Day one of E3 2017 has come to a close. Our staff attended more than a dozen appointments, making contact with developers of some of the biggest games of the show.
Tomorrow we’ll be checking out Warner Bros., Epic Games, Bandai Namco, SEGA, Activision, Atlus, Natsume, NCSoft, Square, Enix and more. For now, here are our thoughts after day one.
You can learn more about our staff here.
Jonathan Leack: As I talked about in my feature earlier today, E3 is packed this year. So much that it’s impacting early appointments. That said, it’s been a decent show so far. I miss the days of Microsoft being one booth away from Sony, and being able to move around without crashing into someone. That said, the spectacle is still here in full-force, reminding me why I decided to dedicate myself to the industry eight years ago.
Metal Gear Survive surprised me, and in a good way. Then again, I’m the target demographic for the game, so I can sympathize with Hideo Kojima enthusiasts who have no tolerance. I also had the pleasure of speaking with the lead designers of Elite: Dangerous and Planet Coaster, two of my favorite PC games in recent years. It always feels great to walk into an appointment for a game or franchise you love, and immediately be able to make a strong connection with the developer to have an interesting chat.
It’s been great to hang out with the rest of the GameRevolution team so far. We’re staying down in LA Live near the convention center and have had a great time talking about games and eating delicious food in the area. If only we could do this more often.
James Kozanitis: The first day of E3 2017 was exciting. Getting a sneak peak at the bright future of this year and beyond was a treat, and telling the rest of the world about it is an honor *falls asleep*.
Griffin Vacheron: The first day of E3 offered both waves of emotion and physical fatigue, between the announcement of long-awaited titles like Metroid Prime 4 and my long wait in line (over 3 hours) to score 10 or so minutes with Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo managed to at least tie Microsoft at the top of this year’s press conference heap with impressive trailers and less impressive title screens, but its first-party reputation for quality allows it to pull such stunts to relatively universal aplomb.
E3 itself this year is strange place, swarmed with eager, inspired, and often extremely sweaty public showgoers in the style of your typical PAX Prime or Anime Expo gathering. While at those events I enjoy witnessing just that, I’d be lying if I said its effects on E3 so far have been a good thing. Regardless, there are many more games to play in the coming days, and I look forward to infiltrating the booths of Namco Bandai, Sega, and more in the coming days.’
Cody Perez: If you didn’t already hear, E3 this year is insanely packed. Fellow GR staff member Griffin and I made a beeline for Nintendo’s booth as soon as the doors opened at 12pm sharp only to have to wait three whopping hours in line to check out Super Mario Odyssey. It was totally worth it, though, as we got to see Mario’s voice actor in person while we waited and the Mexico-inspired Sand Kingdom level that I played was filled to the brim with secrets, amazing platforming, and signs of the masterpiece the game is shaping up to be.
From there, my day was already halfway over but I was able to sneak in an exciting preview of Splatoon 2‘s co-op mode Salmon Run, a match of FIFA 18 on Switch that was on par graphically and mechanically with the PS4 version of FIFA 17, and a fun but sadly unsuccessful attempt at the new trial Susano in Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood.
Aron Garst: My first day at my first E3 was quite underwhelming. After sitting through two ‘hands off’ demos that I had been very excited to play, pushing through thick crowds of sweaty people, and waiting in lines to see games in my free time I came out wishing things had gone better. After hearing stories of how E3 went before opening to the public, I feel like I’ve missed out on an era.
Matt Utley: I just woke up after suffering a terrible nightmare. I had visions of long, writhing lines of human drones. The smell of evaporated sweat lingered in the halls of West. It was a hellish world where video games were everywhere, yet none could be played. I woke up and realized that it was not a nightmare. It was Tuesday.
