As you guys can see, this week is just a little bit different all around!
So I may not be a big gamer myself - I mean, I don't even own a console and my PC is definitely NOT game approved lol, it tried valiantly and almost died one time so we said no in the end - but I really enjoy watching gameplays on Youtube (and have recently been getting into the Twitch streaming side of things).
Needless to say, it's amusing to watch these videos primarily because of the gamers behind them.
I mean, most of it is the gamer being chased around by massive monsters and shrieking their head off!
Listen, if you've never experienced that, you should, it's hysterical.
Overall though, I accidentally watched last year's Ubisoft Foward and actually caught the announcement trailer this year so thought to myself, why not try something out of the norm for this week's blog post?
And so here we are. Let's jump right into what went down during the event, shall we?
Now, I don't have anything remotely connected to this type of event on the blog. I've never done anything like this before haha! I DO have a couple of Ubisoft-related posts that I'll link at the bottom of the page though, because I feel like those are kind of important, in their own way.
Let's begin with the pre-show of the show.
No, wait, a little note about what this thing was even a part of. This weekend was E3 weekend, which is basically the biggest gaming conference event of the year, where all the big names unveil what they've been working on and what gamers can expect in the future. Used to be this was hosted in massive halls like Comic Con and the like, but sadly that's still not quite doable JUST yet, so it was online instead.
It started with Summer GameFest, went on through UbiForward, then there was a MASSIVE Xbox event on Sunday, and I think there's one other on Monday and Tuesday (Nintendo definitely has one).
And that's without Playstation in the mix, because they're doing their own thing sometime mid-summer.
But we know some of the basics now, so let's jump right into UbiForward!
The preshow started an hour before the actual show, and it included different clips about inclusivity at the company, how it came about, how even just randomly landing there (without having a degree in computer sciences) might open different career paths, etc. The funniest thing to me was how we segued from one segment into the next - there were literally motion clips from games. There was Eivor on three separate occasions, either walking, riding or sailing to their next destination; there was a drone from Watchdogs flying to the next pitstop (also a taxicab from the same, I think), and there were a couple other cars from a few different games that drove from point A to point B.
... let me tell you though, suddenly switching over to Eivor walking along a road in the middle of nowhere England, with Roman ruins in the background and the only noise being the crunch of their boots? Took me a hot minute to figure out what was what.
The actual show began after an hour of some light clips like this, and among others we heard from Youssef Maguid, part of the Ubisoft News team!
If you've yet to watch him do some gameplay on their Twitch and Youtube channels, I do encourage that at least, because you haven't seen anything until you've cackled your way through him trying to figure out why something in his settlement caught fire (or why HE'S on fire!).
But as much as I'd love to say this event was as exciting as the one this time last year ... I sadly can't.
For some reason, they didn't really unveil anything THAT new for their upcoming games (or game features). Sure, there was Rainbow Six: Extraction, and of course Rainbox Six: Siege, there was finally an update on Riders Republic, but then there was more Watchdogs, more about Assassin's Creed Valhalla (which, even though I disliked the main portion of the plot and game, I've actually enjoyed the DLC so far, and am low-key excited about Siege of Paris), some notes on Far Cry 6, and others.
Rocksmith+ seems to now be a thing, which is a game/application to help you learn how to play guitar, and that's kind of exciting, I guess, but Just Dance doesn't really seem all that big, and even though Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope seems to be a BIG mashup ... I don't know, it just felt a little bit flat to me.
The most exciting thing was right at the end, with a first glimpse of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and IT LOOKS GORGEOUS (then again the movie did already, and the movie was largely CGI so ...)! It's coming out in 2022, and I think it's going to be a big hit - if it isn't bogged down by bugs and crashes.
That was it!
For some reason, it felt sparse even with the number of games that were showed, and there wasn't REALLY anything SUPER new right until the end - the rest was more updates about a few game franchises. There was also absolutely no word about the scandal Ubisoft is currently dealing with and facing (for those of you living under a rock, it's about sexual misconduct and unsafe workspace), which I actually kind of expected.
I mean, not an entire segment obviously, but maybe just a comment about it? This now feels more about sweeping it under a rug, or is it just me? And don't come at me that E3 is no place for that kind of topic, because it's the perfect place as millions tune in to watch.
It was a fun couple of hours to just sort of have this playing in the background, but it definitely lacked the oomph factor for me, and judging by the reaction on the interwebz, for many others as well (are we even really interested in the movies and TV section, which I didn't even really know about?).
And now, forward and onwards ... And back to movie reviews next week!
xx
*images and video not mine
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