 at $399 US to cheers from the audience.
• Nintendo shook up their entire E3 strategy by replacing the traditional live conference with a pre-recorded "Nintendo Direct" webcast and partnering with Best Buy to hold nationwide events during the expo that would allow the public to play their E3 game demos. The lineup of games shown in the webcast was considered solid but predictable, with few surprises: known games Pokémon X and Y, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, and new announcements Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, "X" (a successor to Xenoblade Chronicles 1) and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U featuring new fighters Villager from Animal Crossing and Mega Man. Other games shown included Pikmin 3, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Yoshi's New Island, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. In a later video not aired during the conference, Nintendo revealed a surprising addition to the Smash Bros. roster: Wii Fit Trainer.
• Ubisoft had additional live demonstrations for Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Splinter Cell: Blacklist and announced several new games, including The Crew, an open-world Racing Game with a heavy focus on car tuning for just about every aspect of the vehicle and co-op and Competitive Multiplayer. Perhaps unexpectedly was the announcement of a new IP: entitled Tom Clancy's The Division, this Massively Multiplayer Online Third-Person Shooter RPG set in a dark future New York City has been praised for its setting and bleakness, with many proclaiming it another game of the show for Ubisoft (note that like Watch Dogs at E3 2012, The Division was not known by the public, nor leaked out prior, until its reveal at E3).
• EA's conference unveiled 11 new games alongside Titanfall for the Xbox One. The arguably biggest announcement was of a new Star Wars Battlefront being developed by DICE (who also showed Battlefield 4). As usual for EA, they also showed off a new Need for Speed, this one named Rivals, a new FIFA, NBA, Madden, and another UFC. DICE also, shockingly, announced a sequel to their cult classic Mirror's Edge, which had been requested for several years now. Dragon Age 3 was also renamed to Dragon Age: Inquisition, and the first trailer was announced.

E3 2014

• Having learned from the reception they received in the previous year, Microsoft focused their entire conference on games, kicking it off with a multitude of third-party games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Sunset Overdrive. Their first-party lineup detailed Forza Horizon 2 and Fable Legends (which was cancelled in 2016), with a follow-up Project Spark, a game-creation tool kit in the same vein as LittleBigPlanet (notably, Conker makes an appearance). News regarding Halo 5: Guardians is a multiplayer beta bundled with the Master Chief Collection, a Compilation Re-release of all four primary installments of the Halo franchise on the Xbox One (Halo 2 gets the "Anniversary" Updated Re-release treatment). Proving they haven't forgotten the independent scene, Limbo developers Playdead unveil their next project Inside, including many other indie games. Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Tom Clancy's The Division cap off the last of the third-party entries. Original Xbox title Phantom Dust gets an Updated Re-release, while Hideki Kamiya of PlatinumGames debut the exclusive Scalebound (which also got cancelled), with Crackdown 3 ending off the conference.
• Sony had one of the longer press conferences, and it, like Microsoft's, was pretty packed. Games shown included Destiny (with a new white PS4 bundle to match), new IP The Order: 1886, Entwined, inFAMOUS: Second Son, LittleBigPlanet 3, Bloodborne, Dead Island 2, Magicka 2, a remastered Grim Fandango, Let It Die, ABZÛ, a controversial-in-hindsight debut of No Man's Sky, and the reveal of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
• Nintendo kept their previous year's strategy, making their announcements through a "Digital Event" webcast and offering nationwide demos (this time strictly of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U) through Best Buy. They also broke new ground by introducing "Nintendo Treehouse Live": a continuous livestream from the show floor for each day of the expo hosted by their Treehouse localization team that gave deeper dives into announced games, sometimes with the developers present; and they held a Smash Bros. Invitational Tournament in order to hype the new installment.
  • As you might guess, Smash Bros. was at the center of Nintendo's announcements; with Mii Fighters, Palutena from Kid Icarus (with a cameo from Dark Pit at the end, though he wasn’t confirmed as a fighter until later), and Pac-Man being announced for the roster. There was also the official unveiling of their amiibo NFC figure system, to be used with Smash Bros. and other games.
  • Another major announcement was Splatoon, not only a rare new IP from the company but their first entry into the popular multiplayer shooter genre.
  • Other games covered during the Digital Event were Yoshi's Woolly World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, Super Mario Maker, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Hyrule Warriors (along with the first look at the next major Zelda game), and Xenoblade Chronicles X.
  • Shigeru Miyamoto dropped by the Nintendo Treehouse livestream to talk about his new projects codenamed Project Giant Robot and Project Guard,^note Ultimately, Project Guard would become Star Fox Guard, while Giant Robot would be scrapped but elements incorporated years later into the Nintendo Labo Robot Kit. as well as confirming that he is working on a new Star Fox game for Wii U. The following day, they concluded their gaming announcements with Codename STEAM.
• Ubisoft had a controversial E3 and a bad follow up; while trailers and gameplay demos for games like Assassin's Creed: Unity and Far Cry 4 were met with good reception, both games suffered controversy for the lack of female characters (one developer saying it'd be "too hard" to do it in Unity was met with open derision from fellow Ubisoft employees), and when asked about it, a member of the Far Cry team had a Stunned Silence reaction. Coupled with Watch_Dogs being met with a mixed reception earlier that month due to a perceived downgrade of graphics from its E3 2012 debut, June wasn't kind to Ubisoft. Despite this, other demos and trailers like The Division and Rainbow Six Siege (a replacement to the prior-announced-several-years-ago-Patriots) were met with good reception as well.

