The Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield close out Bethesda E3 briefing

It's not every year Bethesda announces a new Fallout, a new Elder Scrolls game, and a new original IP from the studio behind those pillars. And even if that trifecta of Bethesda Game Studios projects isn't to one's liking, the publisher's E3 showcase still featured Rage 2, a new Doom and a new Wolfenstein, along with continued support for some previously released titles and new excursions into mobile and VR. It remains to be seen when all of these will come out and how successful they'll be, but for now at least, Bethesda likely has something in the works for anyone who ever wanted anything from Bethesda.

Rage 2

• Andrew WK kicked off this section with a live performance before perhaps the most docile crowd he's ever played for.
• Players will take the role of Walker, the last ranger of a post-apocalyptic wasteland created by an asteroid strike. An army of mutants killed everyone he ever loved and now he's full of... anger.
• The game demo starts off with the player driving to a mission location, taking out a few enemies en route, and then jumping out to engage in some first-person shooter mayhem.
• After the player secures a secured stash of goods, the demo drops the guns in favor of some more super-powered combat culminating with a quick look at one menacing brute of a possible boss character.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends

• The strategy card game is coming later this year on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Switch
• Progress from the PC and mobile versions will be carried over to consoles

The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset

• Matt Firor came out on stage to talk about the MMO version of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series and the best community in gaming.
• The game boasts over 11 million players now, more than 1 million in the last year alone.
• The next expansion is Murkmire, which will center on the homeland of the lizard-like Argonians

Doom: Eternal

• Executive producer Marty Stratton and creative director Hugo Martin were on hand to talk about the new sequel.
• Martin said the Doomslayer will feel more powerful, there will be twice as many demons, and the game will showcase "hell on earth"
• The game will debut in proper at QuakeCon this August.

Quake Champions

• The Early Access arena shooter has had a number of new features added to appeal to new players.
• This week will see a trial of the game's free-to-play version available to everyone. Those who download it will be able to keep playing for free even after that trial ends.

Prey

• The game is receiving a free update tonight with three modes: Story Mode, New Game Plus, and Survival Mode
• The developers have also released an infinitely replayable mode called Moon Crash with randomized threats and items on each playthrough.
• Later this summer will see the launch of Typhon Hunter, an asymmetric 1 vs. 5 game where one mimic takes on five mimic hunters.

Wolfenstein: Young Blood

• The next Wolfenstein jumps ahead in time, set in the 1980s in Paris to tell the story of BJ Blaskowicz's twin daughters.
• As the premise suggests, this will be a co-op experience, although players can play through alone.
• Wolfenstein: Young Blood arrives in 2019

New VR

• Bethesda hasn't forgotten VR, and is bringing Prey and Wolfenstein into a new dimension.
• For Prey, Typhon Hunter will also have a mode that players can experience in VR, and there will be a new single-player VR experience as well.
• As for Wolfenstein, the new game will be called Cyber Pilot and follows a hacker protagonist.
• Both are playable at Bethesda's E3 booth this week.

Fallout 76

• Todd Howard came out to introduce the Fallout 76 section, and then teased a new Elder Scrolls game.
• A prequel to all the other Fallout games, Fallout 76 is four times the size of Fallout 4, and set in the hills of West Virginia.
• Howard says the game will have 16 times the detail thanks to new lighting and graphic tech.
• Players will travel through six distinct regions, each with their own style, risks, and rewards.
• Fallout 76 is "entirely online," Howard says, although it can be played solo.
• Howard said he wanted to see what the Fallout style of game would be like with multiplayer, where every character in the game was real.
• He talked a bit about the game as "softcore survival," where death doesn't mean loss of progression or character.
• Howard says players will explore the world along with dozens of other players, not hundreds: "It's the apocalypse. It's not an amusement park."
• It does not appear as if the VATS system has been retained.
• Gameplay clips show a lot of fighting against beasties like a giant mutant sloth, but also a bit of mucking about, like a four-player group forming an impromptu band with shoddy instruments.
• Players will also be able to create their own bases and fortifications.
• And because Bethesda like dynamic game systems, the world of Fallout 76 will have a number of nuclear missile sites across the map, and players will be able "to do whatever you want with them."
• Players will be able to collect launch keys between them and then select from a variety of targets across the map, and nuked areas will have rare and valuable resources to collect after the fact.
• Howard says the game will have 100% dedicated servers and Bethesda will support it for years to come.
• Fallout 76 will have a beta (Break It Early Test Application), because Howard says he's read on the internet that sometimes Bethesda games have bugs.
• The Power Armor Edition will have a map of the world that glows in the dark, a handful of little green army men-style plastic figures, and a wearable Brotherhood of Steel helmet.
• The game launches November 14.
• Howard notes that it's the third anniversary of Fallout Shelter, which will launch on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch tonight.
• More than 120 million people have played Fallout Shelter to date, which Howard says is more people than "every game we have made combined."

The Elder Scrolls: Blades

• Howard then pivots to another project the team wanted to do for years, but was too ambitious to get done sooner: The Elder Scrolls: Blades.
• "Like Fallout Shelter, we wanted an experience we were not finding anywhere else."
• Howard says it's a complete Elder Scrolls game, a fully rendered RPG tailored to mobile. Combat is all new, and follows the player's swipe movements and timings.
• The game combines hand-crafted and procedurally generated dungeons, melee and magical combat.
• And of course, players can create their own characters, upgrade their skills and equipment, and play the entire game in portrait mode if want.
• Blades has several modes of play: The Abyss is a rogue-like endless dungeon. The Arena is one-on-one multiplayer battles.
• There's also a single-player campaign mode with a town-building mode so players can upgrade and decorate all the elements within it, or visit their friends' towns.
• Blades is heading to every device and system possible: mobile, consoles, PC, and VR. On top of that, people will be able to play cross-platform.
• The game is available for pre-order on Google Play and the App Store tonight, and will launches this fall.
• The mobile versions will also be playable at E3 this week.

Starfield

• Howard says the team has been working on a brand new, "next generation" single player game in an original franchise, the studio's first in 25 years.
• Starfield is a game Howard says the studio has spent years thinking about and working on.

The Elder Scrolls VI

• The game after Starfield is going to be "the one you keep asking about," The Elder Scrolls VI.
• After a criminally short teaser of a teaser trailer, Howard leaves the stage and the show wraps up.