And it was remarkably short. Very little in the ways of any new material, it seems like Square decided to show off during platform developers conferences. But there is a few things I have to mention, so let’s get to it.

Not a lot of of showmanship in this entire presentation, no Todd Howard to steal the show, but they did get Keith Davis (the voice of, among others, Captain Anderson from Mass Effect) to narrate the whole thing. If anything there certainly was a feeling of cohesiveness to the showcase.

First we got a little bit more of Lara Croft in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which is always nice. We’ve seen some of the gameplay and for the most part it looks like a straight-forward upgrade over Rise of the Tomb Raider, with Lara getting much better at that whole killing thing. The mechanics of stealth chain-assassinating enemies looks like something that can provide a lot of cool moments certainly.

Then we’ve seen something that I don’t… Quite understood? We’ve seen a strange trailer featuring both FFXIV and Monster Hunter World together. This might be a crossover of some sort, but the whole thing was exceedingly cryptic and bereft of any explanation. I don’t know, maybe this is something the Japanese audience gets, personally I was confused.

We then saw a bit more from the folks at Dontnod talking about the stand alone adventure The Awesome Adventures of Captain Awesome. The two creative directors stated that it’s supposed to serve as a gate-way to Life is Strange 2. It will be available for free on June 26th. You can think of it as a P.T kind of thing- there are going to be lots of secrets inside that story, some probably hidden very deep (like inside the code, have to data-mine them deep) so I’m looking forward to the incoming investigation.

Next we got a trailer for Dragon Quest XI, a game I think Square Enix is trying to hype but I’ll be honest with you, I completely lack the context for this. Again, must be a Japanese thing.

Which was followed by another weird but very creative trailer, this time for a game called Babylon’s Fall, reportedly a game from the makers of Bayonetta. It contained a lot of world-building through text, had some really creative character designs and we know next to nothing about it. Here, have a look, maybe you’ll be able to piece together more than I have.

From there we finally got to Just Cause 4 and witnessed the full scope of the environmental destruction that will exist in this game. Previously the giant tornado could have been construed as a scripted event in the game, but apparently Just Cause 4 features a robust physics engine that enables extreme whether cataclysms such as tornados, electric and sand storms, all of which will affect the game world. The trailer also boasted about the improved AI and huge scope of the open game world. Alright Square Enix, you have my attention now.

We then got short footage blending live action and CGI in a staggeringly uncanny fashion. It shows a vigilante of some sort beating up a couple of thugs, followed by title: The Quiet Man and an assertion that more will be shown in August. Another game we know next to nothing about, but damn that blending of graphics and reality was really something.

And we ended on a bit longer presentation of Kingdom Hearts 3– it looks bright, goofy (pun intended) and simultaneously strangely heartfelt, a return to form indeed.

Short but sweet. Next up- Ubisoft and finally Sony. This should be good.

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