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Popular video game event E3 2022 has been cancelled, both as a live and in-person event as well as the digital version. Yet Microsoft will still move forward with its Xbox and Bethesda Games showcase on Sunday, June 12, 2022. With E3 out of the way, this could be the biggest gaming event of the year's first half.
While it is yet unconfirmed just how long the event will be, there are a lot of expectations and anticipations around what exactly Xbox and Bethesda will be presenting to the crowd. A host of video games are lined up for release in the coming future, of which some will definitely get some major reveals.
While some picks have a good chance of being covered at this event, there are other anticipated projects that might get overlooked due to possibly being in early stages of development. Here are five such video games that might get a showcase, and five more that are likely not coming anytime soon.
Note: This article reflects the writer's opinions only
5 video games that might be revealed
1) State of Decay 3
State of Decay is a survival horror video game series developed by Undead Games. The games are set in a post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden world where the player is tasked with helping a small group of people survive. A main story also exists which sees the group challenged by various complications and objectives.
Released in 2018, State of Decay 2 was the most recent video game in the franchise. The last that we heard of State of Decay 3 was in June 2020 when a cinematic trailer was released as an official announcement, but not much was revealed in the trailer.
It has been two years since, and a new update is due, whether it is a story trailer, or some sort of gameplay reveal. While there have been rumors of problems during development, it does not change the fact that players need some more details on the project to stay invested.
2) Avowed
Coming from Obsidian Entertainment, the people behind the Pillars of Eternity series and The Outer Worlds, Avowed is set to be a first-person action RPG. In the same vein as how The Outer Worlds was similar to the older Fallout video games, Avowed is set to resemble the Elder Scrolls series in terms of world and gameplay.
The reveal trailer for Avowed showed a brief glimpse of gameplay, but not much else, so video game enthusiasts are hungry to see more of the game. The upcoming showcase event would be a great platform to reveal some gameplay or story through a full-fledged trailer.
With The Elder Scrolls 6 a dream and a half away, Avowed has the potential to give fans of the series something to latch on to, if only for the time being. The short gameplay snippet was a big graphical improvement over Skyrim as well, which might work greatly in Obsidian’s favor.
3) Forza Motorsport 8
Now that Microsoft has pleased the casual racing fans with Forza Horizon 5's open-world gameplay, freeform driving, and street racing, it is time to cater to the hardcore fans once more with a new Forza Motorsport unveiling.
While Horizon allows players the freedom and liberty of an immersive open world, Motorsport is mostly a video game racing simulator for more serious gearheads. Instead of large open roads, players race in closed circuits that are licensed and modelled after real-world venues.
The last Forza Motorsport title came out in 2017, and since then, a new game has been said to be in development by Turn 10 Studios. If so, the Xbox showcase event would be a great platform to deliver some more news, a release date and possibly some gameplay.
4) Redfall
Arkane’s next video game, after the immense success of Deathloop, is Redfall. It is supposedly a vampire hunting game, where players must fight against the forces of the various Nosferatu to release the eponymous town from their control. While Redfall was initially set for a late 2022 release date, it has since been delayed to early 2023.
While Redfall did reveal a cinematic trailer during E3 2021, it merely showed the premise of the game, along with the four playable characters. While gameplay is said to feature an FPS-style take, with different characters having access to different abilities, there is yet to be an actual gameplay reveal.
While the delayed release date might be an indication that the video game is far from complete, some alpha footage could still be shown at the Bethesda showcase. An idea of what combat could look like, how each character plays, as well as how their abilities function in-game, would be a few appreciable details.
5) Starfield
The next big game by Bethesda Game Studios. Initially set to be released in November 2022, the video game was also pushed back to an early 2023 release date to allow for more development time. After the wastelands of Fallout and the medieval romps through The Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda is now taking its new game to the final frontier.
Little is known about Starfield other than the claim that it will be “like Skyrim in space” by Todd Howard, director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios. While that statement is pretty vague, most people have taken it to mean that Starfield will be as explorable and vast as Skyrim was for its time.
