If E3 2018 had a Fandom Correspondents-related theme, it would be “The Year Al Got Everything Wrong.” Before the conferences this year I predicted three major things among the Correspondents and my friends: 1) That Bethesda would not show anything about Elder Scrolls 6, 2) The Microsoft would not show both a new Gears of War game and a new Halo game, and 3) Square Enix would have a really strong conference overall. As we have seen, I was wrong on all three accounts. The one currently at hand is the Square Enix conference, or as I have taken to calling it, “We were supposed to bring games to this thing?” conference.
Don’t get me wrong, Square Enix did exhibit some intriguing titles. A highly cinematic trailer for Babylon’s Fall tickled all of my Dark Souls/Dragon Age fancies, and the new project Octopath looks to be utterly delightful as a new IP in a classic RPG style. However, for the most part, Square Enix failed to capitalize on some of the projects they could have brought to the table and instead gave us some games that were lackluster to say the least. Let me break it down for you.
What We Should Have Seen
In a poorly unfortunate turn of events, Square Enix executives apparently forgot that they had a hugely hyped Final Fantasy VII remake in the works that would have set the place on fire. There is a chance that it might still be on the table for the Sony conference, but as the bedrock of the Final Fantasy series FF7 would have gone a long way toward making Square Enix’s conference more memorable, or memorable at all.
Additionally, a new Kingdom Hearts III trailer would have been nice. Sure, we did get a trailer, but it was 99% the same as the one we received before the conference. And in this season of video games with word of mouth and the Internet, you can’t count on a “It’s new to me” factor carrying your conference. Some more gameplay footage would have been a perfect teaser for the game since it’s release date was finally announced, but the trailer we got instead, while very nice and enjoyable, fell flat from being Information Age old.
What We Got
I may be in a minority, and it’s not even that I don’t like the games, because I do! But I am so damn tired of seeing and hearing about the new Tomb Raider. From video game journalism’s articles naming it “Dark Souls of platforming” to the constant stream of trailers to repeated gifs of the Conan O’Brien gaming hour, the market is oversaturated with Tomb Raider. So what did we get? A 45 second trailer of Tomb Raider showing the entire first part of the game, so sorry for spoilers I guess?
We also got a Just Cause 4 trailer we had already seen and a ton of remastered Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy online stuff. A new edition—not a new game, a new edition—of Neir: Automata was also shown. And of course, for the new IP crowd, we saw what looked like a PS2 rendering of the game The Quiet Man which is apparently about people turning into potatoes and being punched by a larger potato before turning into a real person again.
Finally, Square Enix has been playing a very big card close to their chest, a Marvel Avenger’s game. Given the huge success of Marvel’s Infinity War this year, one would think E3 would be the prime time to drop a trailer for it, possibly even gameplay. One would be wrong. Not even a whisper about the project was heard, and Marvel fans were left wondering Square Enix would pass up the free publicity and buzz during an otherwise uninteresting conference
Maybe Square Enix’s marketing department is really behind the times and didn’t know that we had already seen so much of what they showed. Perhaps their executives truly did forget about the FF7 remake; God only knows the rest of us have at this point. But for a year that’s been so strong so far with Microsoft and Bethesda, it was a shame that Square Enix put out such a poor showing when they had easy decisions that could have brought so much more to the table. But what do I know? If they show Borderlands 3 the next couple of days I’ll officially be 0-4 on predictions. At least I won’t have to watch another Tomb Raider trailer again though.
