Video Games Are Back! || E3 2021 Thoughts
What’s up, BAYOG Fam?!! I hope everyone is doing well and if you aren’t, I sincerely hope things get better. It’s that time of the year again where the biggest names in the video game industry gather to show you what they’ve been working on for years. That’s right good old E3 is back! This year they brought us a handful of surprises and updates on titles that gamers have been looking forward to. With that being said, this post will highlight the titles that I am personally excited for.
Holy shit a post about video games?! You wouldn’t believe it if you weren’t seeing it with your own eyes folks.
It’s been a long time coming, I know we have canonically named ourselves as gamers but we have never really gone into the deep end with it. For that, I apologize on behalf of us all. To tell you the truth, it’s really hard to write about something when it doesn’t drive you as much as other topics. With that being said, E3 really brought a lot exciting games to my attention. For the record, some of these games, that I’m personally looking forward to, were announced before the event but some more gameplay/trailers have been revealed to show more of what each game has to offer.
This is a big one for me because my friends and I, we grew up on Halo. We spent many late nights howling and gaming together. Not to mention actually getting together for LAN matchups or simply passing the controller and hanging out. To be completely honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this when it was first announced because I was sucked into PC gaming and I was over kind of over the franchise by the time it was ported to PC. But this trailer, the extended overview of the multiplayer, and the some of the overall developments really make it look exciting. The major thing they announced was also converting the multiplayer to a Free to play format. Being a F2P game opens the door to so many new and returning players. But being F2P doesn’t simply mean 343 Industries losing out on money. This was also a move that the Call of Duty franchise adopted a few years ago, when they dove into the Battle Royale genre. That being said, this move also brings the battle pass aspect into the equation to make up for any loss of revenue for those that are unwilling to buy the full game. For those unfamiliar, a Battle Pass is basically a progression system that will give you rewards for just playing the game, you just pay for the pass and get free in-game stuff as you play. As the seasons change and the year progresses, there will be multiple battle passes that will eventually add up. I have no qualms about this because I think it’s absolutely the right move for them. They have not announced an exact release date as of yet but they are looking to bring it to everyone this holiday season.
Now this piece of work is a game that has been floating around for a bit. I even got invited to participate in closed gameplay testing but unfortunately time constraints made it so I was unable to play. If this game seems familiar to any of you then it’s time to get excited because Back 4 Blood is the spiritual successor to the Left 4 Dead franchise, being developed by its original creators. So much of the core gameplay and mechanics is identical to its predecessor but they’ve made strides to make sure that there are new exciting elements to make the game feel fresh. New game mechanics include a class roster, meaning the character you pick won’t just be a personality, they’ll have a specific loadout and perks as well. Another large mechanic of the game, that most won’t be familiar with is a card/deck system, meaning each time you start up the level you choose how to modify yourself with said cards and as such the level has its own cards to corrupt and alter your gameplay. I think these are really huge additions on top of the ever so random spawns of special infected, or as they’re called “Ridden”, that’ll accompany the regular infected. There’s some time left for new things to be announced, if they have any more that is. Until then, they’re planning for another beta later this summer, which you’ll have access to with a pre-order of the game, and the game will release on October 12, 2021.
If you asked me to predict what new game Nintendo would drop at E3 this year, I wouldn’t have said Metroid. And the reasons being, it’s been almost 20 years, fans beg for it every year but it never comes, and tbh I had plain forgot about the franchise. I was utterly taken aback when I saw the trailer. I want to be completely honest here, the one and only game in the franchise I played was probably Metroid Fusion. This was only because a friend had recommended it to me so I tried it but I just wasn’t into side-scrollers as a kid. Later, I found similar games (i.e. Ori and The Blind Forest) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Watching all the gameplay from the treehouse demo really impressed me, so I’m really excited to give this franchise a proper go. Metroid Dread is set to release October 8, 2021 for the Nintendo Switch.
Alright, here me out on this one. I’m not sure how many people gave this game’s first iteration a shot because I sure didn’t. It came out 5 years ago on the 3DS and lord knows I basically only played Pokémon games on that thing. Heck, I’m not even that much a Monster Hunter player/fan in general, I just dove in because it was a co-op game I could play with my friends. Earlier this year, Capcom released Monster Hunter Rise and as time progressed, they would often show clips/announcements for MHS2. They would also advertise a promotion in which you get “crossover” in-game content for each game, pre-order bonuses, yada-yada. I was so disinterested until I actually saw gameplay from Treehouse Live. My friends dubbed this game “Pokémon: Monster Hunter” because that’s exactly what the gameplay is. But once you watch the video yourself, you’ll see exactly why it might actually be better than Pokémon, in terms of gameplay mechanics. I’m really hopeful that this will be something worth my time. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is set to release July 9, 2021.
To be honest, I’m not really a “souls” genre gamer but I know this one has a lot of hype behind it. When you got game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin working together on a project, it’s hard not to pay attention to it. It’s also not that hard to notice when a game looks REALLY impressive and this game looks like it’ll make the “souls” gamers bust a nut…kreygasm. Elden Ring was announced 2 years ago at E3 2019 and with this gameplay trailer we finally get a release date coming to Xbox, PlayStation and PC on January 21, 2022.
There were definitely dozens of interesting games that were shown during E3 but I simply can’t pack all the videos/trailers into one post. Those I’ve listed above are the few that I’m most interested about in terms of wanted to play or see more about it. Some other titles I am looking forward to, I’ll list down below with hotlinks to their respective trailer!
Are you looking forward to anything I’ve mentioned so far? Excited about another game I haven’t talked about? Let me know in the comments below!
What’s up, fam? I’m Loha aka Loheezy here at the BAYOG blog, resident sports anime enthusiast, Shonen Jump reader, food lover and fact checker. I tend to write very opinionated posts, I believe it’s easier to connect with others when I can put my true feelings down. You can expect my posts to cover these types of [Anime] and maybe some uncategorized.
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