E3 2015

• Bethesda showed off a good slew of games at their first E3 press conference, including the previously announced Doom reboot and Fallout 4, complete with gameplay footage, as well as a trailer for Dishonored 2. Other announcements included new content for The Elder Scrolls Online and a the debut of a Trading Card Game entitled The Elder Scrolls: Legends in the vein of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Also notable is that between the official streams on Bethesda's YouTube and Twitch channels, over six hundred thousand people watched it live, making it a fantastically successful debut conference for the publisher.
• Microsoft had what is widely considered to be one of their strongest press conferences in years:
  • They kicked things off with campaign gameplay for Halo 5: Guardians and a new multiplayer trailer for its "Warzone" game mode. Other first-party showings consisted of Forza Motorsport 6 (with a second-generation Ford GT brought down from the ceiling for promotion), confirmation of an "Ultimate Edition" for the original Gears of War on the Xbox One, and closing off the conference with a live preview of Gears of War 4.
  • The company gave audiences a surprising treat by addressing one of the Xbox One's complaints, announcing backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 titles using retail discs of the console via a unique roundabout method of reading the disc then downloading an Xbox One-compatible version of the 360 game. They also showed off a new customizable "Elite" version of the revised Xbox One controller to be released for retail, which features attachable paddles on the back, interchangeable control sticks (with PlayStation-esque convex sticks provided alongside the traditional concave sticks), and a disc-based variant of the directional pad.^note Not in the same style as the Xbox 360 controller's disc-based directional pad, however. Finally, Microsoft demonstrated its working HoloLens augmented reality glasses using Minecraft.
  • Ex-Metroid Prime devs Armature Studios and Keiji Inafune showed off ReCore, a new science fiction game about a girl and her robot - the first installment of a new IP for Microsoft. Rare followed them by announcing another new IP called Sea of Thieves, a multiplayer-based swashbuckler, along with a thirty-dollar Compilation Re-release of thirty of its classic games^note Nearly all the non-Nintendo IPs made before the Kinect Sports series. in celebration of their thirtieth anniversary.
  • Capping off the remainder was timed-exclusive third-party game Rise of the Tomb Raider demo, and Bethesda announced Fallout 4 would have official support for game mods developed on PCs available on consoles, along with some new footage that wasn't present in their conference the previous day.
  • Notably, and for the first time since it was debuted back in 2009, not a single game was shown or mentioned as using the Kinect. This unofficially marked the end of the device's tenure, and though it was never abandoned or retired officially, the push to sell the device or integrate it heavily into Xbox games ended there.
• EA:
  • With a large focus on sports at the expense of nearly everything else,^note Some of their heavy hitters were shown in prior conferences. the company had an overall disappointing show, with many of its titles unveiled being new installments in their various yearly franchises.
  • Fortunately, a few gems were buried within the mire of sports, such as a long-awaited teaser for Mass Effect 4 (now titled Mass Effect: Andromeda). Furthermore, an adorable 2D Platform Game, Unravel, marked a new IP for the publisher; notably, the presenting creative director of the game told audiences about the inspiration behind it and his family vacation, even bringing a small model of the main character with him. It didn't take long for Unravel to become a highlight of the show.
  • Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 was shown, complete with awkward on-stage mascot reveal and use of Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone", while a new mobile title featuring the Despicable Me Minions failed to excite the crowd.
  • Things bounced back with a trailer of Mirror's Edge Catalyst, including discussion regarding its background, new features and talks of the open-world nature of the reboot. Finally, Star Wars: Battlefront 2015 showcased the environment of the Battle of Hoth from the perspective of several Rebel and Imperial combatants.
• With the exception of host Aisha Tyler awkwardly asking a cosplayer for a meme (which, naturally, became a meme), Ubisoft had a decent showing:
  • New titles showcased include a trailer for South Park: The Fractured but Whole, a sequel to South Park: The Stick of Truth switching to an superhero theme as opposed to the fantasy Role-Playing Game of the latter; a demonstration of For Honor, a Bushido Blade-inspired new IP that mixes Multiplayer Online Battle Arena elements with Player Versus Player duels; and an announcement for the next installment in the Anno Domini Simulation Game series called Anno 2205.
  • Capping off the conference was Ghost Recon Wildlands, taking a few pages from later Far Cry releases and, unexpectedly, set in South America.
  • Ubisoft's Racing Games received a few spotlights, detailing an expansion for The Crew called "Wild Run", additions and further enhancements to TrackMania Turbo (along with being brought to other consoles), and a Trials Fusion expansion pack entitled "Awesome Level Max" allowing players to ride a unicorn, among other things. Similarly, the popular Just Dance series got stage time with talk about the mobile platform.
  • After having apparently not learned from their Usher debacle a few years ago, a brief Jason Derulo concert and interview went about as well as one would expect for a video game conference. Maybe next year, guys.
  • Meanwhile, Assassin's Creed Syndicate and The Division unveiled additional trailers, with the latter revealing "Dark Zone" areas in the game and the ability for players to turn on their friends during Co-Op Multiplayer was welcomed, promising to rival Mario Kart and Mario Party for friendships ended. Finally, Rainbow Six Siege (originally showcased in 2014) was demonstrated on-stage, including a brief chat with Angela Bassett, who is cast in Seige as "6", the leader of Team Rainbow.
  • On the more meta side: similar to 2014, Ubisoft got flak from social media for showing nearly no women (and even less playable ones) in their games (though having two women of color on stage at the same time was a welcome sight). After the much appreciated announcement pre-E3 that Syndicate would include a playable female assassin as one of the protagonists, not a single woman was visible in its primary promotional trailer, though a second trailer shown during the Sony conference focused on Evie. Wildlands, which takes place largely in South America, had no Latino protagonists shown; accusations of Mighty Whitey due to the predominantly Caucasian squad were abound.
• Sony's conference was quite possibly the highlight of what many are now calling "the E3 of Dreams" with multiple megaton announcements of games that people had previously thought would never see the light of day:
  • After years of radio silence, The Last Guardian was not only alive and well, but playable. It kicked off the conference in the form of a gameplay trailer.
  • Following well over a decade of speculation, teasings, assertions it was never going to happen, and many disappointing absences from E3s of yore, the long rumored Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced to be making its debut first on the PS4 before moving on to other platforms. The crowd went absolutely bonkers, and so did most of the internet. Contrast the reaction from the PlayStation Experience last year regarding the Final Fantasy VII PC port on the PS4 against the reaction to the remake announcement.
  • Finishing off the trifecta of "Games No One Thought Would Ever Actually Get Made" was an announcement from Yu Suzuki himself: the launch of a Shenmue 3 Kickstarter, which hit its funding goal in less than nine hours.
  • Guerrilla Games, best known for Killzone, unveiled Sony's new IP: Horizon Zero Dawn, an After the End action/adventure featuring a tribal hunter fighting animalistic robots.
  • LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule showcased a playable version of Dreams, based on player creativity and sandbox tools in the vein of their signature work.
  • The Hitman franchise received a trailer for its next entry, simply entitled Hitman, while Square Enix debuted a new cutesy, Super-Deformed Final Fantasy Gaiden Game called World of Final Fantasy, where players use Mons elements to form powerful combat teams.
  • The conference closed with a demo of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, which underwent some minor technical difficulties after the person who was supposed to be playing it grabbed the wrong controller.
  • Third-party titles included a Street Fighter V trailer which revealed two returning characters and the promise of an exclusive beta for the PS4, Destiny expansion "The Taken King" with exclusive PlayStation content, the No Man's Sky team demonstrating the further scale and open-world nature of their game, and additional footage of Star Wars Battlefront (2015) and its single or co-op mode called "Survival". In what could be considered a shot against Microsoft, Sony announced a deep partnership with Call of Duty producer Activision, giving PS4 owners first access to map packs and a beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, with trailers highlighting its cooperative campaign and multiplayer aspects.
• Nintendo continued their strategy of using webcasts via Nintendo Treehouse, public demos at nationwide stores of Best Buy (this time featuring Super Mario Maker), and a tournament. While the headlining Digital Event wasn't bad, it disappointed fans due to a lack of big, exciting announcements - two such items (the next major Zelda game and home console) were specifically being held for next year (and the home console didn't even show up then), and most things that were shown were either already known (Mario Maker and Star Fox Zero were discussed the year prior) or not really what fans were looking for (mostly multiplayer spinoffs when fans wanted regular installments - Metroid Prime: Federation Force in particular angered fans that were desperate for Metroid to get back on track after Metroid: Other M).
  • On Sunday, after being content leaked by datamines in April, new Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Downloadable Content was showcased, including Roy and Ryu, almost all of which was available that day. A few hours later, in the same vein as their Smash Bros. Tournament a year ago, a revival of the Nintendo World Championships (last seen in 1990) was held, where they revealed both the official English release of MOTHER (after a whopping 25 year gap since its 1989 debut!) as EarthBound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console and a multiplayer game called Blastball for 3DS.
  • In the Digital Event, they showed off upcoming titles Star Fox Zero, The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, an Updated Re-release of Hyrule Warriors for the 3DS, Metroid Prime: Federation Force (of which Blastball is a minigame), two installments to the Animal Crossing series called amiibo Festival and Happy Home Designer, a Paper Mario/Mario & Luigi crossover called Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, and a heavy focus on gameplay footage of Super Mario Maker. This was followed by further looks at Fire Emblem Fates (including the reveal of the final title), the at-the-time untitled Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover, a launch date for Xenoblade Chronicles X, Yoshi's Woolly World, a localization of Yo Kai Watch, and a somewhat surprising announcement of amiibo/Skylanders crossover figures featuring Bowser and Donkey Kong.
  • Sadly, this E3 was also the final public appearance of sorts for company president Satoru Iwata. Though he was not personally present due to health reasons and was not shown in person in the Digital Event, said Event was interspersed with short skits featuring puppet versions of himself, Reggie, and Miyamoto designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. However, the health issues proved to be worse than he had let on, and he regrettably passed away about a month later.
• Square Enix held their own conference this year, but had the same big issue as EA did: most of their headliners were revealed elsewhere at E3 (such as Final Fantasy VII Remake).
  • Fortunately, Just Cause 3 kicked off a series of next installment releases, with details regarding the game's location (the Mediterranean island of Medici, where the protagonist was born). A gameplay/story trailer for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, new Spin-Off Lara Croft GO (based on Hitman Go), additional footage of Rise of the Tomb Raider and the next Hitman game followed. All of them showed a few bits of new content, such as Hitman having assassinations that will be permanently missable if left uncompleted.
  • In what seems to be a bounce back into the company's signature genre, mobile game Kingdom Hearts χ got a Western release announcement, and a gameplay trailer for Kingdom Hearts III demonstrated a world based on Tangled and revealed Sora's new outfit. Gamers got an early look at the fifth Star Ocean game, titled Integrity and Faithlessness, and a new IP called Project Setsuna (later titled I am Setsuna) in production by a studio called "Tokyo RPG Factory" that bore no small resemblance to Chrono Trigger. Finally, a sequel to NieR was announced, being developed by PlatinumGames with Yoko Taro returning as director. Yoko addressing the audience while wearing a mask of No.7 from NieR seems like a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, but he's a Reclusive Artist so this is standard for him.
• The realm of PC gaming got its time to shine with its debut conference, thanks to computer processor developer AMD and PC Gamer. It was creatively called the "PC Gaming Show". The conference was akin to a talk show, with noted streamer "Day9" acting as host, and a parade of developers coming up for interviews or to discuss their products. It was a decent debut conference for the PC crowd, though as with EA and Square Enix, most presenters showed off titles the audience already knew of already. The show also ran uncommonly long, overclocking in at around two and a half hours, at least an hour more than any other presentation at E3.

