24th annual Electronic Entertainment Expo
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 (E3 2018) was the 24th E3, during which hardware manufacturers, software developers, and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily retailers and members of the video game press. The event, organized by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 12–14, 2018, with many companies holding press conferences in the days prior. With the industry still in the middle of the eighth generation of video game consoles, no new hardware was introduced, and publishers and developers principally focused on new games to be released in 2018 and beyond. The event drew 69,200 attendees, the largest since 2005.
Format and changes.
E3 2018 took place from June 12 to 14, 2018 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. In the days prior, major publishers hold press conferences, typically as a live presentation in a large theater with streaming broadcast, or through streaming pre-recorded segments, highlighting the new games that are planned for the next year. During the show proper, developers and publishers run exhibition booths to allow industry members, the press, retail representatives, and the public to try out the new games and talk with the creators. Several side events were also held in nearby venues, including video game tournaments.
Like the previous year, E3 2018 offered public access passes to the event, following from its first such offering during E3 2017. However, to address issues with over-crowding in the exhibitor halls, E3 2018 was open on two days with industry-only access for a few hours before permitting public access to the exhibitors. Only those with complimentary industry passes and publicly purchasable business passes were able to take part in these exclusive hours. 1,000 of the public passes, called "Gamer Passes" were sold at US$149 with the rest of the public passes being sold for $249 on a first-come–first-served basis. Those passes, as well as the business passes went on sale on February 12, 2018.
Press conferences.
Electronic Arts.
Electronic Arts ran a separate event near the Convention Center, rather than participating at the Expo. The EA Play 2018 event was held at the Hollywood Palladium from June 9 to June 11. EA's press conference was held on June 9 at 11:00am, and covered "Battlefield V", and "FIFA 19", ', "Star Wars Battlefront II", "Unravel Two", "Sea of Solitude", "NBA Live 19", "Madden NFL 19", ', and "Anthem". EA also announced that its Origin software service will expand to include a premium subscription service to provide access to titles prior to retail release, and support cloud gaming support later in the year.
Microsoft.
Microsoft's press conference was held on June 10 at the Microsoft Theater. During Major Nelson's Podcast, Microsoft's Executive Vice President of Gaming Phil Spencer said Microsoft's press conference had made positive changes from prior years to be fun for everyone. Fifty games were covered during the presentation, including "Halo Infinite", "Ori and the Will of the Wisps", ', "Fallout 76", "The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit", "Crackdown 3", ', "Metro Exodus", "Kingdom Hearts III", "Sea of Thieves", "Battlefield V", "Forza Horizon 4", "We Happy Few", "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", "Tales of Vesperia", "Tom Clancy's The Division 2", "Shadow of the Tomb Raider", "Session", "Black Desert Online", "Devil May Cry 5", "Cuphead", "Tunic", "Jump Force", "Dying Light 2", "Battletoads", "Just Cause 4", "Gears Pop!", "Gears Tactics", "Gears 5", and "Cyberpunk 2077".
Phil Spencer also affirmed that Microsoft Studios had acquired Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games, and had established a new in-house studio, The Initiative.
Microsoft had an exhibitor space in the main convention floor, principally dedicated to its Mixer live streaming platform, while it hosted demos and other activities at the Microsoft Theater alongside the other exhibition days.
Bethesda.
Bethesda Softworks held its E3 presentation on June 10 at 6:30pm. Games presented included "Rage 2", ', "The Elder Scrolls Online", "Doom Eternal", "Quake Champions", "Prey", ', ', ', "Fallout 76", "Fallout Shelter", "", "Starfield", and "The Elder Scrolls VI".
Devolver Digital.
Devolver Digital held an E3 presentation via Twitch on June 10 at 8:00pm. The presentation followed the satirical format of Devolver's E3 2017 presentation, a pre-recorded segment that poked fun at the state of E3 and video game marketing, and did not focus on the games. Actress Mahria Zook replayed her role as the fictional Devolver "Chief Synergy Officer" Nina Struthers. Devolver revealed its titles "Scum", "My Friend Pedro", and "Metal Wolf Chaos XD".
Square Enix.
Square Enix held its pre-recorded press conference over streaming video on June 11 at 10:00am. The media presentation covered Square Enix's upcoming games, including "Shadow of the Tomb Raider", "Final Fantasy XIV" (including a crossover event with Capcom's "Monster Hunter World"), "The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit", "Dragon Quest XI", "Babylon's Fall", "", "Octopath Traveler", "Just Cause 4", "The Quiet Man", and "Kingdom Hearts III".
Ubisoft.
Ubisoft held its E3 press conference on June 11 at 1:00pm. Ubisoft presented its upcoming games, including "Just Dance 2019", "Beyond Good and Evil 2", "Trials Rising", "Tom Clancy's The Division 2", "Skull &amp; Bones", "Transference", "" (including the announcement that Fox McCloud from Nintendo's "Star Fox" franchise would be an exclusive character in the Switch version of the game), "The Crew 2", and "Assassin's Creed Odyssey". New DLC expansions for "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle" ("Donkey Kong Adventure") and "For Honor" ("Marching Fire") were also announced, as well as an upcoming documentary entitled "Another Mindset", which focuses on competitive "Rainbow Six Siege".
