Welcome to the Live Blog for Ubisoft's E3 2016 press conference. I'm
) and I'll be covering events as they happen for those of you who aren't watching the live stream
.
Welcome everyone! 10 minutes until the pre-show. What are you hoping for from Ubisoft today? (Personally, I'm throwing out a wild Beyond Good and Evil 2 dream...)
Justin Levy and Leon Winkler hosting the pre-show outside the Orpheum.
Ubisoft is turning 30! We're getting some fan videos and some behind-the-scenes footage at the studios to celebrate. Montage time!
Now some Ubisoft staff are trying to make us all feel better about being 30. Hah! I'm twenty-eight, I've got ages.
Quick update for those who missed it: Ubisoft's
Tom Clancy's The Division got a DLC reveal in the Microsoft Conference:
For Honor and
Watch_Dogs 2 are being discussed in the pre-show, but nothing new yet.
This is a nice tongue-in-cheek segment, where it turns out no one in Ubisoft knows how to pronounce Ubisoft. As one dev said, "Who cares?"
My French-Canadian wife just said it in a totally different way. It sounded very authentic though, in that I didn't quite understand it.
Tom Clancy's The Division's problems with fairness have been touched on briefly, but I don't expect that will be dwelled on for long...
Some funny fan videos from
Tom Clancy's The Division and
Far Cry Primal. (Boomerang slingshot was pretty good.)
Intro video has started, showcasing current and upcoming titles. Nearly ready!
So, we're off, with dancers and Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Worse ways to start!
Here's Aisha Tyler, appearing behind people dressed as giraffes and lions. Quite an entrance. "Confusing and awesome" is right...
We're talking about Just Dance 2017. Coming to all platforms in October.
Trailer for Just Dance 2017:
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands is up next, with a new cinematic trailer. Looking as beautiful and hectic as last year.
Now Dominic Butler, Lead Designer, is talking about the game. It's a what-if scenario, imagining what Bolivia would be like if the country was totally overpowered by a drug cartel.
We're walking through a mission to extract some intel with a gameplay video. It's really looking quite pretty, but that's par for the course for Ubisoft. Whether the final product looks like this remains to be seen...
Here's what we're watching.
Ubisoft seem to have some regional locks going on with their videos. Here's the US versions.
Ghost Recon trailer:
Ghost Recon gameplay:
Here comes
South Park: The Fractured but Whole with a tongue-in-cheek trailer. Only the Coon can save us... here comes Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
So we'll be seeing 'New Kid's superhero origins in this game. Cartman is being Cartman. It's the best thing ever. The character build sheet will be your 'Coonstagram' profile page. What can possibly top this?
Apparently the combat has been improved, including being able to move from a static position when attacking and, of course, using superpowers. You can also rip the fabric of time with your farts. Yes, that's correct.
Anyone who buys
South Park: The Fractured but Whole gets
South Park: The Stick of Truth for free on major next-gen consoles. First game downloadable today if you pre-order the sequel. The game is coming December 6th.
Here comes
Tom Clancy's The Division. In the "Underground" expansion, you'll be exploring the bowels of New York. It's just one of the updates coming this year. Arriving June 28th on Xbox One.
Ghost Recon,
Splinter Cell and
Rainbow Six outfits come with it for Ubisoft Club members.
More on
Tom Clancy's The Division - another update to the game is incoming. I believe it's called "Survival", and seems to be focused on... well. Survival gameplay. Biting cold, scant resources, "hunter against prey".
Here's the trailer we're watching at the conference.
Moving on to VR and Eagle Flight. It's coming to Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR. So it's not directly related to us here, but it's still cool. We're getting a live PvP VR demo, which is an E3 first. Set in a far-future Paris where humans have vanished and animals run amok. You play as an eagle. Looks quite fun.
Best moment of this VR demo so far is probably the players trying to high-five each other instinctively and failing. Just one of the many hazards of VR.
More VR talk. For those interested, here's the
Eagle Flight gameplay:
Looks like a
Star Trek VR experience is happening too, called
Bridge Crew. Here's a trailer if that's you're thing.