The game is said to be set in an area in space known as the Settled Systems, which consists of various star systems and worlds where the game takes place. A story trailer would be a perfect showcase for this video game to give players an idea of what things are like in an area of outer space corrupted by capitalism.
5 games that are not coming any time soon
1) The Elder Scrolls VI
As far as anyone knows, The Elder Scrolls VI is in the works. However, that's about it regarding any confirmed reports around this project. There has been no reveal about the location, time period, story or any other pertinent details. And given that the last Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, was released a decade ago in 2012, this has been one of the longest gaps between two mainline releases in a series.
What is known at this time is that the game will use the same engine as Starfield - the Creation engine. Aside from that, everything else is speculation. Fans have eliminated the locations of the previous entries to triangulate where the sixth game in the series will be set, which still leaves four as of yet unvisited nations in the land of Tamriel.
The first Elder Scrolls game came out in 1994, titled Arena, which kicked off this rich fantasy world of games set in the fictional continent of Tamriel. While taking places across the entire continent, players could travel only to select areas of each nation. Later games would go on to limit this to one nation, with the map being more expansive.
2) Wolfenstein III
After Wolfenstien: The New Order in 2014 and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus in 2018, there has yet to be a new video game release in the rebooted franchise that isn’t an expansion or a VR experience. As far as the latest reports go, the third game in the rebooted trilogy is happening, only, it may take a while.
A series from the early 1980s, the original Wolfenstein was one of the games that truly sold the concept of first-person shooters, and its most-recent reboot by Machine Games has fared quite well. However, following the pandemic and Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda Studios, things have seemingly slowed down for this series.
Reports do suggest that MachineGames is currently working on an unannounced video game, which could potentially be the third Wolfenstein game. With little to go off, it doesn't seem too likely that players will be getting any major updates about the game in the upcoming event.
3) Fable (reboot)
Announced back in 2020, the Fable series is getting a makeover soon, as a reboot is underway. While the original video games were primarily developed by Lionhead Studios, the reboot is being undertaken by Forza Horizon developers, Playground Games, while also using the same engine as the Forza games (ForzaTech).
The original games were action-adventure RPGs which took place in the fictional land of Albion. Players took control of a character known as the Hero, with a tragic backstory, and set about the game world in search of their sister. The world reacted to the choices made by the player, and depending on the level of good or bad deeds performed, the Hero's appearance would change.
The reboot is said to retain the open-world RPG elements and goofy humor of the series. However, since 2020, not much has come through in terms of developmental updates for this game. With Forza Horizon 5 out of the way, Playground Games might have gotten started on a Fable reboot in earnest, but a release date seems a while away.
4) Perfect Dark (Reboot)
Perfect Dark is a series of sci-fi FPS video games for the Ninendo 64, Gameboy, and Xbox 360. The original game saw protagonist Joanna Dark take on a shady organization, only to find and locate a superweapon that might destroy the planet. All of this was set to the backdrop of a war between two alien factions, one of which factors heavily into the story.
While the original two video games were developed by Rare, the reboot was announced by new developer The Initiative, founded by Darrell Gallagher. Gallagher had worked on the Tomb Raider reboot as well, and shown an interest in Joana Dark being a suitable protagonist to relaunch.
The game will seemingly run on the Unreal Engine 4, and is envisioned to be a spy shooter. While it is still said to be in development, many developers have left the company due to creative differences. This makes it unlikely that the development is complete enough to show anything to the audience, and makes it an unlikely candidate for a showcase anytime soon.
5) Gears 6
Developers The Coalition is said to be at work on the next Gears video game, but there has been no news so far regarding the sequel to Gears 5. This third-person shooter series has delivered on great action and gunplay for years, ever since Gears of War dropped in 2006.
As of recent reports, the developers have put up a job posting for a motion capture technician to work on the Gears of Wars franchise, which suggests that development on this new Gears game is only just getting started.
With it being in such an early stage of production, it would mean that whatever the next Gears video game is going to be, it will be a while before it drops, and will thus mark the longest period in-between two mainline Gears instalments.
