The Square Enix E3 Presents introduced a handful of new titles with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy providing the central focus, with a trailer and an extended playthrough of the action-RPG title which is being developed by Eidos Montreal, the studio behind the Deus Ex franchise.
Guardians is visually very reminiscent of 2020’s (poorly received) Marvel’s Avengers live-service game, which was developed by Crystal Dynamics, but this title is a single player story-driven campaign. You take the role of Peter Quill, aka Starlord, as leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy a year into their existence. You have dialogue choices which can affect how the story plays out, and the real time combat will require you to give orders to your team which gives a degree of complexity. It is vaguely reminiscent of the Mass Effect franchise.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy will come out October 26 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
Speaking Marvel’s Avengers, a full trailer for the next free expansion Black Panther: War for Wakanda was shown. Meanwhile the Wasteland Patrol expansion, which will release before it, will introduce a ‘new patrol mode’, ‘randomized, replayable boss fights’, and ‘exploration based rewards’. No definitive date for either expansion but both are listed for the second half of this year.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin was announced for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X and PC. It is being made by Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo in collaboration with Square Enix. It appears to be a reimagining of the first Final Fantasy title as an action hack-and-slash, complete with really terrible dialogue. It is slated for a 2022 release and a demo will be available on PS5 in the near future.
Final Fantasy I through VI will experience a “pixel remaster” on mobile devices and Steam. There was no clear demonstration about what this would look like or mean, nor a release date.
Speaking of mobile games, there will be a NieR, Final Fantasy VII Remake tie-in, The First Soldier, and another Hitman game to be released for iOS and Android devices. NeiR: Reincarnation and Hitman Sniper: The Shadows. All games are expected “in the coming months”.
PlatinumGames gave an update on the still in development Babylon’s Fall. The 1-4 player hack-and-slash title is now to be a live-service game with new content being regularly added after release. Babylon’s Fall was first announced in 2018.
Life is Strange will have a remaster of the first games in the series and the presentation took some time to demonstrate protagonist Alex’s abilities in gameplay of the forthcoming Life is Strange: True Colors. Life is Strange: True Colors will release September 10, and the Remastered Collection on September 30.
After the 90-minute and thirty-plus game barnstormer of the Microsoft & Bethesda showcase, Square Enix’s presentation was relatively lacking – coming in at around 40-minutes, with only the much rumored Guardians of the Galaxy game as the real focus. At least Square Enix will likely hold another Presents event later this year, so we will hopefully forget this relatively underwhelming E3 presentation.
For the full E3 Square Enix Presents, you can check it out here.