E3 2017 Roundup: Ubisoft Edition!
Nicole Smith ’18 / Emertainment Monthly Executive Video Games Editor
Monday’s conferences kicked off with some news and announcements from Ubisoft. Let’s recap what they had to show us!
The show opened with gameplay footage for the recently announced Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a franchise crossover with some tactical RPG elements and familiar characters in its roster. The game was introduced by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself, and was given a release date of August 29th.
Ubisoft announced a sequel 2014 racing title The Crew. The Crew 2 showcased some impressive cross-terrain racing on a number of different vehicles, with a release window of early 2018. Pop singer Bebe Rexha performed her single The Way I Are (Dance With Somebody) onstage to announce Just Dance 2018, with an October release window.
There was plenty of coverage for South Park game titles. South Park: The Fractured But Whole, the upcoming successor to South Park: The Stick of Truth, will be available on October 17th, while a brand new South Park phone game, South Park: Phone Destroyer, is set to release this year as well.
Ubisoft’s 2017 online extreme sports title Steep will see its first round of add-on content on December 5th with Steep: Road to the Olympics. One a more toy-centric note, Starlink: Battle for Atlas is set to release in 2018.
Some new titles were also given screen time at the conference. Transference, a horror VR game with Elijah Wood in the trailer, interestingly, will release in spring 2018, with more news about its development surely on the way. Skull & Bones, a pirate-themed PvP naval combat title was also shown with both cinematic and gameplay trailers.
More footage of Far Cry 5 was shown, this time featuring new characters in Grace Armstrong, a sniper, Boomer, a loyal canine friend, and Nick Rye, a fighter pilot. Finally, Ubisoft announced Beyond Good & Evil 2, a prequel fourteen years in the making to the original Beyond Good & Evil title. The sequel boasts a multiethnic, multicultural human society set in a distant solar system, and a quirk cast of characters battling against a systemic, corporate society.
All of Ubisoft’s titles will surely be seeing more news in the coming months, and for more E3 coverage, stay tuned at Emertainment!