E3 2016

• For the first time, a secondary event called "E3 Live!" was held alongside the main show, allowing the public to experience a number of games on display. However, it was largely a disappointment, as is was much smaller than expected and most exhibitors didn't even feature game demos, focusing more on selling merchandise.
• Both EA and Activision decided not to have booths at the expo this year. EA did have a press conference as usual, and held their own public events in Los Angeles and London in place of its booth; while Activision had Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare present as part of Sony's booth instead of its own. Disney Interactive also announced that they wouldn't be present at E3, and by the time the show took place they had broken the news that they were getting out of game development entirely.
• As with 2015, EA's focus on sports was to the detriment of almost everything else:
  • Well over half of the conference was devoted to their sports line up, particularly FIFA. The inclusion of a full-fledged story mode to FIFA was interesting, but most of the sports talk was about their usual gameplay/graphical updates and new esports events that EA is hosting. Repeated crowd shots showed a largely unexcited group of journalists/developers, mirroring the general reaction of the gaming public.
  • Titanfall 2 was first, showing off some of the new features, mobility changes, and a campaign for the single-player campaign, which will center around a man and his mecha.
  • A behind-the-scenes peek of Mass Effect: Andromeda was slightly better than last year's short trailer. A few bits of gameplay and in-engine shots were interspersed with developer footage and interviews (plus 15 to 20 seconds of NASA stock footage), and while what was seen was good, Mass Effect fans were left clamoring for more - especially given the amount of time EA managed to devote to sports.
  • Building off of Yarny's breakout appearance last year, EA announced the start of their EA Originals program, which will seek out and publish original games by smaller, more indie studios. Their first game is Fe, an exploration platformer that takes place in a large, mystical forest and has a strong music focus.
  • EA showed a look at their Star Wars lineup, with appearances from Battlefront and The Old Republic. The segment was mostly made up of developer interviews and behind-the-scenes looks, with very little new information given aside from news that Visceral and Respawn are both working on original action-adventure titles, one of which takes place in a different era than what we're used to.
  • Closing off the show was some Battlefield 1 information and in-game footage - biplane flying, attacking mammoth vehicles, running through exploding houses, and dynamic elements (such as weather conditions) that make every battle unique.
  • Also notable for EA's presentation is that they showed exactly one new game - everything else was known before the conference happened.
• Bethesda's second E3 press conference hit the big time, with a steak of unexpected announcements along the way:
  • Bethesda opened with the surprising reveal of Quake Champions, a revival of the long-dormant Quake franchise with the promise to bring classic FPS multiplayer to its roots.
  • Hearthstone competitor The Elder Scrolls: Legends was next, with the introduction of a story mode and more details on the card game.
  • Todd Howard made a video appearance to show off three more DLC packs for Fallout 4 - one to add a bunch of complex machines to your settlements, one that lets you build and run a Vault in a full-scale version of Fallout Shelter, and one that takes place at the post-apocalyptic amusement park Nuka World.
  • Doom (2016) was given a few moments of discussion, and Bethesda announced plans for a lot of new multiplayer maps and modes. They also opened up the entire first level of Doom to play for free, for everyone, for the week of E3.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got a graphical and PC Game Mod stability upgrade with a Special Edition, which will also bring mods to consoles in the same way Fallout 4 did, and which will be free for anyone who owns all of Skyrim's DLC and/or the Legendary Edition.
  • The Elder Scrolls Online got some screen time: some details on the Dark Brotherhood expansion, and the opening of the entire map for all players regardless of level were the highlights.
  • Fallout 4 for HTC Vive was announced, coming 2017, and a playable VR version of Doom (2016) was on the show floor to try out.
  • Bethesda revived the long-dormant Prey franchise with a debut cinematic for a reboot, also titled Prey. This came as no small surprise, as since cancelling Prey 2 back in 2014 after it languished for a few years in Development Hell, the franchise was presumed dead. The reboot is a Psychological Horror Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter starring Morgan Yu, a female or male (at the player's choice) test subject on a space station where things have Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • Dishonored 2 got a good chunk of time and attention, with plot details, a gameplay trailer, and a live demo. New mechanics include cool new powers, playing as either Emily or Corvo, and a time travel device. A collector's edition for Dishonored 2 was also announced.
• Microsoft:
  • While all three console makers were confirmed or rumored to be preparing new hardware, Microsoft was the only one who chose to reveal theirs at the show:
    • First was the announcement of the Xbox One S to be released later in 2016. The S model is 40% smaller than the original model, can be placed vertically on its side, moves the side USB port and controller sync button to the front, no longer uses the bulky "power brick", is colored white, and includes a revision of the Xbox One controller with textured grips, increased signal range, and Bluetooth support to allow for gaming on PC without a separate adapter. The new S console also introduced 4K video support and high-dynamic-range (HDR) coloring. Showing further signs that Microsoft is distancing itself from Kinect, there is no longer a dedicated proprietary Kinect port, but Microsoft will give out USB 3.0 adapters for existing owners of the sensor.
    • The second, more significant, hardware announcement was "Project Scorpio", an upgraded version of the console meant to support 4K gaming and virtual reality to be released sometime in 2017. Games already released for the console such as Halo 5: Guardians will see performance improvements on "Scorpio". Journalists, who've also said that the announcements of both S and "Scorpio" in the same conference was rather confusing, saw this^note as well as Sony's pre-E3 confirmation of the similar "PlayStation Neo" as console gaming becoming a tiered platform like smartphones and PCs, with the consistent performance model that console gaming was known for on its way out.
  • A new "Xbox Play Anywhere" program was announced, allowing gamers to play some Xbox One games on their Windows 10 PCs without having to re-purchase the game, with cross-platform play capabilities between console and computer.
  • Dead Rising 4, State of Decay 2 and Forza Horizon 3 were new announcements. Dead Rising 4 sees Frank West return in a Christmas-themed setting, while Horizon 3 will take place in Australia and feature a four-player co-op campaign.
• Sony's press conference was widely well-received, consisting of a near constant stream of trailers and demos backed up by a live orchestra:
  • The orchestra first played an unknown song, which was revealed to belong to God of War (PS4). Kratos is back and has a young son, and the focus this time is on Norse Mythology. His Blades of Chaos have been replaced with a new ice-themed axe.
  • Horizon Zero Dawn showed off more gameplay, including a dialogue wheel similar to BioWare's RPGs, a vast open map, and an Enemy Scan feature. It also showed that you can "tame" machines to ride them, and had a fight against a new enemy type - the Corruptor, which could enrage other machines and turn them violent against humans. It was given a Feburary 2017 release date.
  • The Last Guardian was back with a new trailer, showing off fantastic locales, giant-sized enemies, and another one of the large creatures that works with the young boy protagonist. It also confirmed an October 25th, 2016 release date.
  • To the audience's delight, Sony announced Activision's Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, high-definition remakes of the first three Crash Bandicoot games for the PS4. Crash will also be playable in the new iteration of Skylanders.
  • Quantic Dream was next with a story/gameplay trailer for Detroit: Become Human. It showed one of the main characters, an android police negotiator named Connor, trying to talk down a rogue, possibly malfunctioning android who had taken his owners' daughter hostage. As with their other games, player actions and choices can heavily influence and determine the narrative and course of the story - finding clues to the rogue android's motives and additional equipment (such as a gun) can open up vastly different dialogue options and actions to take, such as choosing between trying to talk him down or shooting the android and trying grab the girl before she fell.
  • PlayStation VR got a massive push with a confirmed 50 games at launch on October 13, 2016. It comes with a $400 price tag, and the games lineup includes Star Wars Battlefront (2015), Final Fantasy XV (controlling Prompto instead of Noctis), Batman: Arkham VR, and a trailer for a Silent Hills-esque survival horror game set in a decrepit bayou mansion. This turned out to be Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
  • Gameplay from Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare showed up, featuring a campaign mission which had both space dogfights and the shooting that CoD is known for, with a magnetic grappling hook to aid in zero-g mobility. Reactions to this demo were far, far more positive than the reveal trailer from well before E3, resulting in a large upswing in public opinion to the title.
  • A trailer showing the next title from Insomniac Games confirms that they are working on a new PS4-exclusive Spider-Man game.
  • Hideo Kojima came out on stage to massive applause and revealed his new game which he is developing for Sony - Death Stranding, starring Norman Reedus. It featured Reedus, oil, dead whales, a beach, a baby that may or may not have been birthed by in-game Reedus, and five floating figures. It was far and away the most confusing and strange trailer featured this year, and the Internet meme machine went bonkers over it.
  • Finally, there was Days Gone. A story trailer was shown early on in Sony's conference, but they closed with prerecorded gameplay.^note They tried to pass it off as live, but the person 'playing' the game in their stream is very clearly not actually playing the game. The game itself bears no small resemblance in style and look to fellow end-of-the-world game The Last of Us, with Days Gone being another open-world survival horror game, albeit with bikers and more traditional zombies. Lots of zombies. Lots and lots and lots of zombies.
  • Also, in related news to Microsoft's console announcements, Sony announced before E3 that they too were working on an upgraded version of the PS4 under the project name of "Neo". The updated console, called the PS4 Pro, was revealed and then released the next fall.
• By this time, the Wii U had gone from "struggling" to "all but dead"; and with Nintendo's next console (codenamed the "NX") not ready to show, they decided to scale back, abandon things like tournaments and even a main announcement webcast in favor of solely livestreaming from the E3 show floor, and go all-in on their Wii U Swan Song, the next Zelda entry. Titled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it was revealed to be an NX launch title as well as releasing for Wii U and feature a huge open world, numerous gameplay changes, and a beautiful graphical overhaul. The focus on Zelda by Nintendo proved to be a very wise move - the game was a smash hit with attendees and the press, dominating social media and topping many Game of the Show lists. Their booth was also elaborately decorated with Zelda statues and scenery for photo ops, which only helped boost Zelda's online presence. While Zelda was the big feature, Nintendo did have smaller announcements throughout the livestream: Mario Party: Star Rush, some new Mario and Zelda amiibo, a new IP called Ever Oasis, a Western release for BoxBoxBoy!!, and a release that day for Rhythm Heaven Megamix. They also gave extended looks at Pokémon Sun and Moon, Pokémon GO, Paper Mario: Color Splash, Monster Hunter Generations, a Dragon Quest VII remake, and Yo-kai Watch 2.

