E3 is usually about Triple-A game experiences with game publishers attempting to woo prospective customers and the games media through massive showy demonstrations of gameplay.

At this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, currently underway in LA, much of the discussion is instead focusing on smaller independent titles and the developers creating them. The primary example of this has been No Man’s Sky from British developer Hello Games. No Man’s Sky is an exploration game in which most, if not all of the content, is procedurally generated on a massive scale. This procedural generation means that planets, ships, animals and more are being created on the fly by the game, rather than a designer. In No Man’s Sky the player can jump in a space ship and fly from one planet’s surface to another without encountering a loading screen and the game looks phenomenal due to the bright, vivid art style on display.

Little of the actual mechanics of No Man’s Sky apart from this ability to explore are actually known as of yet and this might be just the reason that the game is receiving more discussion than the bigger budget titles being exhibited at E3.

This year, more than any before it, has demonstrated that game publishers are looking to re-tread ground from which they have found success before. Titles like Assassins Creed: Unity, Battlefield: Hardline and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare are clear demonstrations that publishers would rather build on already successful franchises than seek to create new worlds, and fresh gameplay systems, for gamers to explore.

This isn't surprising – video game budgets have increased exponentially in the last decade and it’s predictable that publishers like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts would prefer to funnel production costs into proven franchises. The problem with this strategy is that without the creation of new properties consumers will eventually grow tired of the existing franchises and as sales begin to drop the bigger publishers may find they don’t have an alternative strategy to replace the failing titles.

Thankfully for gamers, independent developers are filling the creative gap left behind by larger publishers. 


Minecraft has, over the last 5 years, demonstrated that indie games can find a mass audience by presenting new and interesting ideas with a simpler art style. This is what Hello Games hopes to achieve with No Man’s Sky and while it’s yet unclear if the game can actually deliver the promises made in its promotional videos, it’s still great for the industry that these ideas are being put out there. 

Even larger independent studios such as Japanese developer From Software and Polish studio CD Projekt Red are presenting risky titles, by partnering with big publishers, which are changing the direction the video game industry – this is no more exemplified by the Dark Souls franchise, created by From Software, which has reintroduced the idea of challenging and difficult gaming in
an era when games are being criticised for being too easy.

Big budget game reveals at this year’s E3 may have been disappointing for many gamers, but with a thriving indie scene there’s plenty look forward to.

                                                                                                                                          John Armour

In just over a week the video game industry will meet in Las Angeles for the annual E3 Expo. This year will mark the first E3 since the launch of the latest generation of gaming hardware with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 now more than six months old.

For those uninitiated, E3, originally the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is five days worth of events in which the computer and video game industry spend obscene amounts of money to remind the world they exist.

While the video game industry is now arguably larger than both film and music, the E3 Expo is couched in the old-fashioned view of gaming as a sub-culture, maligned by society and misunderstood by politics. Every year the questions surrounding the need for E3 dominate much of the discussion around the Expo from within the gaming press, but when it finally rolls around there’s only one thing to talk about, GAMES!

Nintendo, similarly to last year, have decided to take a back seat by announcing one-again that they are hosting an on-line pre-recorded livestream rather than a traditional press conference. The Japanese giant, currently suffering massive financial losses because of the lack of success with the Wii U system, has recently favoured the route of speaking directly to their fans and by-passing the need for a generally cringe worthy live conference. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo double down on their classic slate of Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda or if they make moves to recapture the ‘casual’ audience who embraced them so much during the Wii Sports era.

Microsoft and Sony are currently fighting each other for living-room domination, with Sony being securely in the driving seat because of an early lead in PlayStation 4 sales. Sony have a number of titles to show off this year such as The Order: 1886 – a third person shooter heavily inspired by Gears of War and Uncharted, in which the player takes control of Sir Galahad as he and the rest of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table attempt to take down a force known only as ‘The Rebellion’ in Victorian England. Last year Sony came out massively in support of Indie gaming with a whole segment of their press conference focusing on smaller-budgeted titles, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see more this year.

Microsoft are currently reviewing their business strategy with the Xbox One. Only a couple of weeks ago they ditched their initial strategy of packing a Kinect motion camera with every console – a move which demonstrates Microsoft and Sony are fighting tooth and nail over every console sold. Microsoft are now stuck in a strange place, they need to show the value of a Kinect camera which will now be sold separately; but without being able to guarantee game developers that every Xbox One owner will have the camera it will be difficult to get creators to make Kinect compatible games.

Microsoft also look to be promoting their traditional franchises, with futher Halo and Gears of War titles in development at 343 Industries and Black Tuck Studies respectively, although neither of these games will be released this year so it will be interesting to see what Microsoft entices gamers with over the coming months.

Much of the excitement of E3 though is the announcement of unknown titles, rumours such as Project Beast from Dark Souls developer From Software are gather much of the initial hype before the show and there’s nothing that gamers want more than a decent surprise. The coming out parties of franchise sequels Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (WITH KEVIN SPACEY!) and Star Wars: Battlefront should also dominate much of the headlines in 8 days time.

For all the goings-on at E3, stay tuned to justforculture.com/gaming from the 9th – 13th of June. 

                                                                                                                                       John Armour