Here’s a safe prediction: there will be some video game announcements next week at E3. But what about the wilder predictions? This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason Schreier and I talked E3 rumors and made a bunch of guesses about what we’ll see during video gaming’s big annual announce-a-palooza.
You can listen to the episode below, or download an MP3 here.
In addition to talking through what we expect to see at each of the major press conferences, Jason and I each made some “wild” predictions for things we think might happen. Some of them seem within the realm of possibility, others... don’t. None of these predictions are based on inside information; they’re just for fun. Here’s what we came up with, along with the dates and times of each conference, in case you plan to watch along:
Electronic Arts (Saturday, June 9, 11am Pacific)
- Jason: A Titanfall battle royale game.
- Kirk: An onstage apology about Battlefront loot boxes, some sort of Dead Space teaser, and a Plants Vs. Zombies Battle Royale game. (Unsurprisingly, several of our wild predictions involved battle royale games.)
Xbox (Sunday, June 10, 1pm Pacific)
- Jason: Shuhei Yoshida comes out on stage with Phil Spencer to announce a cross-platform multiplayer initiative between Sony and Microsoft. (More realistically: Microsoft announces some sort of fascinating new hardware/software initiative.)
- Kirk: A new Kameo: Elements of Power game.
Bethesda (Sunday, June 10, 6:30pm Pacific)
- Jason: A big blowout reveal of BGS’s long-rumored Starfield, more than just a teaser.
- Kirk: Bethesda announces it’s getting off Steam and launching its own PC storefront.
Square Enix (Monday, June 11, 10am Pacific)
- Jason: A complete Final Fantasy collection for Switch.
- Kirk: Just Cause 4 (admittedly not the wildest prediction).
Ubisoft (Monday, June 11, 1pm Pacific)
- Jason: Trey Parker and Matt Stone come on stage and announce some totally weird new South Park game, like a battle royale or something.
- Kirk: Ubisoft announces another bizarro Nintendo crossover, maybe Rayman + Pikmin.
Sony (Monday, June 11, 6pm Pacific)
- Jason: Sony announces a new PlayStation classics system that lets you transfer and download all your PSOne games to PS4.
- Kirk: Sony finally announces PSN name changes.
Nintendo (Tuesday, June 12, 9am Pacific)
- Jason: A Breath of the Wild sequel with the same engine and fundamentals, a la Majora’s Mask following Ocarina of Time.
- Kirk: Some weird-ass hardware for the Switch, like a big USB camera or something.
For much more, including some less wild predictions, some rumors Jason’s heard, and a bonus sidebar about Destiny’s return to random gun rolls, check out the full episode. And yeah, we know the part speculating about Crackdown 3 getting delayed is already out of date, since Jason wound up reporting the delay a couple hours after we recorded. News happens fast around E3 time.
We’ll be posting a bunch of E3 podcasts throughout next week, with press conference reactions and analysis, on-the-floor game impressions, and interviews with the developers behind some of the biggest games at the show. Subscribe to Splitscreen on your podcast service of choice to follow along. See you this weekend!