E3 2017

• In contrast to many previous years, the general public was allowed admission into E3 this year for the price of $249. To help bolster public attendance, and give them something to do that wasn't just waiting in long lines, the ESA and Geoff Keighley created the E3 Coliseum, which was a two-day series of panels and presentations by E3's major players. The intent of the Coliseum was to create a better consumer experience for E3, and was directly inspired by conventions like PAX, which are supremely attendee-friendly.
• EA decided to forgo a show floor presence as they did in 2016, and host their own event, EA Play, held at the same dates and times as E3:
  • EA's sports offerings once again dominated their presentation, showing off a new story mode for Madden NFL 18, continuing story mode for FIFA 18, and improvements to their Frostbite engine for graphical quality on all of their games.
  • BioWare's yearly allotted two minutes were filled with a teaser for their new IP Anthem, with more information promised to debut in Microsoft's press conference the following day. The game itself appeared visually inspired by Destiny, Mass Effect, Halo, and Titanfall.
  • EA Originals showed off the new game from Hazelight, the studio behind Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, called A Way Out, starring two men named Vincent and Leo, who break out from prison and journey across the country to see their families. As with Brothers, A Way Out is a co-op adventure, with the emphasis being on split-screen cooperative action and third person shooting.
  • The most awkward presentation goes to the Need for Speed Payback opener, consisting of YouTuber Jesse Wellens and executive producer Marcus Nillson, with Wellens not sure how to speak about the game^note Wellens later revealed that his teleprompter had broken, leaving him to flounder on camera until Marcus came in to help. and Nillson being pretty clearly focused on giving the bullet points in a fake conversational way. EA followed the opener with a gameplay trailer of one of the in-game missions, with the player character and her friends focusing on stealing a car from a semi truck barreling down the interstate. Mass auto destruction ensued.
  • Battlefield 1 is far from dead, and it got some love in the form of new incoming DLC focused on the Russian front with new weapons, characters, and maps. Also incoming are six multiplayer maps that take place at night.
  • They closed off the conference with a section on the Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) presented by actress Janina Gavankar, who voiced the main character of the campaign and whose natural, emphatic delivery was a breath of fresh air from the otherwise stodgy executives. EA announced the introduction of classes for multiplayer, free DLC for the game (including new weapons, characters, and maps), and the return of split-screen co-op before closing off their conference with a live demonstration of the multiplayer gameplay.
• Microsoft shook up their press conference plans completely: unlike previous editions of E3, where the company traditionally held its event on the Monday prior to the expo, the company moved its conference back to Sunday so that its announcements would not be overshadowed by those of other conferences traditionally held the same day, such as Ubisoft and Sony. Microsoft also desired to regain its title of having the "first" E3 press conference, acknowledging that Bethesda had begun to hold E3 press events on Sunday as well.
  • As expected, the company finally fully revealed the details of their "Project Scorpio", now named the Xbox One X. The newest Product Facelift of the Xbox One console is smaller than the Xbox One S released the previous year and is capable of native 4K gaming, with performance improvements given to 1080p players as well. Many games shown during their media briefing were shown to be "exclusive" (as a booming voice said multiple times) to Xbox One, Xbox One X, and Windows 10 in some form.
  • As a big surprise, Phil Spencer revealed that OG Xbox games would be made backward compatible for Xbox One in the same vein as Xbox 360 backwards compatibility,^note Players download a digital copy of a compatible game if they insert the original disc in the console or buy it off the Xbox Games Store. If done via disc, then player must have the disc in the console every time they play. with System Link support. Only fan favorite Crimson Skies was announced to be part of the program when it launches later in the year.
• Of course, Bethesda didn’t go in the dark during its third E3 conference:
  • VR was a focus at Bethesda's show, with ports of both Fallout 4 and Doom (2016) to VR systems.
  • Bethesda unveiled their paid mods solution in the form of the Creation Club, where users trade in digital currency for select mods for Bethesda's games.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Switch port has amiibo support, with certain amiibo granting use of exclusive in-game weapons and armor.
  • The Dishonored series got a new entry in the form of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.
  • The Evil Within 2 got a debut trailer, with a focus on wax and blood, and a hard rock cover of Duran Duran's Ordinary World.
  • The next Wolfenstein debuted in the form of a trailer for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, showing off a variety of wonderful and gruesome ways to kill Nazis.
• For the past few years, Devolver Digital had set up their own E3 "booth" in the parking lot across the street from the convention center; and this year they held their first "Big Fancy Press Conference". To say it was interesting is putting it lightly: It was a 20 minute-long pre-recorded satirical video that was one big exercise in trolling everyone else in the video game industry (complete with stock audience footage, spectacular amounts of Refuge in Audacity and a shocking amount of gore), hosted by supposed "Chief Synergy Officer" Nina Struthers (played by actress Mahria Zook).^note Devolver is no stranger to fictional executives, especially their "Chief Financial Officer", Fork Parker It was considered by many to be a breath of fresh air and downright hilarious, giving Devolver enough incentive to become E3 regulars.
• Ubisoft had a fairly small conference, but a lot of big announcements.
  • Confirmation of the leaked crossover game, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle with special guest Shigeru Miyamoto making a rare live appearance (his last was for Wii Music in 2010) to help introduce the game, revealing that it'll be a strategy game similar to XCOM.
  • Assassin's Creed Origins, first revealed in the Microsoft conference, was given more gameplay footage followed shortly by the reveal of The Crew 2 which focused not just on cars but boats and planes as well.
  • A release date trailer for South Park: The Fractured but Whole as well as the reveal of a mobile device game, Phone Destroyer.
  • New IP announcements came with a reveal trailer called Transference directed by Elijah Wood, and a pirate themed multiplayer game, Skull & Bones (which ended up landing in Development Hell and wouldn't be released until 2024).
  • Existing properties revealed an expansion pack for Steep and Just Dance 2018 complete with a usual mini-concert (though surprisingly no footage of the game)
  • Another new IP called Starlink: Battle for Atlas which saw Ubisoft entering the Toys-To-Life Game market as the game allows you to customize your ship through real-life accessories.
  • The conference closed out with a new trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2, a game that was last seen in development in 2008 (and to this day (2024), still hasn't been released).
• Sony kept much the same format as the previous year, with no developer interaction and in fact very little that wasn't game footage or trailers - Shawn Leyden, SIEA's president, took to the stage at the start and end of the conference, but aside from that it was a continuous run of nothing but games. Commenting later on it, Leyden said that E3 is different, and that the show is no longer about the press and retailers as it originally was. Now, it's about the public and the fans, and fans don't usually care about analytics and sales charts.
  • Uncharted: The Lost Legacy went first, introduced by a live orchestra and a trailer that showed off considerable gameplay footage of Chloe and Nadine as they worked to find some treasure in India.
  • Horizon Zero Dawn got a DLC announcement, taking heroine Aloy up to snowy fields and mountains in The Frozen Wilds.
  • Days Gone showed off an extensive gameplay trailer, displaying the game's stealth, combat, and driving elements, bearing more than a few similarities to previous PlayStation-exclusive The Last of Us.
  • Monster Hunter: World showed beautiful graphics and a lush jungle environment for the franchise's first PS4 entry.
  • Shadow of the Colossus was revealed as getting the remake treatment, with vastly updated graphics and a new optional control scheme.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite got a story trailer, showing off more of the game's conflict and some interesting team-ups.
  • Call of Duty: WWII showed off some multiplayer footage, revealing a change to a more objective-oriented format and moving away from the traditional team deathmatch emphasis of previous games in the series.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got another rerelease in the form of a VR port.
  • New indie IP Star Child showed a debut trailer, showing off a sci-fi world and giant robots.
  • Supermassive Games showed off two trailers:
    • First, The Inpatient, a sort-of prequel to their previous game Until Dawn, taking place in Blackwood Sanatorium some 60 years before the events of Until Dawn.
    • Second, a VR FPS named Bravo Team, which uses cover-based mechanics and takes place in a fictional, modern-day Eastern European city.
  • Square Enix used their traditional few minutes of Sony's conference to show off a strange Final Fantasy XV expansion focused entirely around fishing in VR, calling it Monster of the Deep.
  • Polyarc debuted new Zelda-esque adventure title Moss, which is about a mouse journeying the wilderness. The player acts as a helpful spirit, and guides their mouse friend to victory over complex puzzles and towering enemies.
  • God of War (PS4) got a trailer showing off some of the cinematics and going a more in-depth with the combat, with Kratos' new beard in glorious 1080p and 60 FPS.
  • The Quantic Dream game Detroit: Become Human took the audience deeper into its story choices and branching paths, showing how decisions made can vastly affect the outcome of the plot.
  • Destiny 2 gave a taste of the game's plot and showed off some of the PlayStation timed exclusive content in the forms of a strike, some gear, and a Crucible map.
  • Additionally, a minor talking point emerged when Sony's competitors announced that both Minecraft and Rocket League would be receiving cross-play allowing people to play together between the Xbox/PC and Switch platforms, but not PS4; which led some to question why Sony wouldn't play ball.
• Between last E3 and this year's, Nintendo had not only unveiled the "NX" as the Nintendo Switch in October 2016, but gave a basic overview of the system's launch year lineup in January, and launched it in March alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As such, Nintendo was back to their usual E3 format: a main "Nintendo Spotlight" web presentation, all-day Treehouse livestreams, and some gaming tournaments (this time three of them: ARMS, Splatoon 2, and Pokkén Tournament DX). The nationwide demo events from prior years did not return, sadly.
  • The week before E3, three Pokémon games were announced: Pokkén Tournament DX (an Updated Re-release for the Switch), Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and a Virtual Console release for Pokémon Gold and Silver.
  • The Spotlight was extremely rapid-fire, leaving details for the Treehouse. Trailers were shown for Super Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC and amiibo, Fire Emblem Warriors, and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle; Rocket League was revealed to get a Switch release; and new Pokémon, Kirby, Yoshi, and Metroid Prime titles were announced as in development for the Switch.^note Later titled Kirby Star Allies,Yoshi's Crafted World, and Pokémon Sword and Shield, with Metroid final title TBA. And despite the announcement only showing the logo of the game's working title, Metroid Prime 4 became the second most-disscussed game of E3 2017 on social media.
  • The Treehouse stream had its own reveals, including Metroid: Samus Returns, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions, and Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido; as well as amiibo for the former two games, Mario Odyssey, and Fire Emblem Warriors. Other games covered by the Treehouse included ARMS, Splatoon 2, Miitopia, and Ever Oasis.
• One last surprise announcement quietly slipped in right as the expo was wrapping up: Atari was going to re-enter the Console Wars with a machine called the "Ataribox", later renamed the Atari VCS.

