Games galore at E3 2021

The 2021 E3 gaming expo has concluded with dozens of new games for PCs and Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch consoles.

Forza Horizon 5

The 2021 E3 gaming expo concluded on June 16, with dozens of new games being announced for PCs and Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch consoles.

Traditionally held in Los Angeles and previously the keystone event in gaming calendars, the event began struggling following the withdrawal of Sony from the show in 2018, which was followed up by a data breach of journalists’ details during the 2019 show.

Thanks to COVID-19 the E3 expo was cancelled entirely in 2020, returning this year in an “all-digital” format which essentially amounted to a series of lifestreams and trailers extremely early in the morning for Australian gamers.

Despite the unsociable hour of most of the announcements, there were still plenty of interesting game announcements from game developers at the event, covering a range of genres and platforms.

Halo Infinite

Ubisoft kicked off E3 with several announcements at their Ubisoft Forward digital presentation, notably co-op shooter Rainbow Six: Extraction, which lets gamers team up with friends to fight an alien threat using operatives from the popular Rainbow Six: Siege multiplayer game. The game is set for a September 16 release.

The company also unveiled a September 2 release date for Rider’s Republic, an open-world extreme sports game set in the US which will include BMX, snowboarding and wingsuit flying.

A game based on the 2008 film Avatar was also announced, entitled Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, although details of the gameplay specifics were light, and the presentation concluded with the announcement of Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, a turn-based tactics game involving characters from both the Super Mario Bros and Rabbids franchises. The game is a Nintendo Switch exclusive and sequel to the surprise hit Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.

Rainbow Six: Extraction

The main event of E3 was arguably the combined Microsoft Xbox-Bethesda showcase. Microsoft purchased Bethesda for USD$7.5bn last year in what is understood to be the largest acquisition in gaming history, which involved more than two dozen game announcements.

Chief among them was Halo Infinite, the next instalment in Microsoft’s flagship space opera and set to release sometime around Christmas, along with the announcement of Forza Horizon 5 – an open-world car racing game set in Mexico, due out on November 9 this year.

The other massive announcement was Starfield, a massive sci-fi role-playing game understood to be in the same vein as Bethesda’s other mammoth hits The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4 and launching on November 11, 2022.

Real-time strategy game Age of Empires IV was confirmed for October 28, while action-RPG Stalker 2 was also announced with an April 28, 2022 release.

Starfield

Electronic Arts announced Battlefield 2042, the next instalment in their blockbuster first-person shooter Battlefield series. Unlike recent entries in the franchise, this game will reportedly have no single-player campaign and be a purely multiplayer experience. The game is planned for an October 21 deployment.

Square Enix’s major announcement was Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, an action-adventure game based on the comic book and movie franchise, blasting off on October 26.

Nintendo also held a lifestream, announcing several games including a 2022 release for open-world fantasy-adventure The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and 2D platformer Metroid Dread, slated for an August 10 release.

In addition to announcing a number of games including Samurai Cinema-inspired side-scrolling game Trek to Yomi, publisher Devolver Digital also added another chapter to their ongoing and delightfully self-aware E3 video announcements, which have turned into a multi-year satire on the games publishing industry and its fads – this year’s target was games subscription services.

Guardians of the Galaxy

While not part of the “official” E3 line-up, the Summer Games Fest event which is running at the same time had announcements for a range of indie and AA titles, notably the offbeat fantasy adventure Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, coming sometime in 2022, dinosaur park management simulation Jurassic Park: Evolution 2, due for release at some point this year, and fantasy combat game Elden Ring, set for a January 21, 2022 release.

Even in its “all-digital” format there was still something for all gaming tastes at E3 this year, and while it might have lacked the hype and atmosphere of the in-person event – not to mention the developer interview opportunities and hands-on time with new titles – the games unveiled at the event are proof that the gaming industry is still powering along despite COVID and there’s plenty on the horizon for gamers to look forward to.