Here's
For Honor. Story trailer, looks like an interesting backstory! Interesting to see how the story is going to play out in an MP title.
And now for some more gameplay, showing of the "Art of Battle" play style. (This has gone up earlier than the conference, you lucky things)
So For Honor is coming on... er... Valentine's Day. February 14th 2017. New alpha coming shortly.
Pete Young from Ubisoft Reflections. Talking about a wobbly red robot. It's a
Grow Home sequel! Original was on PC now we're getting the sequel,
Grow Up, on Xbox One.
Now we have the anticipated, rumoured Trials of the Blood Dragon, a mash up of Trials and the Far Cry spin off. It's out tonight after the show!
Time to talk about the Assassin's Creed movie with movie legend Frank Marshall. He's produced pretty much all of your favourite childhood adventure movies (no matter how old you are!)
Michael Fassbender chatted through some behind-the-scenes footage but not much in the way of new movie content. Oh well!
And now,
Watch_Dogs 2's DeadSec crashes the show with some in-game footage of San Francisco and the hacking opportunities therein. Apparently co-op will be 'simpler'.
We're seeing a lot of gadgetry usage to stealth infiltrate a building, including a little roomba bot thing that can hack remotely. Looks like that friendly Metal Gear from MGS4.
Meanwhile, I have a sneaky suspicion that we might get a snowboarding surprise at the end of this conference, probably straight after Watch_Dogs 2. Which is currently showing off quite an awesome zip-line. Not sure if that's an open-world gadget or just a feature of that mission.
But first, we're talking about a Watch Dogs movie, in production with Sony. PlayStation are getting DLCs before us on Watch_Dogs 2. Boo!
Here's one last
Watch_Dogs 2 trailer. Also, if you pre-order the game you get a little radio-controlled robot. Lovely.
Told you snowboarding is coming. Here's
Steep, a multi-snow-sport experience. Insane stunting through skis, wingsuits, snowboards and paraglides. Here's a trailer:
We're getting gameplay footage too. Looks like you can drop onto a mountain from various zones to start your run down the mountain. Looks like there will be all sorts of modes and challenges, multiplayer too.
It looks like Steep has a tentative release date of December 2016 for Xbox One. Suitably frosty.
Quite impressive seamless transition from race challenge to free-roam, wing-suit to skis. All sorts of snazzy replay video mechanics too. You can follow other racers you have met, upload videos of runs, even share cool jump points you find with your friends - it shows up in their game.
Gotta say this is the coolest thing I've seen in the conference. Sorry for the terrible pun. It's past my bedtime. These peaceful mountain vistas aren't helping.
Steep will be fully playable from tomorrow on the E3 show floor. Head to the official site if you want to register for the beta.
http://steep.ubisoft.com/game/en-GB/home/
That's it! Steep closed the show. Well. There we have it. No Beyond Good and Evil 2, so I am inconsolable. Steep looked interesting at least! Let us know what you think in the comments as I keep an eye on the post-show.
Here's the post-show Q&A. What's new with Just Dance this year? They're bringing more "things to do with your phone", including watching fan-created videos.
What about Trials of the Blood Dragon? They've gone with a 90's morning cartoon vibe apparently, Blood Dragon for all ages. Soundtrack by Powerglove is apparently out now. English guy just said "homies". I'm upset about this.
For Honor: People want to know about that story campaign and whether Jason's cane contains a sword. He didn't actually say "no"... In the campaign, you play as various heroes in each faction throughout.
Ghost Recon Wildlands: Playable in co-op in the booth at E3, so we can expect to hear a lot more impressions from everyone over the next few days.
The Division: Underground - The enemies will be the same below as they have been above, but they'll have "new toys" to play with. Presumably these toys won't be fun for you.
And the one we've all been waiting for:
South Park: The Fractured but Whole. I don't need to tell you that this is kind of inappropriate if you're in a work environment, although swears are bleeped.
Aaand that's it! Show over. Thanks for joining us, guys. Make sure to keep an eye on the
E3 hub as the show itself gets under way. We'll be bringing you the latest from the show floor. Follow our own
Marc C on
Twitter as he represents us on the floor in LA, the lucky so-and-so. Cheers!