Xbox E3 2018: What to Expect

This will be another big year of change for the company as they shift off the main show floor and into their own close location. This article is of course going to go over Xbox E3 2018, what to expect. Xbox will once again kick things off for the week starting their conference on the Sunday once more. This is a change from tradition, but follows their setup last year where they revealed the Xbox One X. I highly doubt they'll have more hardware this year in terms of consoles, but a slimmer Xbox One of some design may not be out of the question.

They've gone iterative with designs, yet I'm not sure they'd revamp things right away. There may be the first announcement of their virtual reality headset or well, mixed reality as that's Microsoft's focus. Moving from that I am anticipating greater theatrics since this is being run from the Microsoft Theater in LA Live. That's their home turf now and honestly I'll never understand why haven't used it in years past considering the proximity. Whatever the case, this should be a completely revamped setup for them. I have no idea what their display settings will be considering they'll demo games from a closed location. I imagine it'll be better than on the show floor and similar to EA Play 2016 which was in the LA Live area. It'll be cool, I believe. I can't predict this element too well as information is minimal aside from the theater presentation.
When it comes to reveals they're probably going to continue that, "we only show you what's coming out this year" model they used last year. I would sadly guarantee they'll show Crackdown 3 with yet another final launch date. I personally wouldn't want reveal time spent on the game, but I feel strongly it'll happen. I however won't believe the game is releasing until it's being downloaded to review on my console. I love Crackdown, really I do. It has just been built up past what I think the game can realistically deliver due to the long development cycle. Guessing a late June or July release! I'd assume Halo 6 will be there and release this year, everyone points to 2019 so we'll see.

Forza Horizon 4 (maybe Japan), perhaps a Gears of War 5 tease though I'd assume a 2019/20 release. I say it being that early due to the fact there's a movie scheduled and they may push to get that together to tie into it. A guess would be alternation between Halo and Gears of War releases makes sense with them not landing on the same year. They may also give a Halo: The Master Chief Collection update release date or a rebrand under the Xbox One X enhancement. Ashen will get a release date, same with Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I doubt we'll see Fable 4 (reboot), also a high doubt on Perfect Dark (reboot) but there have been rumors. You'll see a selection of ID@Xbox as is tradition. I don't anticipate too many pure exclusives as they're still developing, more timed exclusive deals most likely.

When it comes to marketing deals I'd expect to see Cyberpunk 2077 revealed, maybe Shadow of the Tomb Raider (fairly sure they have marketing based on the Montreal event I attended, but Square Enix has their own conference). Battlefield (V, Bad Company 3?), maybe Borderlands 3 (Gearbox has a meeting room this year). I could see Life is Strange 2 (again, Square has their own conference though Before the Storm was at Xbox's last E3 conference). Metro: Exodus definitely, Anthem will surely be there and perhaps The Division 2 as Xbox had the marketing for the first.

Final details, I'll be there in person for the fourth time so that'll be neat. They always put on a really good in-person show, I compare it to a concert. It'll be streamed in 4k I imagine on Mixer as that's their on-show floor presence at the event. The Xbox Elite Controller 2 should appear based on past leaks, we'll see some more enhanced Xbox 360 games and perhaps the next see of Original Xbox Backwards Compatible titles. Revamped avatars. Minecraft? That 4k Super Duper Pack has been sitting there forever with no updates. Sorry if everything was too concise, I wanted to get the thoughts across without too much expansion.

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