Ubisoft 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.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 is dramatically different from the original — and that’s about all I can confidently say about the ambitious new game. First announced in 2008, Beyond Good & Evil 2 roared back to life this week at E3 with an explosive cinematic trailer that reintroduced players to Michel Ancel’s distinct and vibrant sci-fi universe. What the trailer didn’t show, however, was anything about how the game might play.

Not long after the reveal, Ancel and his team took me through a very early technical demonstration of the game. Where the original Beyond Good & Evil was a fairly straightforward third-person action adventure, its follow-up is something much larger and more complex. It combines elements of online worlds, early-access releases, role-playing games, and procedural generation. It’s also, admittedly, still pretty rough around the edges. Many of the game’s key elements — from graphics to combat to narrative — are still being implemented.

Ubisoft brought out the big guns — quite literally and fantastically, at times — to start their E3 2017 press conference. The event started with legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who brought hand cannon toys on stage to introduce Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Ubisoft also announced Transference, a VR project with actor Elijah Wood; competitive naval pirate game Skull & Bones; and racing game The Crew 2 (now with boats and planes). Of course, it wouldn’t be an Ubisoft show without Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and a tease about Beyond Good and Evil 2 — so yeah, those were there, too.

There was, alas no Aisha Tyler hosting this year.

The long-awaited sequel to Beyond Good & Evil is indeed real, and we have proof: Ubisoft just released a surprise cinematic trailer for the game at the publisher’s E3 keynote. The trailer kicks off with a long chase sequence featuring a monkey with a cybernetic hand and a human companion racing through a futuristic cityscape, before the pair blast off into space. There doesn’t appear to be any returning characters from the first game; story wise, it will actually be a prequel.

Here’s how Ubisoft describes it:

Ubisoft has just announced Starlink: Battle for Atlas, a new space shooter that will feature the first ever modular and collectible Nintendo Switch controller add-ons. The game, unveiled at the publisher’s E3 press conference today, looks like a mix of Mass Effect and No Man’s Sky, putting players in the role of interstellar pilots fighting an malevolent artificial intelligence force.

Of course, the plot is secondary compared to the real-life collectibles for the Switch-specific version. The first trailer for Starlink shows the Switch controller acting as a base to mount some impressive looking toy starships and even a Skylanders / Amiibo-style NFC pilot figurine. At one point, the user in the video even swaps out parts on the ship to change the customization options in the game. You’ll also be able to buy an accessory it seems to mount the collectibles onto a PlayStation or Xbox controller, so this isn’t just a Switch-specific feature. (The game is being advertised as multi-platform.)

Ubisoft has announced it will sell 200 special editions (in North America) of Assassin’s Creed Origins, but the package won’t come with a real life hawk, so like, what’s even the point. For those still interested, the package includes Assassin’s Creed Origins Gold Edition, the season pass, a “Digital Deluxe Pack,” an additional mission, a 28.7-inch statue, a hand-drawn artistic representation of the game’s map, a collector’s case, a replica amulet, a steelbook, an artbook, four lithographs, and the soundtrack. But again, no real life hawk.

Who spends $800 on an Assassin’s Creed special edition, if it doesn’t give them an actual hawk that will be your new best friend and closest confidant, running errands and reconnaissance, just like the fake hawk in the video game. My guess is people who love statues. Featuring protagonist Batek and his hawk Senu, the figurine is extremely detailed. You could even trick a very young child that the tiny hawk is real. But it isn’t.

Ubisoft announced a new pirate game called Skull and Bones at its E3 keynote: a shared world where you can team up with friends to sail and loot your way to pirate supremacy.

The game looks like in many ways an upgraded version of the piratical party of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, just with only the nautical bits (i.e., the best parts of that game.) Skull and Bones is set in the Golden Age of Piracy, with players able to build fleets, customize ships, and of course, plunder treasure from trading ships and other pirates.