“Woah. EASY GUYS!”. This could summarise my thoughts during the major part of the conference.

Let’s get down to business. Here’s my favourite pic of the conference, and of E3:

When Yves Guillemot started the conference and introduced Miyamoto, it was truly awesome. Why? To see two huge companies, two legends of the industry having a blast: that’s why.

Moreover, most leaks of Rabbids x Mario led to bad jokes, memes and low expectations… Having Miyamoto on stage, followed by the gameplay was a solid reality check to a lot of persons.

The game has a certain XCOM2 aura to it, appears to have a very clean UI, yet a very deep strategic aspect. I’m pretty pumped about it and have ordered my collector’s edition for Switch. BRING IT ON!

Did I mention how adorable was this moment? Creative Director of the game almost shedding tears when Miyamoto was speaking about the game & the team. This is also why we love this industry: a lot of passion.

To conclude on Mario x Rabbids, I highly appreciate the work put together by Ubisoft and Nintendo. They didn’t just merge two massive IPs, packed and shipped the game. They took it further, worked on proper game mechanics, adapted the game engine designed by Ubisoft, while not losing the humour of each brand: they took risks. Bravo.

 

Even if I mostly won’t be able to play FarCry 5 (or most of FPS games, due to motion sickness...), I’m impressed by what they are doing: the trailers are so powerful, the theme of the game is… well you got it :). Oh, last but not least, The Father has a crazy beautiful voice:

 

Assassin’s Creed: Origins is among my E3 favourites, that’s a fact. However, I was kind of surprised at how they decided to showcase the game during the conference: a small screen outside…? I get that they wanted to show the game a bit and give details then re-direct people to their post-show segment, but still.  Nonetheless, the game looks stunning, the trailer kicked ass and I love it.

 

ARRRRRRRRR! Skulls & Bones. Built on Assassins’ Creed IV: Black Flag sea fights, the game looks promising as hell. Ships, good music, beautiful graphics, interesting game design ideas? I’m in:

The good thing: this sparked hilarious reactions on Twitter, comparing Rare/Sea of Thieves to Skulls & Bones.

 

The intriguing bit of the conference came in the form of Transference, a project with Frodo Baggins. When I say intriguing, I’m pondering my words:

 

For me, the weakest part of the presentation was The Crew 2, not because of the game itself, far from it, but it lacked a bit of energy, passion. Nonetheless, the game looks cool and I hope Ubisoft will make their magic work and have it succeed as a solid GaaS.

 

Another proof that Ubisoft isn’t afraid of innovation: Starlink – Battle for Atlas. While everybody is running away from Toys-to-life business, Ubisoft goes full “Hold my fries” mode and announces a new IP with a toys-to-life approach:

 

Last but not least: Beyond Good & Evil 2. While I never really took the time to play the first one (Ubi, HD version on Switch pretty please?), I can’t help but be hyped. Yes, it’s a CGI, but that’s a good start! During his interviews, the legendary Michel Ancel confirmed that the technology is ready and development starting.

All in all, it was a very strong message from Ubisoft: seeing Ancel thanking everyone and being this emotional on stage, but also having Gabrielle Shrager introducing the story and insisting on the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society.

 

 

To conclude, I’d like to emphasise on one detail that might have slipped out of your radar: Ubisoft is the only company who got all its employees attending E3 go on stage at the end of the conference.

 

Courtesy of Thomas Bidaux, some data: