It appears that the new trend online is for people to start saying that the Electronics and Entertainment Expo starts on the weekend prior to when it’s supposed to start at the LA convention Center. That could mean that companies have press release events and parties at locations different than the Convention Center. More companies are having their “official” press release events outside the Convention Center and in the case of Nintendo, not having a press release event at all. Let’s backtrack a little bit and I’ll give a full recap of my day in sunny California and first unofficial day at E3!
Sunday started at about 2:30Am in the great state of New Jersey, where I am from, where I needed to finish packing for 5th straight trip to E3. I booked a 6:30 Am flight for La-La Land because I’m an idiot! In all seriousness, I needed to be out in California early enough to pick up my wristband for the Bethesda press event. If you weren’t familiar, the Bethesda event was being coined Bethesdaland, since it getting the amusement park treatment! I finished packing my laptop, Nintendo 3DS and Switch and off to the airport we went! Flight was pretty good and I want everyone to know that I flew United. No fights broke out and no one was asked to leave the plane. The only issue was that the in-flight movies/TV systems didn’t work but United already issued vouchers for that but I listened to music on the way so no big deal!
Anyway, after landing in California and getting checked into the hotel, it was time to get my E3 Media badge. I was able to kill two birds at the time since Bethesda had the wristband pick-ups next to the E3 store inside the Convention Center. It took a little walking and locating but I was able to track down everything I needed to precede that day and I found out I like BBQ sauce and Chicken Pizza, who knew? On to Bethesdaland!
Bethesdaland, the amusement park to play in during the end of the world! The folks at Bethesda really did a good job with the set up with Bethesdaland. Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls appeared to be the main inspiration for the locales. If the idea for the park were apocalypse why wouldn’t Fallout be a theme, right? The line to get in was crazy long and they forgot to give me my “allowed to have alcohol” blue wristband. When I went to get my Elder Scrolls mug, security stopped me and asked me where my wristband was and I told her I never received one. About 20 minutes later when her supervisor came with one for me, I told him the same thing. I work in security but the grounds weren’t that large, it shouldn’t have taken this guy that long to get to me but I digress.
Everyone was stocking up on Blue Nuka Cola flavored drinks and I have to say, blue Nuka Cola snow cones are great. I could have stayed with the snow cone guy all night if I could have. There were also stands serving popcorn, pretzels and what looked like legs of meat. You can’t go wrong with legs of meat! You also had pins to collect from the various Bethesda games like Fallout, which I got, as well as balloon sculptors and other artists on scene. It was really fun but it was way too crowded and not enough seating which brings me to my next point, the actual software event. You could see some of the games on hand before the showing but everyone wanted to see what Bethesdaland was all about then.
The only people who could sit during the software showing were guests with purple wristbands and I don’t know who they were so I won’t even create a guess. The rest of us were standing in a mosh-pit type setting waiting for the event to start. When the presentation did get underway, in my opinion, they left a good taste in the mouth of their fans. Let’s review!
Looks like Bethesda are jumping into the VR game with two of their bigger properties with Doom and Fallout 4. Doom in Virtual Reality feels like an idea that’s been brewing for a long time coming but will scare the hell out of people and the same could be said for Fallout. Another idea I’m intrigued about is the Creation Club brining new features to Skyrim and Fallout. This will allow you to never have the “feel repetitive” feeling while playing since it will always have new gameplay features. Speaking of Skyrim, Nintendo fans will finally be able to play Skyrim on the Nintendo Switch in the form of the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If you wanted to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the Switch in the airport or the bar, now you can! As an added bonus, you can play as Link from the Legend of Zelda in the Switch version!
It felt like Bethesda was swinging for the fences with the likes of the Dishonored franchise, the Evil Within 2, and Wolfenstein 2. Three top-tier franchises that should be able to keep Bethesda near the top of the food chain! Dishonored: Death of the Outsider looked like DLC/extra features. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus shows what would have happened if Nazi’s took over the US or won World War 2. All the games look great and as an added surprise, will be released this year!
Bethesdaland was a great time and showed off a lot of god looking games. To finish things off, the Chain Smokers performed at the end of the software presentation and I wasn’t expecting that. I want to thank Bethesda for inviting me and putting on a good, fun show.