Bethesda at E3 2017: all of the latest news, trailers, and announcements

Rejoice, for E3 is over for another year, and we can all take a breath. The world’s biggest video games trade show brings such a flurry of news that it’s hard to stop and take it in before you’re whisked to the next keynote, the next conference, or the next big reveal.

It’s only now, with E3 over, that we can really take time to look back at some of the most impressive, intriguing, or downright bizarre games to get announced or outlined further at the show. Below you’ll find some of the trailers that are worth rewatching — or that you might have missed — from the last week.

Earlier this week, Bethesda Softworks gave fans two big virtual reality announcements: VR versions of beloved RPGs Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. You could argue that these kinds of big, open-world titles are the perfect application for VR — the medium needs games that can keep players entertained for more than a few hours, and people want to feel like they're really living in their favorite world.

I think, however, that you’d be wrong. Because so far, the little I’ve seen of both titles suggests that most of the great parts of present-day open-world games don’t translate well into a headset, and that the perfect VR open world won’t look anything like what we’re used to.

Bethesda has clarified its new Creation Club system — the program that will sell additional content to both The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Fallout 4 — specifying that the service will not be used to sell existing mods. Creation Club, which was announced during the publisher’s E3 keynote last night, will instead allow players to buy officially sanctioned characters, weapons, and other add-ons created by Bethesda’s own studios and selected third-party developers.

Also available via Creation Club will be new clothes, areas, and even game modes. All of the above sound like the kinds of things mods have been bringing to the two games since their release, but Bethesda notes the difference, stating in its FAQ that most of the items for sale will be made internally, by the games’ own development teams, or by other studios under its umbrella.

Welcome to Bethesdaland, a creepy cartoon wonderland full of Bethesda games. As part of its E3 press conference, the company showcased all its not-so-cheerful upcoming properties in an uncomfortably festive light. Doom and Fallout in VR. A more arcade-style Quake championed as a $1 million esport. Some creepy-as-hell horror in The Evil Within 2. A new story in the world Dishonored 2. And capping off the night? A whole new take on Wolfenstein.

There was, alas, no new Fallout Shelter this year.

Bethesda made a series of questionable choices at its E3 press conference, like holding the event at 9PM local time (midnight, for those of you on the East Coast), constructing an entire miniature theme park called “Bethesdaland,” and featuring the Chainsmokers. And it didn’t deliver a few of the most anticipated announcements, like the rumored sci-fi game Starfield.

That said, some exciting stuff came out of Bethesda’s various studios. We’ve got the most important parts of it collected here.

A sequel to The Evil Within, a horror game from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, will launch October 13 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Bethesda announced today during its E3 press conference. The announcement for The Evil Within 2 was accompanied with an absolutely bonkers trailer.

Tango Gameworks and Bethesda released The Evil Within in 2014. The game followed a police detective, Sebastian Castellanos, who is mysteriously transported to a bizarre and terrifying new realm while investigating a murder case. In the sequel, Sebastian returns to a nightmare world while searching for his daughter.

Dishonored, Bethesda’s excellent steam punk-meets-occult stealth series, is getting a new expansion on September 15th, the developer announced this evening at its E3 press conference. As many fans suspected, the expansion puts players in the shoes of Dreadful Whale Captain Meagan Foster, who in a previous life was an assassin who went by the name Billy Lurk. But in a satisfying twist, Bethesda has you hunting the Outsider, the mysterious and seemingly immortal entity who imbues select citizens of Dunwall with magic powers.

This expansion, called “Death of the Outsider,” is billed as the Dishonored universe’s first “standalone story,” meaning it’s not technically tied to the second game, though it appears to take place after the sequel’s end. Unlike the original game’s “The Knife of Dunwall” and “The Brigmore Witches” DLC packs, this one could be the beginning of a long string of episodic one-off experiences that further build out the series’ world, something that seems increasingly likely given the Dishonored 2’s poor sales performance. We don’t yet have pricing details, but as it is something larger, akin to Infamous: First Light, it may in the $30 to $40 range.

We saw some very early experiments with Doom in virtual reality last year at E3. But now, Bethesda’s promising a new, discrete experience called Doom VFR, and it looks pretty fun. The game puts you into fights with Doom’s familiar demons, but per the trailer, you’ll get some pretty wild teleportation options — think jumping and pivoting in the air to blast a cacodemon. There’s no launch date, but it’s being released for PlayStation VR and HTC Vive.

Bethesda also reminded us that Fallout 4’s VR edition is still coming — and now we know it’ll be released in October for HTC Vive. Unlike Doom VFR, this looks a lot like a direct port of the non-VR Fallout into VR, which isn’t necessarily a good idea. Its core pitch is something like “Do all the things you’re used to in Fallout 4, but somewhat less efficiently!” I’m not saying it couldn’t be good, but I’m withholding judgment until I can try it for more than a few minutes, like I did last year.