E3 2018

• Pre-E3 reveals were much more prevalent this year, with several companies making a variety of announcements before their conferences: Sony teased their major hitters weeks before their conference, The Pokémon Company once again did some Pokémon reveals, Nintendo announced Paladins for Switch, Ubisoft had a small teaser for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Bethesda showed a Fallout 76 trailer after a 24 hour livestream, IO Interactive announced Hitman 2, and Square Enix finally gave Kingdom Hearts III an actual release date.
• EA:
  • As usual, EA's conference was about half sports and half not. FIFA, Madden, and NBA Live all got their looks, but very little in terms of gameplay description or portrayal. A segment featuring the Madden champion from 2018 was widely mocked online, mostly for his reveal that he skipped his graduation to participate in the tournament.
  • Battlefield V had some in-game footage and confirmed a Battle Royale mode, with a promise to detail the single player campaign at Microsoft's press conference the following day.
  • Respawn showed up to introduce the title and setting of their next Star Wars game: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, set in the dark times between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
  • The Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) presentation began with a acknowledgement of the troubled launch and controversies, followed by a look at things added since then (like the well-recieved Ewok Hunt). They closed with an announcement of Clone Wars content, including new heroes and the biggest map to date.
  • The Unravel creator from a few years ago made a return appearance, earning the largest applause from the crowd up to that point. He was back to introduce Unravel Two with a short cinematic and a live gameplay demo that featured Yarny teaming up with a blue buddy for a co-op experience. His return to the stage was much beloved, and EA then surprised pretty much everyone by revealing that the game was, in fact, out right at that moment.
  • Following that, Cornelia Geppert from German-based developer Jo-Mei showed up to talk about their EA-published indie title, Sea of Solitude, about a girl who turns into a monster and is trying to figure out why in a flooded modern world. Both she and the Unravel developer were clearly nervous, but also clearly passionate — a wonderful respite from the normally stodgy or fake-polished executives and presenters that E3 often has.
  • The Command & Conquer franchise returned in the worst possible way: a simplified mobile entry called Command & Conquer: Rivals, which debuted in the form of a live shoutcasted battle between two pro gamers. It was rather underwhelming.
  • On that note, several of EA's attempts to garner applause from the crowd went as well as one would expect. This was most noticeable during the introduction of the Command & Conquer players.
  • Finally, BioWare took the last chunk of the presentation to give more details on Anthem, speaking on the game's story, shared world aspects, multiplayer integration, armor customization, DLC plans, and release date: February 22, 2019.
• If 2017 proved that Microsoft can do no wrong with their press conferences, then 2018 turned it all up to eleven. After years of hosting their game reveals at the Galen Center, the company set up shop at the Microsoft Theater. Microsoft continued to have exhibitor space in the main convention floor, principally dedicated to its Mixer streaming platform, while it hosted demos and other activities at the Microsoft Theater alongside the other exhibition days:
  • With no new console news, Microsoft's entire presentation was almost entirely focused on game demos, trailers, and announcements, creating a very solid hour and a half. The conference opened with a Halo Infinite trailer then followed with lots of trailers throughout including Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Fallout 76, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, Crackdown 3, the Xbox One port of NieR: Automata, Metro Exodus, Kingdom Hearts III, additional Sea of Thieves content, Battlefield V single player campaign, a We Happy Few release trailer, new Player Unknowns Battlegrounds content, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, a The Division 2 trailer and gameplay segment complete with the usual forced banter, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Session, Black Desert Online, Devil May Cry 5, Cuphead DLC, Tunic, Shonen Jump-Massive Multiplayer Crossover Jump Force, a Battletoads reboot, and Just Cause 4. Whew!
  • Microsoft announced the formation of a new game studio called The Initiative and the acquisition of several new studios under the Microsoft Studios banner: Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games.
  • Forza Horizon 4 got a live demo, showing off world events, season changes, a teasing of bikes (!), a teasing of hovercrafts (!!), and great graphics in a British environment.
  • Dying Light 2 Stay Human got some details, with a short presentation by lead writer Chris Avellone on how your choices will impact the game world.
  • The Gears of War series got three new entries: casual mobile game Gears Pop, turn-based tactics game Gears Tactics, and new mainline entry Gears 5, starring Kate as the protagonist this time around.
  • As the conference was wrapping up, the display started glitching out which turned out to be the surprise cinematic trailer for until-now-missing-in-action Cyberpunk 2077 to close off the show. The trailer had a Freeze-Frame Bonus of text about the game including an apology about how long the delay between the trailers and promises that it would be would be DRM free on PC and have no microtransactions.
• Bethesda:
  • Bethesda started off weird - a very corporate-type video about the people working for Bethesda and Pete Hines took to the stage with a pointed jab at Walmart Canada for leaking retail listings for several unannounced games, including Bethesda's Rage 2, a few weeks prior.
  • The Rage 2 presentation began with live performance from Andrew W.K., Bethesda having apparently taken a note from Ubisoft's conference play book. The concert itself was okay, but as was always the case, a little out of place for E3 (despite the song being fitting for Rage 2). They followed this with a gameplay video showing off new graphics, weapons, and powers.
  • A short bit on The Elder Scrolls: Legends followed with an announcement of a port to home consoles and with an updated graphical overhaul on all platforms. The Elder Scrolls Online got a new DLC announcement and word of a dungeon update.
  • From the id side of Bethesda, they announced a sequel to Doom (2016) called Doom Eternal and a free week for Quake Champions, with the added bonus that anyone who tried it during that week would be able to keep the game for free.
  • Prey (2017), despite falling somewhat short of sales expectations the previous year, was far from being an unloved stepchild. A free update to the game went live during the conference, bringing with it a New Game Plus mode, a more hardcore survival mode, and a roguelike Downloadable Content known as Prey - Mooncrash. They also announced Typhon Hunter, an Asymmetric Multiplayer mode where players are either typhons or a human, each trying to kill the other.
  • Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus got standalone DLC in the form of Wolfenstein: Youngblood, a co-op DLC featuring BJ's twin daughters and a VR game called Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot about a resistance hacker who can take over Nazi technology and turn it against them.
  • Todd Howard took the stage for the rest of the conference, bringing with him a slew of videos.
    • Bethesda poked fun at their history of porting The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to every platform imaginable (though by this wiki's standard, Skyrim is not yet at the Port Overdosed stage as of 2021) with a short parody video featuring Skyrim for Alexa smart devices, Etch-a-Sketches, Motorola pagers, and Samsung refrigerators — and just to cap off the joke, they actually did make a Skyrim text-adventure game for Alexa.
    • A gameplay demo and elaboration on Fallout 76 followed, showing off the base building, cooperative and PVP play, and the ability to launch a nuke anywhere on the map.
    • The Elder Scrolls fans got two treats from Todd: a new, high quality mobile game called The Elder Scrolls: Blades was announced for basically every platform under the sun, and a short teaser trailer confirming that The Elder Scrolls VI was in pre-production.
  • Todd also showed off a short teaser video of Bethesda's new single player RPG IP, called Starfield.
• Much like their 2017 "conference", Devolver Digital's press conference was less of a conference and more of a skit comedy show making fun of the lower points of E3 conferences - but they had actual game reveals this time. Of special note was the reveal for a remastered port of Metal Wolf Chaos entitled Metal Wolf Chaos XD, finally bringing FromSoftware's gratuitously American game overseas to the United States after 14 years.
• Square Enix had one of their most disappointing conferences:
  • Two new games were announced with teaser trailers and no other information: Babylons Fall and The Quiet Man.
  • The rest of the showing focused on already existing games: Shadow of the Tomb Raider, a Final Fantasy XIV and Monster Hunter: World crossover event, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit with added commentary from the developers, Dragon Quest XI, the NieR: Automata Xbox trailer from Microsoft's conference, Octopath Traveler, Just Cause 4, and a slightly extended version of the Kingdom Hearts III trailer from Microsoft's conference.
  • And that was it. The conference was about half an hour, and pretty much every media outlet (and a good chunk of Twitter) commented on how short and disappointing the conference was.
• Ubisoft:
  • Beginning with their regular Just Dance performance, the show started with colorful marching band led by a guy in a panda suit.
  • Next we got a another trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2 ending with the reveal of the return of Jade from Beyond Good & Evil with a dark new look. Then there was some gameplay footage and an appearance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt to talk about the partnership with his company, HitRecord that allows people all over the world to contribute art and music for the game.
  • The Rainbow Six Siege presentation talked about its player base growing to 35 million and a documentary Another Mindset following 8 community members in their daily lives and at various Siege events.
  • The Trials Rising preview began with creative director (and self-described prime minister of Finland) Antti Ilvessuo riding to the stage on a motorbike dressed like Evel Knievel and taking a tumble through the lectern to make his point that "Trials is all about crashing with style, and getting back up again".
  • The Division 2's creative director gave the run-down of the setting of Post Apocalyptic Washington, D.C. and some of the features including weapon specialization, eight player raids and three free episodic Downloadable Content packs.
  • Then Critical Hit conducted by composer Grant Kirkhope did a live performance of some of the music from the new Donkey Kong Downloadable Content for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle to accompany its trailer and reveal of its release date.
  • Skull & Bones had a cinematic trailer and a sample of its gameplay showing sneaking past a fortress under false colors and teaming up with other pirates to take down a greater foe.
  • Elijah Wood and Benoit Richer came on to talk about the story of Transference and present a creepy new trailer.
  • Starlink: Battle for Atlas was re-revealed with the surprise announcement that Star Fox content would be a part of the Switch version, including an Arwing toy. Star Fox creator Shigeru Miyamoto made an appearance to accept the prototype miniature of the Arwing from the game.
  • For Honor announced a week where the PC starter edition could be downloaded for free and an Expansion Pack called Marching Fire that introduced a new gameplay mode, Breach and the new Chinese-based Wu Lin faction to play as.
  • The Crew 2 got a new trailer and open beta launching on June 21.
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey then had its full trailer and the info on the game including the ability to choose between two characters to play as and dialogue options before finishing with some gameplay.
• Sony decided to show some of their hand early and promised looks at The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding, Spider-Man (PS4), and Ghost of Tsushima. They fulfilled those promises and then some:
  • It began in a church-like tent, with a live performance of some The Last Of Us music by composer Gustavo Santaolalla. Following that was a gameplay trailer for TLOU Pt II, and then an... in-between segment with some people at a desk while they were setting up the rest of the conference in the auditorium and shuffling the journalists there. It took around 10 to 15 minutes to actually start the showcase proper after that, and the rest of the presentation was pretty standard for them.
  • The games listed above all got in-depth looks at their gameplay and in-game cinematics. Death Stranding was no less confusing than it had always been.
  • Sony also showed off trailers for Destiny 2 expansion Forsaken, Remedy's mind-bending new game Control, a high definition Resident Evil 2 (Remake), the Justin Roiland created Trover Saves the Universe, Kingdom Hearts III (this one was brand new), and an announcement teaser for Nioh 2.
  • Though the presented line-up was solid, Sony was criticized for having little in the way of new or exciting announcements, and multiple outlets commented on how nonsensical and baffling the first 20 to 30 minutes of the whole event were. Twitch also had some streaming problems, with a host of sound issues and the stream periodically dropping out entirely.
• Nintendo's format was the same as the past few years - a Nintendo Spotlight presentation opened their E3, followed immediately by all-day Treehouse livestreams. The tournaments du jour were the Splatoon 2 World Championships and an invitational for the new Super Smash Bros:
  • Like the previous year, Pokémon games were given a separate reveal by The Pokémon Company shortly before the show. The main feature was Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, a streamlined counterpart to the main series for new and lapsed players, especially ones that had gotten (re)introduced by Pokémon GO. For existing players, they assured that more traditional titles are still in development and planned for 2019. A free-to-start title called Pokémon Quest was also revealed, available immediately on the Switch and coming soon to mobile.
  • The Direct itself included a new stylized mech fighting game helmed by Armored Core veterans called Daemon X Machina, the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 expansion Torna: The Golden Country, Super Mario Party, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fortnite, Overcooked! 2, Killer Queen Black, and Hollow Knight. However, these were ultimately just the prelude to the real attraction, as most of the Direct was heavily dominated by the formal announcement of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate following its teaser in March, which promised a Dream Match Game with the return of every single previous fighter in the series and detailed three new characters: the Inklings from Splatoon, Princess Daisy from Super Mario Land,^note as an Echo Fighter, a reskin of an existing fighter with unique animations, in this case Peach's and the memetically-big Ridley from Metroid.
  • While previous years had usually included at least one game that had a surprise release during the show, this year had an unusually high number of immediate or near-immediate releases, including Pokémon Quest, Paladins,^note announced Thursday, released during the Direct on Tuesday Fortnite, Hollow Knight, the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion DLC,^note was only given a vague Summer 2018 release date during the show, then a surprise "Available Tomorrow" announcement after the Splatoon 2 tournament a new Octopath Traveler demo,^note announced in the Direct, released Thursday as part of the weekly eShop releases and Arcade Archives: Donkey Kong.^note announced and released during the Treehouse on Thursday Bethesda also contributed one, having released Fallout Shelter for Switch and PS4 during their conference as well.
  • Notably, three games from last year's Direct — Metroid Prime 4, the Switch Yoshi game, and Pokémon Generation VIII — were no-shows. Nintendo stated that the games simply weren't far enough in development, and that (as usual for them) they wanted to focus on games releasing in the next few months.^note Indeed, Pokémon and Metroid had been announced unusually early for Nintendo; undoubtedly to help assure fans after the negative receptions to Pokémon Let's Go and Federation Force, respectively. While Yoshi's Crafted World and Pokémon Sword and Shield saw release the following year, it turned out that Metroid was seeing so many problems in development that, six months later, Nintendo publicly admitted that they had to scrap it entirely and start over (and as of 2024, it's still MIA).

