Top 10 E3 2021 Announcements

E3 2021 has come and gone, but we’ve had a bunch of great announcements and the back half of 2021 has filled up with exciting game releases. I’ve gathered together ten of my favorite announcements of E3 2021 for you, together with all the details.

Let’s dive into the announcements:

Forza Horizon 5 (Playground Games)

Forza Horizon 5 was announced, and it looks absolutely fantastic. Xbox went into a deep dive on this one, and the social elements of the game look great. The graphical fidelity due to the power of the Xbox Series Consoles looks very impressive, plus it’s going to release on day one on Xbox Game Pass. Forza Horizon 5 is planned for the 9th November 2021.

Lost Ark (Amazon Game Studios)

Lost Ark is a massively multiplayer online action role-playing game (MMOARPG) developed by Tripod Studio and Smilegate RPG. It was released in Korea on December 4, 2018. It’s in beta in Japan and Russia. This was a surprise announcement during the Summer Games Fest and Amazon Game Studios are bringing the game to the west in Autumn 2021. This is a Diablo-like isometric ARPG, with fantastic combat. If you want to get involved in the closed beta, you can sign up via Amazon Games.

Somerville (Jumpship)

Somerville is similar to a Playdead game, much like Inside or Limbo. This one is a stylish side-scrolling platformer and grabbed everyone’s attention. Let’s check out the press release.

“In the wake of catastrophe you must find the means to make your family whole again. Somerville is a Sci-Fi adventure grounded in the intimate repercussions of large scale conflict.

Immerse yourself in a hand-crafted narrative experience set across a vivid rural landscape. Navigate your way through the perilous terrain ahead of you to unravel the mysteries of Earth’s visitors.”

Guardians of the Galaxy (Square Enix)

Eidos Montreal unveiled their new Guardians of the Galaxy adventure, which is a single-player game where you take on the role of Star-Lord. It’s a third person action game, which looks similar to Marvel’s Avenegers, although unrelated. It got a good showing at the event, with a trailer and then a big gameplay deep-dive. This one is due for release on pretty much all platforms on 26th October 2021 (including Nintendo Switch).

Redfall (Arkane Austin)

Redfall closed out the Xbox + Bethesda showcase. This is a new co-op, open world shooter with Vampires. I’m not really into Vamoires that much, however, I am into Arkane and love what they do. This trailer had a lot of style, although we didn’t see gameplay it was enough to get me excited about what we have to come. This one is set for Summer 2022.

Replaced (Sad Cat Studios)

Replaced is a new sci-fi action platformer. The pixel artwork looked gorgeous, similar in style to Narita Boy. It’s pixel art but the lighting and layering looks better, more modern while maintaining the retro feel. This one is coming to Xbox Game Pass day one, and is one to keep an eye on for 2022.

Metroid Dread (Nintendo)

In one of the biggest surpises of the whole E3 showcase, Nintendo announced a new 2D Metroid called Metroid Dread. Dread has been a concept around for about 15 years and it’s finally seeing the light of day after years of rumours. Metroid Prime 4 is still in development, plus Nintendo did a HUGE deepdive into Metroid Dread during their Treehouse Live immediately after the main Direct.

The innovation here are the E.M.M.I. robots who stalk Samus as she makes her way out of the location. They are tough enemies, who hunt down Samus and it’s your job to get away from them with either speed or stealth. Samus has plenty of abilities including sliding, punching and also wall-climbing. It’s the one that fans have been waiting for, and was one of those which wasn’t widely predicted before the event. Massive surprise and hopefully, if plenty of fans buy into it, then more will be made (or perhaps previous games remade) in the future.

Metroid Dread is due for release on 8th October 2021.

Halo: Infinite (343 Studios)

We had a new trailer for both the story and multiplayer, plus a further deep-dive into the multiplayer for the beloved shooter franchise from 343 studios. Having been delayed for a year, the improvements were pretty clear from the trailers. I’m much for excited for multiplayer rather than the single player camapign. Multiplayer is going to be free to play, which should hopefully mean plenty of players getting in there. The battle pass system looks great, where you can keep them forever and focus on the one you want. The gameplay was impressive, it looks like classic halo, which I’m into plus the story looked interesting too. I’m definitely excited to jump back into Halo, and I’m glad 343 has a good showing as it must have been a hard year for the studio. The game is set for release in Holiday 2021.

Elden Ring (FromSoftware)

The long-awaited trailer for Elden Ring was shown off at Summer Games Fest 2021, with Geoff Keighley almost welling up when introducing it. This is the latest offering from FromSoftware and looks like the biggest FromSoftware game to date and it has open world elements. The trailer showed off what looks to be various bosses, horse riding and weird and wonderful enemies plus a few different biomes. Possibly the biggest surprise was the released date which is scheduled for 21st January 2021.

Breath of the Wild 2 (Nintendo)

Nintendo showed off their second trailer for Breath of the Wild 2, showing a bit more of the story developments, Link’s abilities and also the environment setting. The trailer was relatively short, but there was plenty of details packed in there.

In contrast to the first trailer, the sky appeard to play a more prominent role in the sequel. The first trailer showed Link and Zelda exploring the depths of Hyrule in a cave, which appeared to show a decaying Ganon. In the latest trailer we see Link diving from the Sky, plus Link’s arm appears to be covered in some kind of corruption (which relates back to the first trailer with Link potentially grabbing Ganon’s arm).

Link’s hair seemed longer, which makes sense given Link and Zelda appear to be on an adventure and living on the road. There was talk of Zelda being a playable character, however, in the new trailer we see Zelda fall to the depths. Hopefully Zelda will still be playable, but it might not be co-op Breath of the Wild some were hoping for.

All in all, the trailer looked great and it’s brilliant to see more of the setting and the direction for where they are taking the game. We didn’t get a title or firm release date. Currently the game is on the slate for 2022, but Aonuma said they were aiming for 2022.