Edge September 2021

If you want to make a triple-A game developer depressed, ask them why they bother spending so many late nights agonising over fiddly features barely anyone will ever notice when instead they could be cranking out Roblox concepts to an audience of millions of young people ready to reward them with hard cash in exchange for stupid-looking digital hats. Once upon a time, it was a kind of law that kids played Nintendo games, with all of the Nintendo quality guarantees built in, but the landscape has long since changed, and it doesn’t pay to be too Principal Skinner about it. For a new generation of players, the classic, supposedly critical ingredients – an engaging story, cunningly structured environments, and mechanics so polished you can see your face in them…

If you want to make a triple-A game developer depressed, ask them why they bother spending so many late nights agonising over fiddly features barely anyone will ever notice when instead they could be cranking out Roblox concepts to an audience of millions of young people ready to reward them with hard cash in exchange for stupid-looking digital hats. Once upon a time, it was a kind of law that kids played Nintendo games, with all of the Nintendo quality guarantees built in, but the landscape has long since changed, and it doesn’t pay to be too Principal Skinner about it. For a new generation of players, the classic, supposedly critical ingredients – an engaging story, cunningly structured environments, and mechanics so polished you can see your face in them…

The 2021 incarnation of the greatest show on gaming Earth – the place where technical envelopes are traditionally pushed, where we expect the bleeding edge of interactive entertainment to be annually redefined – began with 1bit graphics on a 400x240 display. Yet the notion of Playdate opening the festivities at what we will charitably call E3 2021 was not as inappropriate as it first appeared. This was never going to be your dad’s E3, of course; COVID-19 saw to that. But so did the avalanche of publishers, media organisations and event companies that saw an opportunity to muscle in on a disrupted timetable, and hog a little of the biggest spotlight in games. The result was the busiest public schedule E3 has ever seen – and, at times, one of…

Also absent from proceedings this year were the Game Critics Awards, organised by the omnipresent Geoff Keighley, in which a pool of global media, us included, nominate the best games that were playable at the show. In its place came the official E3 Awards, and in keeping with the broader theme of this year’s E3, they paled against what they were meant to replace. Winners were chosen by just half a dozen participants, with categories limited to the ‘most anticipated’ game shown by each company that held a presentation under the official E3 2021 banner. The most anticipated game overall? Forza Horizon 5, despite Halo: Infinite winning the Xbox/Bethesda category.…

The 2021 incarnation of the greatest show on gaming Earth – the place where technical envelopes are traditionally pushed, where we expect the bleeding edge of interactive entertainment to be annually redefined – began with 1bit graphics on a 400x240 display. Yet the notion of Playdate opening the festivities at what we will charitably call E3 2021 was not as inappropriate as it first appeared. This was never going to be your dad’s E3, of course; COVID-19 saw to that. But so did the avalanche of publishers, media organisations and event companies that saw an opportunity to muscle in on a disrupted timetable, and hog a little of the biggest spotlight in games. The result was the busiest public schedule E3 has ever seen – and, at times, one of…

FORMAT PC is the clear winner in what we might have once called the platform wars. Just 32 of the titles shown over E3 week are console-only, compared to 115 which list PC as their sole format – though we’d expect many of those to make their way to one or more of the consoles in time Despite a good showing from Microsoft, the week yielded just 29 Xbox console exclusives Switch has the highest proportion of exclusive titles: 48 (including games that will also release on PC) Naturally, Sony’s absence had an impact on the showing of PlayStation exclusives – totalling just eight…