Greetings, Aussie gamers! We’ll be blogging Sony’s E3 press conference live from the arena here in LA. Keep refreshing this page to get the announcements as they happen. It all kicks off in around 20 minutes. Time to get excited!
10:45
The LA Memorial Sports arena is still filling up. There’s got to be at least one hundred people in here – check out that crowd!
10:50
We’re about to begin! I’m keen to see more of Morpheus in action as well as any exclusive games Sony can pull out of the hat. Could The Last Guardian finally be making an appearance? Here’s hoping!
11:00
And we’re off! Sony’s enormous wraparound screen is making it impossible to take all this gaming goodness in. I’m literally a little bit blind now.
11:01
“Entirely new games” just promised by Shawn Layden. We’re going to hold you to that, Sony.
11:05
Oh my god. Oh my god. The Last Guardian is a thing again. The crowd just lost its marbles.
11:07
Well, Sony needed to open with something big and The Last Guardian definitely qualifies.
We’re currently watching the boy protagonist navigate a crumbling metropolis and solve puzzles while his winged companion potters about looking awesome. First impression: this kid’s voice is going to get annoying fast. But I’m willing to live with that if the game can deliver an experience anywhere close to Shadow Of The Colossus.
11:12
And we have a tentative launch date of 2016. Hopefully that doesn’t mean “several decades from now, on the PS5.”
11:15
And we have a fresh IP announcement from Guerrilla Games. It appears to be a third-person actioner set in a dystopian future with limited technologies — a far cry from the FPS gun porn of Killzone. It seems to be similar to Monster Hunter with the player tasked with taking down enormous robotic beasties. Also, the girl totally looks like Nariko from Heavenly Sword. It’s called Horizon — no release date yet.
11:20
We were just given the world premiere of the new Hitman. It appears to be a reboot with no subtitle. PlayStation 4 gamers will be given six exclusive assassination contracts which will be released throughout the year.
11:25‘
This is your moment to holler and gibber, fighting fans: the Street Fighter V beta is coming exclusively to PS4 on July 23.
11:30
We’re now getting an inside look at the absurdly vast space exploration game No Man’s Sky. You can randomly visit any planet in the cosmos. Or universe. Whichever’s bigger. The game features fully destructible words. You can also swim underwater. Still no release date, but we’ll apparently be getting one soon. The presentation ended with a lofty quote from Carl Sagan, so it better bloody deliver.
11:33
This Dreams demo from Media Molecule where you piece together fleshy puppets is freaking me out a little.
We’re now getting a look at the console debut of Firewatch — a first-person adventure game with psychological elements.
11:40
Seems Bungie will continue to play favourites with PS4 gamers — Destiny’s The Taken King campaign will be out on PS4 first. It’s launching September 15. New gear and maps will also be included.
11:45
We’re now getting out cockney mockney on with Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. PS4 gamers will get some exclusive missions dubbed Dreadful Crimes.
11:50
First The Last Guardian, and now Final Fantasy VII Remake! Hnnnnnnnnngh!
11:50
The crowd just legit lost its shit.
11:52
Crikey — Shenmue III is now getting showcased. It’s actually a Kickstarter campaign but Sony knows what the crowd wants. It should reach its funding target of $2 million in around five seconds.
11:55
Batman Arkham Knight has just swooped onto the stage. The PS4 will be getting an exclusive Scarecrow Nightmare campaign. We’re being shown a first person sequence in an Edward Hopper-esque diner. Now zombies are tearing up the place. This is not looking like an Arkham game at all. Still pretty cool, mind.
12:00
And we’re onto Project Morpheus. Intriguingly, the focus is on group play; something we’ve seen very little of in the VR space. They skipped over this quick smart which is odd — I thought it would be the main focus.
12:01
There’s a new streaming service coming out dubbed PlayStation Vue. No word on an Aussie release, natch.
12:03
They didn’t forget the bros in the audience: Call Of Duty Black Ops III just debuted on stage. The four player co-op campaign is certainly action-packed. Like recent entries in the series, it’s all looking very G.I-Joe-in-the-future. Is this a good thing? Probably. It’s coming out November 2015 with a multiplayer beta coming exclusively to PS4 this August.
12:15
Star Wars is joining forces with Disney Infinite. Kiddies (and kiddies at heart) rejoice! Rise Against The Empire will be coming with an exclusive PS4 playset that includes Bobba Fett.
12:19
This is more like it: EA’s Star Wars Battlefront! The music and weapons F.X are note perfect. Also, your comms guy is none other than Admiral Ackabar. Say “it’s a trap!” Say it!
12:22
We’re almost at the end of the show — but not before an in-depth look at Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The gameplay demo opens on a busy market exploding with colour overlooking an impossibly detailed vista including villages, mountains and valleys. Okay, these graphics are crazy and possibly a bit too good to be true. My Watch Dogs sensor is tingling. Plus, the action beats are all looking a little too perfect — at one point Nathan Drake leaps from a building, clocks a bad guy in the face and grabs a tossed handgun all in effortlessly smooth succession. We really hope this is the real McCoy because it looks absolutely fantastic.
12:30
And we’re out. What did you guys think of the conference? There was certainly a lot of excitement, a lot of it fueled by nostalgia. Share your thoughts in the comments!