Despite experiencing a "rough" development process , Crackdown 3 ’s development finally seems on track for a 2017 release. The game’s explosive nature will rival that of Just Cause 3 , and finally give Crackdown fans the open-world sequel they’ve been begging for since the release of Crackdown 2 back in 2

Below will challenge players with a mysterious, randomly-generated island where exploration, discovery, and survival are at the forefront of the experience. The game is said to offer a Dark Souls level of danger and intrigue with its combat, which by itself will continue to garner incredible attention until the game’s release later this y

Unlike past year's E3 events, this year's had a particular air of familiarity. Going into the even most gamers had a pretty good handle on what should be announced, and by and large the major publishers stuck to their scripts. There were some surprises, like the official reveal of the Xbox One Scorpio , but mostly it was the known quantities that impres

It is extremely important for us that sword combat feels right for the Sea of Thieves cheats of Thieves world. We don’t want to use excessive UI elements, we want to maintain first person, and it needs work neatly alongside the numerous other game mechanics. It’s also critical for sword combat to work all kinds of emergent scenarios. it won’t always be 1v1, it might be 3v3 or 5v1,

Finally, there’s State of Decay 2 , the sequel to Undead Labs’ smash hit State of Decay . Like its predecessor, State of Decay 2 will throw players into a world full of zombies and task them with making it to the end with a group of struggling survivors. And of course there will be permadea

Some prospective Sea of Thieves players may question the decision to include microtransactions, but Neate has an explanation for the business model. "Ultimately I have to look at the reality of running a game-as-service as a business," says the executive producer, adding that "My goal and everyone else's goal here is to have as many people as possible working on this, and just keep giving people reasons to return, reasons to have fun. We have to run that like a business, you need revenue coming

The most important element to call out in terms of our general approach to combat is that Sea of Thieves is a game with guns and swords in it, but it’s not a game all about guns and swords. We want Sea of Thieves to support different motivations and playstyles, but when combat does occur, it should feel right for the pirate experience we’re creating, while fully supporting the kinds of emergent encounters that can occur while out on a voy

Having to reload is another contributor to the pace, especially since guns are single shot and players can’t walk around with multiple musket balls already loaded. Instead they have to reload after each shot which potentially leaves them vulnerable to att

With only one really game to show, Nintendo was going for broke with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild . Luckily, the demo Nintendo had on-hand built multiple games worth of hype, showcasing tons of exploration and teasing an interesting storyline. This was not the Zelda most are familiar with, but in this context that is a good thing. Although we are only recognizing a group of games as the best of E3, there’s no denying The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the best games we saw all s

Noah: To think, the four of us were sailing around the ocean, looking for islands with treasure, avoiding rocks, all while other pirate crews were out there in the blue beyond just waiting to plunder us. The game doesn’t make traversing the most beautifully rendered ocean I’ve ever seen easy either: you need each crew member to be controlling a different part of the ship. Someone needs to steer, another needs to watch for land from the crow’s nest, someone can man the cannons, and someone has to patch up the inevitable holes in the s

An example of this is the fact that we don’t have a UI crosshair for both cannons and guns. Players use the weapons themselves to aim. Crosshairs tend to imply a level of precision and a type of aiming that just doesn’t feel appropriate for pirate weaponry. When you use the gun barrel itself to aim without the absolute certainty of a crosshair, you tend to find that players are a little more considered with their shots. Of course, landing a hit this way feels even more satisfying,

For the above to work, we’ve embraced the concept of aiming down sights as a special state – if you want to fire at a target, you must hold the left trigger / right mouse button and aim down the physical barrel of the

Noah: Azario could tell you first hand Tom. I think the game has the potential to recreate a pirate experience, while also making sure you and your crew have a blast. I would’ve loved to have been able to engage in ship-to-ship combat in our demo but alas, the expansive map makes player-vs-player encounters rare, and as such, more satisfying when it does occur. I can only imagine the shenanigans that will transpire in the full g