E3 2019

• Sony decided to not take part in this E3. Officially, Sony stated that E3 was no longer an ideal place to talk business with retailers (as preparations for the big holiday season now take place earlier in the year) and that announcements for fans can be better served in their own dedicated events, as they can now be made any time thanks to 24/7 games journalism and online streaming. Unofficially, Sony simply didn't have anything new to show — the company had pivoted to releasing fewer games per year, with their content pipeline now almost-exclusively consisting of titles whose large budgets and scopes were equally matched with long development times. After showcasing several big first-party titles the previous years and releasing a few others since, nothing was far enough along in production for them to publicly showcase (or take a second look, in some cases). Sony had cancelled their PSX show in 2018 for this exact reason, and said as much when announcing that cancellation.
• A general trend noticed by more than a few journalists and commentators was that many of the presenters seemed to simply be going through the motions. This led to an overall underwhelming event: while there weren't any earth-shattering reveals or charismatic new personalities (Keanu Reeves and Ikumi Nakamura in Microsoft and Bethesda's respective conferences being the exceptions), there also weren't any hilarious trainwrecks or overly awkward presentations either. Combined with Sony's total absence, Nintendo's ongoing preference to stream their (pre-recorded) not-conference, Activision's complete abandonment, and EA and Microsoft's shows set up in other locations, questions on the necessity and format of E3 loomed over the proceedings. It says a lot when a highlight of the show was Joe Bernthal bringing his dog on stage.
• The week before the show, Google suddenly jumped into the industry with a presentation about Google Stadia, their Cloud Gaming service. They revealed its pricing, internet requirements, and that it would launch the next November. As for games coming to Stadia, first came the exclusive reveal that Larian Studios were developing a new entry in the Baldur's Gate series, Baldur's Gate III. Then they followed with Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the creepy stealth/puzzle game Gylt, the comedic Get Packed, The Division 2 and Destiny 2.
• EA once again held their EA Play event the weekend before the show, but this year replaced their press conference with a longer, less formal livestream that featured Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Apex Legends, Battlefield V, FIFA 20, Madden NFL 20, and the latest expansions for The Sims 4. Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) also got a brief talk between presentations.
• Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios was the only one of the big three to hold a physical press conference, keeping the traditional format still going by showing sixty games off in their presentation.
  • Obsidian Entertainment showed off The Outer Worlds, a dystopian sci-fi First-Person Role-Playing Game game, and Ninja Theory showed off Bleeding Edge, a 4v4 multiplayer combat game with colorful, eccentric characters.
  • The Dungeon Crawling Minecraft Spin-Off game called Minecraft Dungeons got its first gameplay trailer.
  • The Battletoads reboot that was announced at last year's E3 conference has received some gameplay footage.
  • A Survival Horror game based on The Blair Witch Project simply titled Blair Witch was announced to be released on August 30, 2019, set in 1996 and developed by Bloober Team of Layers of Fear fame.
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator was announced to be returning with a new game, rendered in 4K and powered by sattelite data and Microsoft Azure AI technology.
  • Microsoft announced their acquisition of Double Fine as their newest member of the Xbox Game Studios family and dropped a new Psychonauts 2 trailer.
  • Gears 5 received some more footage and a release date of September 10, 2019. There was also a tie-in with Terminator: Dark Fate, with Sarah Connor and the T-800 as DLC guest fighters for multiplayer.
  • For the first time since the beginning of Forza Horizon, no brand-new Forza title was announced. Instead, Playground Games announced the second expansion of Forza Horizon 4, called LEGO Speed Champions, with a 1:1 Lego model of the main game's cover car the McLaren Senna on stage and a trailer featuring "Everything is Awesome" from The LEGO Movie. Featuring Lego versions of real cars, a new world filled with destructible Lego bricks and pieces, and Lego minifig avatars, it was announced to be released later in the week on June 13.
  • Continuing the Lego theme, a new LEGO Star Wars game was announced, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which features all nine episodic films from The Phantom Menace to the then-upcoming The Rise of Skywalker. Also, the game's trailer revealed that it will return to the classic dialogue-free format of the early LEGO Adaptation Games.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 was shown once again, with Keanu Reeves making a surprise appearance on stage to reveal that he would be voicing and lending his likeness to in-game NPC Johnny Silverhand. After Reeves was called "breathtaking" by an audience member,^note a small-time Xbox-focused YouTuber from the Los Angeles area by the name of Peter Sark (video proof) which Reeves took in stride by calling the member and everyone else in the theater "breathtaking", he announced that the game would be released April 16, 2020.
  • FromSoftware's next project, Elden Ring, which is a collaboration with George R. R. Martin, was officially revealed.
  • The next generation Xbox console, codenamed "Project Scarlett" (and named outside of E3 as the Xbox Series X|S) was announced, set for a holiday 2020 release. In addition, Halo Infinite was the last game shown at the conference, revealed to be a launch title for the system. (It got delayed to the end of 2021, a year after the Xbox Series' launch.)
  • At their Inside Xbox livestream the following day, Microsoft announced the last set of games from their previous generation consoles to be made playable on the Xbox One, including several Splinter Cell installments from the original Xbox and even Too Human of all games (and that one received a free re-release). Several of Rare's games for the Xbox 360 were also given Xbox One X enhancements. Moving forward, the backwards compatible team is focusing on making old games work with "Project Scarlett".
• Bethesda had an overarching focus on the fans as the company's reason to be. Given the reception and very public issues with Fallout 76, it's not hard to see why they chose that focus.
  • After a brief intro by Pete Hines and Todd Howard, both of whom acknowledged the rough launch of Fallout 76,^note which is putting it mildly. A lawsuit was filed, Todd! Todd announced two new things for 76, both free: a new expansion titled Wastelanders that brings human NPCs and dialogue trees to the game, and a battle royale mode called Nuclear Winter, under the premise of a Vault choosing a new Overseer.
  • Elder Scrolls fans, while not shown anything new relating to The Elder Scrolls VI, were still given a few treats:
    • The Elder Scrolls: Blades got a new content drop featuring new jobs, battles, gear, and a dragon-centric questline, along with a port to the Nintendo Switch - still free, and cross-save is supported.
    • The Elder Scrolls Online got a new, also-dragon-focused expansion called Dragonhold, to be released later that year.
    • The Elder Scrolls: Legends got a new expansion as well, adding more cards to the game. It released later in June.
  • The Evil Within developers Tango Gameworks showed up to announce their new title: Ghostwire: Tokyo, introduced by director Shinji Mikami and creative director Ikumi Nakamura (who was the lead concept artist for The Evil Within and the sequel). Despite only being on stage for around two minutes, Ikumi's cheerful demeanor, earnest nature, and clear love for the game she was making quickly elevated her appearance to being a highlight of the show and an undeniable fan favorite. Also, the game looked really cool.
  • Surprising everyone, Bethesda announced a new entry in the Commander Keen franchise in the form of a free-to-play mobile game. If you've never heard of that franchise, we don't blame you, given how its heyday was in the early 1990s and the most recent entry was released in 2001.
  • The still fresh Rage 2 got an expansion pack in the form of Rise of the Ghosts, showing off new cheats, weapons, vehicles, and a new enemy faction.
  • The two Wolfenstein games shown last year got release dates and new trailers.
  • Arkane Lyons showed off the trailer for their newest game Deathloop with a man and woman stuck in a murderous "Groundhog Day" Loop. The game's visual style, music choice, and premise captured audience and media attention instantly.
  • The rest of the conference was devoted to id Software and Doom Eternal, with an extended gameplay demo, talk on id's streaming service software called Orion, and an announcement of a collector's edition and details on the Asymmetric Multiplayer mode.
  • The f-bomb count in this year's conference was doubled from last year's, though Todd himself did not deliver either of them. Also of note was that a lot of Bethesda's presenters were clearly passionate about their games, showing plenty of genuine emotion and excitement when talking about their stuff.
• Devolver Digital's conference was the only one to feature lore, continuing the "plot" that has loosely existed over the past few years. They targeted Nintendo Directs this time, poking fun at the overly polished and friendly nature of Nintendo's broadcasts. Along the way, they also announced the release dates for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and Carrion, along with a light gun cabinet version of Enter the Gungeon subtitled House Of The Gundead and an available now 8-in-1 collection of rip-offs of their most popular games called Devolver Bootleg. Well, nobody's ever called them predictable, that's for sure.
• Ubisoft's show opened with the announcement of an Assassin's Creed symphonic tour this year, called Assassin's Creed Symphony.
  • Watch Dogs: Legion has been shown off, slated for a March 2020 release.
  • Rob McElhenney took to the stage next to talk about a partnership between the creators of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Ubisoft to produce a show called Mythic Quest about a game studio behind a wildly popular massively MMORPG, Mythic Quest.
  • Adventure Time content was announced for Brawlhalla including Finn, Jake, Princess Bubblegum skins and a level based on the Tree Fort.
  • The presentation was mostly filled with Tom Clancy games, with games such as Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Rainbow Six Quarantine and the Crossover mobile game Tom Clancy's Elite Squad appearing.
  • Just Dance 2020 was unsurprisingly announced, and while it has abandoned the Xbox 360 and Wii U, the game is still coming to the latter's predecessor, the Wii.
  • Trailers and info about their full-contact rollerblading Sports Game, Roller Champions followed with the announcement that the free-to-play pre-alpha demo was opening on Uplay that day.
  • The presentation ended with a trailer for Ubisoft Quebec's next big project, Gods And Monsters that would go on to be released as Immortals Fenyx Rising.
• Square Enix Live:
  • The presentation began with an extended look at the Final Fantasy VII Remake, with a demo of the new combat system and an assertion that the remake contained two Blu-ray disks worth of content. An full version of the concert trailer ended the segment, at last revealing Tifa's new model to an adoring and eager crowd.
  • Life Is Strange 2 got a small moment with a reactions trailer.
  • A new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered trailer was next, promoting both the online co-op gameplay and the addition of mobile platforms.
  • Like Life Is Strange 2, the PC port of Octopath Traveler got a promotional moment.
  • The Last Remnant Remastered was announced for the Switch and released later that night.
  • Two new Dragon Quest trailers were next - Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Dragon Quest XI S - showing the company's renewed focus on bringing that franchise to the West's attention.
  • The Square Enix Collective was next, showing off the newest projects for the indie publishing label: top-down racing game Circuit Superstars coming out in 2020 for all consoles and the World War II FPS Battalion 1944.
  • A small, amusing segment promoting the addition of the Final Fantasy soundtracks to streaming services was shown.
  • Following that was a reprise of the trailer for the Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind DLC coming in winter of that year, the same one shown at a Kingdom Hearts concert.
  • Final Fantasy XIV got a moment in the spotlight with a launch trailer for the Shadowbringers expansion, causing the fandom to absolutely lose their minds at the lore revelations.
  • Techland's Dying Light 2 Stay Human was revealed to be now published by Square Enix in North America.
  • Surprising pretty much everyone, localizations of two never-before-localized games in the SaGa franchise were revealed: Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions.
  • War of the Visions, a tactical RPG set in the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius universe, was officially shown off for Western audiences, with a story trailer detailing the various nations of the in-game world.
  • Outriders, a new co-op shooter by the developer of Bulletstorm, People Can Fly, was revealed.
  • Oninaki, Tokyo RPG Factory's newest project, got a new trailer and a August 22, 2019 date.
  • A remaster of Final Fantasy VIII was announced to be coming to modern consoles and PC. This explained the mystery of why VIII was not ported to the Switch and Xbox One when both VII and IX were, which was previously chalked to a rumor that Square Enix had lost the original source code.
  • Marvel's Avengers by developer Crystal Dynamics was shown off for the first time, with a May 15, 2020 release date. The presentation focused mostly on the story and introduced the voice cast playing the Avengers.
• Nintendo stuck to their now-usual format: a Pokémon-focused Nintendo Direct the week before, tournaments on the Saturday before (Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), a Nintendo Direct to open the expo on Tuesday, and all-day Treehouse streams for the rest of the week.
  • Instead of a Pokémon Presents, The Pokémon Company held a live press conference two weeks before E3 where they revealed a Detective Pikachu sequel for the Switch, DeNA's new mobile game Pokémon Masters, a Pokémon Sleep health app, and the new cloud service Pokémon Home. Then the following week, Nintendo held their usual early Pokémon mini-Direct featuring Pokémon Sword and Shield, showing off a couple new Pokémon, characters, the Dynamax battle mechanic, and the November 15, 2019 release date; and the main E3 Direct added some further details.^note another character reveal and compatibility with Pokemon Let's Go!'s Pokeball Plus accessory Unfortunately, a later reveal from a Treehouse stream that the games would not include every Pokémon from the past games triggered a firestorm of resentment from parts of the fanbase. Accusations of "lazy developers" flew fast and hard, buoyed by dissatisfaction with the game's graphical style and the Dynamax mechanic.
  • In the main Direct:
    • The presentation was bookended by new fighter DLC reveals for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; "the Hero" from Dragon Quest (actually multiple Heroes from the series as alternate skins for a single fighter) at the beginning and Banjo-Kazooie at the end. The Hero's reveal was naturally followed by a new trailer for Dragon Quest XI S. Also for Smash, the Treehouse stream later gave release dates for some of the unreleased amiibo figures.
    • After the initial intro, a moment was taken to introduce Nintendo of America's new President replacing Reggie Fils-Aimé, Doug Bowser (complete with an Obligatory Joke regarding Nintendo's other Bowser).
    • Most of Nintendo's first-party offerings were already known to exist, but the presentation showed major story elements, new gameplay mechanics, and/or release dates for the first time. These included Luigi's Mansion 3, a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (with the Treehouse adding that it would get an amiibo figure), Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Daemon X Machina, Astral Chain, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. New trailers were also shown for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020, with the former announcing that DLC packs would be released some time after launch.
    • Among the third-party offerings, the obligatory "from left field" announcement this year was the release of the previously-Japan-only Super Famicom title Seiken Densetsu 3, now called Trials of Mana; both in a full 3D remake set to release in 2020 and in an official localization of the original release as part of the Collection of Mana available later that day. Another unexpected sequel came in the form of No More Heroes III. Other new games announced included The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics, Contra Rouge Corps and the Contra Anniversary Collection (with the Anniversary Collection being released that day), a Panzer Dragoon remake, Empire of Sin, and ports of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6. The Crypt of the NecroDancer/The Legend of Zelda collaboration Cadence of Hyrule was also announced to release later in the week on Thursday.
    • Capping the direct after the Banjo-Kazooie fighter reveal, the then unamed sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was announced to be in development and given a teaser trailer.
• In a surprise, the writers and producers of The Simpsons hosted a panel discussing the franchise's relationship with video games (including the Fictional Video Games featured on the show). Many tuned in hoping for a major video game announcement, only to be disappointed when the panel simply announced a "Game of Games" event for The Simpsons: Tapped Out.

