E3 17 Predictions: Bethesda

When Bethesda announced their first E3 conference two years ago, most of us thought it was just because they were going to announce Fallout 4. It turned out that they had quite a lot more to show, and then we got a conference last year as well. This has definitely made people more aware of them, something we definitely think they deserve. They've delivered one or more games that have been brought up in our "Game of Year" discussions these last few years. Will they be able to deliver the goods this year as well? We'll get an indication of that when their conference starts at 5am BST / 6am CEST Monday morning. Let's predict whether we'll be impressed or not. As with the previous articles, we'll start with the most obvious ones and gradually "speculate" (we'll admit that we know some of them are true). Bethesda has been kind enough to tease some of their announcements in their Bethesdaland poster, so let's work off that.

The Elder Scrolls Online's Morrowind launched on Tuesday and you can be sure that Bethesda won't be shutting down the servers anytime soon.They're definitely going to remind us how far the game has come since launch and that we'll get ever more content in the future.

As we're talking about one of Bethesda's biggest franchise we'll segue to Fallout. Fallout 4 VR will definitely be at the show. The question is: how will they show it off? When they revealed the game at last year's conference, Todd Howard said that they planned to release it by that time next year. That leads us to believe that they're fairly close to launch and therefore will show someone playing it on stage. Virtual reality is always difficult to present, but people might look past that because they just want more Fallout. Still, development might not have gone as smoothly as they hoped, so there's a chance it's further off than planned. Bethesda seems to put quite a lot of effort into virtual reality with both Doom and Fallout, so expect news either way.

Speaking of Doom (gotta love that segue), it's been a month since the masses got to play what you might consider an open beta for Quake Champions. After a long time with closed alphas, we think this is an indication that the game is closing in on its launch. The game pretty much feels as smooth and precise as we want it to be, and most aspects seem to be nailed down, which leads us to believe that this might be Bethesda's game for August or September.

Now, what about Bethesdaland's Dishonored 2 and Prey sections? We can smell an expansion from miles away. Dishonored got multiple expansions and the two story-focused ones were well received. Arkane has proved that they know how to do a great expansion, so you can be certain that they'll try again.

Prey is mostly a question about time. The folks at Arkane Austin gave us a little hint when we asked about possible expansions and future plans for it when we visited them last year. However, there has been a few problems with the game after launch and they might have been forced to push their plans back to fix those. This, combined with the fact that the game is very new, leads us to believe that we might get a mention of their plans, but not much more than that.

Yes, we want to see and hear more about the game above, but let's face it: the parts of Bethesdaland that are on everyone's mind at the moment are the secret ones. There are three theories as to what they might be.

Tango Gameworks has been extremely quiet since The Evil Within was released in 2014. Three years is more than enough time for the talented studio to have produced a sequel, and rumour has it that it's ready to be officially unveiled. First of all, the studio just updated their website for the first time in close to a year. The new content is password protected. Coincidence? Then there are the job listings that were looking for translators and Q&A testers for "Psycho Break 2" earlier this year. You might also have noticed that The Evil Within is currently 50% off on Steam and that it has been discounted on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One several times in the last few months. That would be a nice way of getting people to talk about it again, wouldn't it? This many "coincidences" can't a coincidence. The Evil Within 2 is definitely one of the biggest candidates for one of the secret sections. It terms of the release date, you shouldn't forget Bethesda's philosophy regards the time between reveal and release. We reckon you'll be terrified in October or November, or maybe early next year.

One of the other candidates has been teased by Bethesda themselves. During their Quake: Champions segment last year, they showed off a bootup screen that listed id Software games. Everything was as expected, expect for something called Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. This isn't a game on id's portfolio, so rumours spread faster than B.J. Blazkowicz needs to reload his guns. They didn't exactly slow down either when said character's voice actor, Brian Bloom, said the following when asked about the future of Wolfenstein:

"I'll be safe with this answer. If you look at Bethesda's E3 2016 lineup there was a title hinted at in a cool way. It sparked a bit of wildfire. That subtle, very simple DOS language, going through the titles. Perhaps we're working on that as we speak."

Then we got a few months of quiet before Bethesda's vice president of PR and marketing decided to reveal that he'd played Machine Games' (the developers of Wolfenstein: The New Order) next game and that it was "pretend there's a cute cat's meow here" bananas. Hines is no stranger to denying rumours, so the fact that he answered that way is kind of telling.

The third game most people are talking about is Bethesda Game Studios' new IP. Let's make this clear: The Elder Scrolls VI probably won't be announced for quite some time, and Todd Howard has said that they have multiple games that are further in development than the next Elder Scrolls. This IP is one of those. There are rumours of it being called Starfield and that it's pretty much Fallout/The Elder Scrolls set in space. Some radioactive little birds have also told us that it'll have an online component, a fairly new concept for that team. An exciting thought.

Bethesda also owns a few other projects that might get a tease or two. Battlecry Studios canceled Battlecry two years ago to focus on "other projects". We very much doubt it, but maybe they've managed to keep their new game a secret. Then there's Bethesda's willingness to hire second party studios to work on new IP. The company likes to play unpredictable, so you never know. Our bets are on the three first predictions though. We'll see if we're right when the conference starts in the wee small hours of the morning.

What are your hopes and expectations for Bethesda's conference?