E3 2015 | Future Wrap-Up

Another E3 has come and gone, and this one seemed even bigger than the last.

It certainly started earlier this year than in years past. Though the official beginning of E3 wasn’t until Tuesday, announcements kicked off last Sunday morning with a Super Smash Bros. Direct. Followed by the new Nintendo World Championships, which saw a crazy announcement or two of its own, most notably, the first ever official Western release of Mother, titled Earthbound Beginnings, on the Wii U Virtual Console. Bethesda also had their first ever E3 press conference on Sunday night.

Monday was a more traditional E3 day, with Microsoft starting things off with an early-morning conference, where they had some pretty cool announcements, including some new AAA titles like Fallout 4, indie games such as Cuphead, and the introduction of backwards-compatibility between the Xbox One and Xbox 360.

EA’s conference came next, and they continued to impress by announcing the next Mass Effect game, Mass Effect: Andromeda, as well as a the next Mirror’s Edge game, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. Then came Ubisoft, who surprised fans by announcing South Park: The Fractured But Whole.

It was the press conference from Sony that I think brought the biggest surprises. Not only did we get to finally see something about The Last Guardian, a full remake of Final Fantasy VII was announced, and a Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue III was launched.

Nintendo’s Direct-styled Digital Event yielded no major surprises, but we did get an introduction to Star Fox Zero, Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is now named Genei Ibun Roku #FE, we saw some new gameplay features of Yoshi’s Wooly World, and, of course, a new Xenoblade Chronicles X trailer and release date. All that, plus the added excitement of seeing Nintendo’s Big-3 of Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Reggie Fils-Aime as Muppets.

Square Enix wrapped up the press conferences with one that included a sequel to NieR, more information on Kingdom Hearts III, and details about the new Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness.

E3 continued on with many announcements, live video from Nintendo’s Treehouse, which showcased games not covered in the Digital Event, like Bravely Second: End Layer and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water.

And, of course, special thanks to our hard-working team of Azario, Benny, and Arthur, who have been bringing us news and impressions directly from E3.

With the busy week behind us, the oprainfall Retro Commercial Research Team–in other words, me–has poured through dozens, if not hundreds, of trailers released this past week to bring a selection of the most interesting trailers, either from newly announced games, or highly anticipated.

The Last Guardian

Earthbound Beginnings

Return to PopoloCrois

Senran Kagura: Estival Versus

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

World of Final Fantasy

And last, but not least, Xenoblade Chronicles X

You can check out all of our E3 2015 coverage right here.

IMPRESSIONS & PREVIEWS from E3

Stay tuned for impressions in the coming days.

ORIGINAL CONTENT

PODCAST

EVENT RECAPS

OTHER NEWS from the WEEK

Be sure to check out our YouTube Channel for Operation Recap to see an additional take on this week’s happenings.

And as always, if you have any ideas or suggestions for retro commercials, let us know by either Facebook, Twitter, or just leave a good old-fashioned comment below.

Eric Chetkauskas
Eric has been playing video games for longer than he can remember. His interests skew toward retro games with an emphasis on Japanese RPGs like Chrono Trigger and the Dragon Quest series.