E3 2020 (cancelled)

• E3 did not happen in 2020, as the conference was cancelled for the first time in its 25-year-history due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. When announcing the cancellation in March of that year, the ESA also stated that they hoped to "coordinate an online experience" in its place, but that hope eventually fell through due to numerous disruptions brought about by the pandemic. The ESA would still assist in promoting any announcements made by the few developers and publishers who still planned to make them, but it could be argued that this cancellation was a mercy:
  • The previous two years saw them plagued with online security issues, from as minor as the public being able to access the website a day early in February 2020, to the personal information of over 2,000 media attendees (including names, addresses, and phone numbers) being leaked in August 2019 due to poor data sanitation, giving the gaming journalists substantial trust issues with the organization.
  • Ahead of the event's cancellation, Sony announced in January that they were once again electing to skip E3 entirely. Their given reason was that they felt "the vision of E3 2020 is not the right venue for what we are focused on this year." Since this was the year they were to release the PlayStation 5, Sony's absence from the event at a time when they were expected to have the Hollywood Hype Machine at full power was considered the first major sign that the event was no longer the announcement powerhouse that it once was.
  • As part of the expo's redesign — an alleged pitch deck leaked in September 2019, presenting a new potential "fan, media, and influencer festival" idea for the event — game merchandisers iam8bit were brought on as creative directors. In early March (not long before the cancellation), they pulled out for undisclosed reasons.
• While some larger companies would forego having any showcase or event in the absence of E3, at least in part due to COVID-19 affecting the production and development of whatever they may have had in the pipeline, this doesn't mean there were no announcements to be had, as a few digital events sprang up in the same timeframe to function as ad-hoc replacements, and whatever digital events that were already planned went as scheduled:
  • IGN ran their Summer of Gaming, featuring a number of developer presentations bracketed by IGN coverage.
  • GameSpot had Play For All, a combination digital event and charity fundraiser, with over 100 hours of content spread over several weeks.
  • Geoff Keighley, host of The Game Awards and a well-known gaming community personality, revealed back in February that he wouldn't be attending or producing the E3 Coliseum he had been doing since 2017. He stated that he didn't "feel comfortable" attending, and later commented that disagreements with the hesitancy of E3 leadership to expand digitally and globally contributed to this. In the wake of the E3's cancellation, he would put together the Summer Games Fest with iam8bit from May to August. It was, in his words, less of an organized event and more of a Google calendar for the industry, working with the above digital events and other companies to unite everyone in gaming under a single banner.
  • Devolver Digital went ahead with their Devolver Direct. Devolver also released Devolverland Expo, a "marketing simulator" game which has you visiting booths at an abandoned convention center while avoiding killer security drones, armed only with a power glove and a t-shirt cannon. Games shown included Shadow Warrior 3, Weird West, Blightbound, Carrion, Disc Room, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Serious Sam 4 and Olija.