PC Gaming Show.
"PC Gamer" hosted their PC Gaming Show on June 11 at 3:00pm. The show included presentations from several publishers and developers including Sega, Square Enix, Crytek, Double Fine Productions, Hi-Rez Studios, Skydance Media, Digital Extremes, Raw Fury, Klei Entertainment, Modern Storyteller, tinyBuild, Cloud Imperium Games, Starbreeze, and 505 Games.
Sony.
Sony hosted their press conference on June 11 at 6:00pm. Sony continued its "E3 Experience" where the event was simultaneously live-broadcast to a limited number of movie theaters. Addressing criticism of some of its past E3 press conferences, Sony planned to have "deep dives" on a handful of first-party titles during its conference, rather than a large number of short teasers for games, though would still cover other third-party and indie games. Sony focused on "Death Stranding", "Ghost of Tsushima", "Spider-Man" and "The Last of Us Part II". Further, instead of having a pre-show prior to the press conference to announce selected titles, Sony used daily live-streaming announcements of games in the week prior to the conference to reveal new titles "Tetris Effect", "Twin Mirror", and "Ghost Giant", giving the announcements of these games "more time to breathe".
Nintendo.
As with previous conferences since 2013 (with the exception of the 2016 expo), Nintendo streamed a pre-recorded Nintendo Direct video presentation on June 12 at 9:00am. This presentation focused on Nintendo Switch games releasing in 2018, with a specific focus on "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". Additional titles shown included "Daemon X Machina", "Xenoblade Chronicles 2", ', "Super Mario Party", ', ', "Arena of Valor", "Paladins", "Minecraft", "Overcooked 2", "Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate", "Dragon Ball FighterZ", ', "Mario Tennis Aces", "Killer Queen Black", "Hollow Knight", and "Octopath Traveler".
Other events.
E3 Colisseum.
E3 Colisseum, a side event designed around public interaction with the developers and publishers, returned to E3 this year from June 12 to June 14, 2018, as confirmed by Geoff Keighley via his Twitter account. Also confirmed by Geoff was that the event would be streamed live online. The event included a reunion of the cast members and Tim Schafer of "Grim Fandango" celebrated the game's 20th anniversary. The reunion event also featured live music from the remastered games composer Peter McConnell and a live reading of select scenes that would also feature Jack Black. Another game, ' was also featured during the event, with TreyArch discussing the history of Zombies, its ravenous fan community, and what might be lurking around the corner next in the games series. It also featured Geoff Keighley, Joe Russo director of ', Elijah Wood, Donald Mustard Worldwide Creative Director at Epic Games, Amy Hennig, 4 artists behind the game Cuphead, Hideo Kojima, Penn Jillette, Darren Aronofsky and Camilla Luddington along with the "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" Creative Team. The event took place at The Novo at L.A. Live, near the main convention center, and was available to all E3 attendees.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts held a special ceremony on June 11, 2018 at the London West Hollywood to honor voice actor Nolan North with a Special Award for his "outstanding contribution to performance in games".
Video game tournaments/events.
Epic Games held "Fortnite Battle Royale" Celebrity Pro-am at E3 2018, featuring 50 celebrities and 50 top players who competed. The event featured 50 pairs consisting of one streamer and celebrity, with the winning team receiving US$ to be donated to the winning team's charity of choice; announced participants include streamers Tyler "Ninja" Blevins and Markiplier, and celebrities Joel McHale, Paul George, and Marshmello. This event was announced following a Twitch stream in March 2018 by Ninja, which featured the celebrities, Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and JuJu Smith-Schuster who were all playing the game "Fortnite Battle Royale". The winners of the event was the team with Marshmello and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins.
Nintendo hosted live tournaments for both "Splatoon 2" and the upcoming "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". The "Splatoon 2" tournament, known as the "Splatoon 2 World Championship 2018", featured the top teams from four regions—North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia—facing off in the first world championship for the game. The "Super Smash Bros." tournament, known as the "Super Smash Bros. Invitational 2018", was held at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles on June 12. Nintendo invited eight top "Super Smash Bros." players with plans to invite more who would compete in the new game, following a similar format they used in the E3 2014 "Super Smash Bros. Invitational" event.
Capcom hosted a "Monster Hunter World" tournament, where two-player teams would compete to complete a specific hunt in the fastest time possible. Capcom would stream the competition to online viewers.
Capcom also hosted a "Street Fighter V" rubber match between professional wrestlers Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston &amp; Big E of The New Day (representing WWE) vs. The new IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega &amp; The Young Bucks of The Elite (representing NJPW).
ESL Arena was a new arena space located in the South Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center that would be used to host various esports events. The arena stage was a 7,500-square-foot dynamic esports experience that seats over 200 fans. The main stage featured custom player experiences with analysts and casters and gave the audience up-close VIP access to the world of competitive esports. The first esports events in the new space took place at E3 2018.
List of featured games.
This is a list of notable titles that appeared by their developers or publishers at E3 2018.
References.
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