E3 2021

• Rebranded as the Electronic Entertainment Experience, E3 2021 was held June 12 to 15 as a digital-only event, as the United States was still in the early stages of widespread COVID vaccination at the time. Though the event still had the backing of industry titans like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Ubisoft, many of the recently missing remained absent — EA, Sony, and Activision-Blizzard did not have a presence. On May 13, a free application was announced to serve as the main online hub for the digital event, featuring dedicated exhibitor booths and areas for fan gatherings.
• Of note this year was the sheer number of presentations. Even companies who had never shown up at E3 before had their own digital exhibitions, including but not limited to companies like Netflix, Verizon and Intellivision. With no physical show floor or stage presence that required curating, it seemed like there was no barrier for anyone who wanted to participate to find their way onto the schedule.
• Geoff Keighley again opted not to officially participate in E3 this year, instead running Summer Games Fest for a second year in a row with the continued assistance of iam8bit, as well as new partner Amazon Prime Gaming as a sort of rival event. A few big announcements occurred on the Fest's starting date at both the official kickoff livestream and a subsequent presentation by IGN, strategically dated for June 10: the day before E3 proper began. Some of these announcements included the re-debut of FromSoftware and George R. R. Martin's Elden Ring, slated for a January 2022 launch; updated versions of Death Stranding and Doki Doki Literature Club!, with the former being a Director's Cut release for the PS5 with no announced date and the latter adding new content and updated graphics set to release physically and digitally on all then-current consoles and PC later that month on June 30; and finally, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, a Borderlands spinoff in the vein of the Tiny Tina's Assualt on Dragon Keep DLC campaign from Borderlands 2. The event would last a month this time, running until July 22.
• Devolver Digital continued their tradition of parodical presentations as part of Summer Game Fest rather than E3. As part of this, the framing device saw it being set in a new "continuity", as it were, that featured the same cast and was centered around the totally real Devolver MaxPass+, a free subscription service that offers all Devolver Digital titles as premium purchases (don't worry, you're already subscribed). Besides that, eight upcoming releases- er, "Devolver MaxPass+ Premium Purchases" were showcased: most notably Shadow Warrior 3, Trek to Yomi, Death's Door, Inscryption, and Demon Throttle. Demon Throttle, in an intriguing move, was announced for a limited-run physical-only release on Nintendo Switch sometime in 2022, with pre-orders going live that day. And yes, you read that right: this game was only going to get a single, limited physical run, with no digital release planned.
• Ubisoft:
  • Ubisoft kicked off E3 proper with a detailed look at the cooperative Rainbow Six Siege spinoff Rainbow Six Extraction (previously known as the Harsher in Hindsight Rainbow Six Quarantine), slated for release September 16, 2021.
  • The Rocksmith franchise was announced to be returning as Rocksmith+, a subscription service for PC, consoles, and mobile devices that aims to teach people how to play guitar and bass.
  • Massively multiplayer extreme sports game Riders Republic received a deep dive. It was dated for September 2 of that year.
  • On the subject of Siege, crossplay and cross-saves for that game were detailed, with players on PC, Google Stadia, and Amazon Luna able to take advantage of the feature starting June 30, with support for other consoles slated for the following year. A story trailer for the then-upcoming operative Thunderbird was also shown.
  • A small string of minor updates followed, including updates for For Honor, Trackmania (2020), The Crew 2, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover skins for Brawlhalla, and a small trailer for Ghost Recon Breakpoint celebrating the franchise's 20th anniversary.
  • New details for Far Cry 6 were provided, with the most interesting being the Season Pass, which includes both the ability to play as the villains of the prior three games and a remastered version of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.
  • After being accidentally leaked earlier that day, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, a space-faring sequel to Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was officially announced for a 2022 release on Nintendo Switch.
  • The final announcement was a rather big one: Ubisoft was teaming up with Disney to produce their second video game based on James Cameron's Avatar after the 2009 game, a comparatively higher-scale first-person open-world adventure game titled Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It was slated for a 2022 release on all then-current platforms, though it would go on to miss this target date.
• Microsoft and Bethesda had a joint presentation this year, with the former having finalized their acquisition of the latter earlier in March 2021. Following its tease as "Project Scarlett" at E3 2019, this was the first proper E3 show for the Xbox Series X|S, which was released during the 2020 holiday season.
  • Todd Howard kicked off the showcase with a short trailer for Bethesda's next big single-player RPG, Starfield. Having been planned for release on all ninth-generation consoles before the Microsoft acquisition, it was unsurprisingly revealed that the game was now only going to release on Xbox Series and PC, with said release set for November 11, 2022 (it would later be delayed into 2023).
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, Psychonauts 2, and Age of Empires IV were all finally given release dates: STALKER 2 was dated for April 28, 2022 as a timed Xbox and PC exclusive, Psychonauts 2 was set for August 25, 2021, and Age of Empires IV for October 28, 2021.
  • Avalanche Studios revealed their next game, the open-world co-op action game Contraband, with a short teaser trailer. No date was provided.
  • A free Pirates of the Caribbean-themed expansion for Sea of Thieves, entitled A Pirate's Life, was revealed, with players getting to team up with Captain Jack Sparrow himself to take on Davy Jones. The expansion was dated for later that month on June 22.
  • A couple big pre-existing releases were revealed to be coming to Xbox Game Pass: Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the final mainline Like a Dragon game not already on Game Pass, was added that very day, while indie darling Hades was announced for both a Game Pass and physical Xbox release later that year on August 13. Ten additional Bethesda games, including the first three Fallout games and Fallout Tactics, were also added the day of the presentation.
  • DICE showcased some gameplay for Battlefield 2042, the latest game in the long-running FPS franchise. EA had revealed the game earlier that week, dating it for an Xbox, PlayStation, and PC release on October 22, 2021.
  • New content for Fallout 76 was revealed, including the Brotherhood of Steel-centric Steel Reign update, set for release July 7, and the announcement of "Expeditions", repeatable story-based missions that are set outside the game's main setting of Appalachia. The first of these Expeditions, set for release in 2022, was announced to be set in The Pitt from the self-titled Fallout 3 DLC.
  • Having missed its November 2020 release date announced at E3 2019, Halo Infinite was given some time to shine with both a story trailer teasing the game's plot and a look at the game's multiplayer, which was announced to be releasing as a separate free-to-play experience. Both the single-player and multiplayer were slated for a Holiday 2021 release.
  • A Plague Tale: Requiem, the sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence, was announced with a pre-rendered trailer for a 2022 release on Xbox and PC.
  • A sequel to indie hit Slime Rancher, titled Slime Rancher 2, was announced to be releasing in 2022 as a temporary Xbox and PC exclusive.
  • Obsidian confirmed that a sequel to The Outer Worlds was in development exclusively for Xbox Series consoles and PC with a very tongue-in-cheek CGI trailer.
  • The hotly-anticipated fifth entry in the Forza Horizon series was revealed for Xbox One, Xbox Series consoles, and PC, with Mexico as the game's setting and a new TrackMania/GTA Online-style Level Editor called the Events Lab to be part of the game. It was dated for November 9, 2021.
  • To cap off the presentation, Arkane Studios revealed their next title, a vampire and occult-themed co-op shooter named Redfall, with a CGI trailer. It was slated for Summer 2022, exclusively for Xbox Series consoles and PC.
  • While it isn't a game and didn't pop up until after the usual "end-of-presentation sizzle reel", we'd be remiss not to mention the Xbox Mini Fridge — an Ascended Meme of jokes that the Series X looked like a refrigerator, and something that Microsoft promised to make for real if they won the #BestOfTweets Brand Bracket held by Twitter that March — which was revealed to be available for purchase during the 2021 holiday season.
  • Microsoft also followed up with Xbox Games Showcase: Extended the following Thursday, a three-hour presentation with more details on the games featured.
• Square Enix's Square Enix Presents:
  • The first announcement was that Square wasn't done with Marvel Comics properties just yet, with Eidos Montreal heading up a Guardians of the Galaxy game, featuring the team lineup from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and with Star-Lord as the player character. It was slated for release on October 26, 2021.
  • This was followed up with the announcement of Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, a remastered collection of the first six games in the series but (at the time) only for Steam and mobile phones.
  • A 2021 content roadmap for Crystal Dynamics' beleaguered Marvel's Avengers was provided, including a cinematic trailer for the then-upcoming War for Wakanda expansion that added Black Panther to the game. The expansion was dated for August 2021.
  • Babylons Fall, Square Enix and PlatinumGames' live-service co-op action game announced way back at E3 2018 finally resurfaced with both a gameplay trailer and a developer interview.
  • Deck Nine's Life Is Strange: True Colors, announced earlier that year for release on September 10, 2021, was given a showcase. Life Is Strange: Remastered Collection, which contains remastered versions of the first two games and Before the Storm and is included as a part of the Ultimate Edition of True Colors, was also given a trailer and announced for release outside said Ultimate Edition later that same month, on September 30.
  • The last announcement was the reveal of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, a spinoff title from Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja and creative director Tetsuya Nomura, which involves a trio of supposed Warriors of Light aiming to defeat Chaos...who suspiciously appears to be Garland from the very first Final Fantasy game.
• Take-Two Interactive had a listed presentation, but rather than a game presentation, it was a sociopolitical discussion panel on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
• Capcom hosted their own presentation for the first time. There were no new game announcements; instead they revealed minor DLC updates coming for Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter: Rise, an upcoming demo for Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, and gameplay mechanics for The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. The rest of the time was given to a discussion hyping up the post-COVID return of Street Fighter V Tournament Play.
• Nintendo, as in previous years, had not just a Nintendo Direct but also a Treehouse livestream (though only for one day instead of the usual three).
  • The Direct started by revealing the penultimate DLC Fighter Pass 2 character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Kazuya from Tekken, with the promise of an in-depth "Sakurai Presents" presentation on the character coming roughly two weeks later.
  • The Direct's biggest surprise was Metroid Dread, the first brand-new 2D Metroid game in over 19 years and a formerly-Vaporware project that had been Saved from Development Hell. They also assured fans that Metroid Prime 4, previously announced at E3 2017 but which hadn't received any news updates since its development publicly restarted in January 2019, was still in development.
  • Other games given spotlights included Switch versions for the two Life is Strange releases from Square Enix's presentation, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, Mario Party Superstars, WarioWare: Get It Together!, and a release date trailer for Shin Megami Tensei V. Within the smaller headlines, some of the bigger announcements were Danganronpa Decadence (an anniversary Compilation Re-release which also marks the franchise's debut on a Nintendo platform), a Switch port of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (later revealed to be a multiplatform release), and Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp (the return of the long-dormant strategy series via a compilation remake of the two Game Boy Advance entries). The Japanese version of the Direct also revealed Super Robot Wars 30 (later revealed to be a multiplatform release with a worldwide English release on Steam only).
  • The final segment was devoted to The Legend of Zelda's 35th anniversary. It featured a trailer and release date (later that week) for the first round of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity DLC, a brief look at the Skyward Sword HD remake coming the next month, and a new, limited edition Zelda Game & Watch (featuring ports of the first two games, the Game Boy version of Link's Awakening, and a version of the G&W game Vermin starring Link). The Direct then wrapped up with the long-awaited second trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (still unnamed at the time), which received a target release year of 2022.
  • As they were games with impending releases within the next month, Mario Golf: Super Rush and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin only briefly appeared in the Direct but were given feature segments in the Treehouse. No More Heroes III was also promoted by Nintendo, but as an M-rated game it wasn't included in the all-ages Direct or Treehouse stream, instead being given a separate Treehouse featurette on YouTube.
• Bandai Namco capped off the year's E3 with a short presentation on The Dark Pictures Anthology game House of Ashes, where they unveiled a new trailer and confirmed a release date (October 22, 2021).

E3 2022 (cancelled)

• With the COVID-19 Pandemic still looming large, there was no in-person E3 event in 2022. An official cancellation of the digital event came at the end of March, coincidentally the same day that the Summer Game Fest was announced to return for its third year. This time, Summer Game Fest was condensed into a few days (June 9-12) and in addition to a small in-person event for press and influencers to demo select games over the weekend. In a major move, Microsoft and their subsidiary Bethesda would air their joint showcase on June 12 as part of the event (with an extended cut airing just two days later), with a stern emphasis on titles that would be releasing within the following twelve months. The Microsoft showcase also notably featured announcements from Activision Blizzard, who they were in the process of acquiring at the time. EA and Ubisoft announced ahead of time that they were not holding summer showcase events at all that year, and while Sony and Nintendo would have their usual digital showcases that month (albeit a third-party only one in the case of Nintendo, who had already revealed and dated the rest of their major first-party 2022 releases), they were unaffiliated with SGF and aired in the days before and after (June 2 and June 28, respectively).

E3 2023 (cancelled)

• While the ESA and ReedPop said that E3 2023 was on for June of that year, the event was once again cancelled on March 30, with the announcement stating that the show "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." In plain terms, the show outright couldn't happen due to most of the usual big partners — Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sega, and Tencent — all stating earlier in the year that they wouldn't have a presence on the show floor. With there having only been a single E3 in the past four years, and said event being an underwhelming pure-digital show itself, several gaming pundits began discussing if this was finally the end of one of the industry's biggest trade shows. Most of those companies would instead go on to host their own digital showcases around the same time instead, with many announcing this intention at the same time they revealed their planned absence. As with the previous year, many of these presentations were joined under the banner of Summer Game Fest and see the participation of even more major developers and publishers (such as Square Enix, who shared the first gameplay for the two-disc Final Fantasy VII Rebirth). And once again, Sony and Nintendo opted to hold their usual summer showcases unattached to what some have begun to consider E3's successor on May 24 and June 21, respectively, though Nintendo would have a standard general Direct this time around.

The End

• Speculation that E3 may be done for good exploded in June 2023, when a report by the Los Angeles City Tourism Board of Commissioners included a footnote on page 21 revealing that E3 2024 and 2025 were cancelled, or at least had no plans to make use of the Los Angeles Convention Center. In response, ESA representatives stated that "no final decision has been made" regarding the future of E3. However, in September 2023, they would not only confirm that E3 2024 would not take place in the Los Angeles Convention Center, but that the ESA has ended their partnership with ReedPop. As such, the future of E3 seemed bleak.
• On December 12, 2023, the ESA confirmed that E3 was no more, fulfilling the rumors and speculations by announcing that "the time has come to say goodbye". ESA President and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis confirmed in a Washington Post interview that E3 was dead, with Pierre-Louis saying that ending E3 was "the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners".
  
  After so many years of unforgettable moments and legendary showcases, E3 would end not with a bang, but with a whimper. E3 had long since outlived its usefulness in the wake of direct-to-consumer digital showcases, and all of the previous bad news around the expo's future meant that few were surprised when the announcement came. Even so, gamers who were there to watch E3 live still largely reacted to the news with sadness, as the show that had become synonymous with big video game announcements and flashy press conferences had fallen. There will always be fond memories held by those who were there, remembering the build-up, speculation, and excitement the showcases once generated — indeed, the social media post which announced the end of E3 summed it up by saying "thanks for the memories".

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