In other words, it was the perfect conference back then- excitement and anticipation was running high, and people were riding high on the wave. Media outlets and gamers the world over fell over themselves to proclaim Sony the winner of E3, and it was a title that they absolutely deserved- in the moment.

You see, the ultimate effectiveness of a press conference at E3 is just how well it holds up after the fact- the purpose of an E3 presser is to lay out the plans a company has for its immediate future. If the company manages to keep its promises, then yes, that E3 conference has held up. It did not lie to its audience- it made promises, and then it delivered on those promises.

"Sony’s E3 2015 press conference is exceptionally difficult to judge. The biggest reason for that is that Sony, simply put, cheated- they sidestepped any such judgement of their E3 showing by mostly showing off games and titles that are due in late 2016 or beyond."

By that standard, Sony’s E3 2015 press conference is exceptionally difficult to judge. The biggest reason for that is that Sony, simply put, cheated- they sidestepped any such judgement of their E3 showing by mostly showing off games and titles that are due in late 2016 or beyond. As a result, we cannot meaningfully say whether or not they kept their promises, because unlike most E3 conferences – and certainly, unlike Microsoft’s showing at E3 last year – they did not make many concrete promises at all.

For instance, they promised that The Last Guardian would launch on PS4 in 2016. As of right now, it hasn’t, but we’re not even a full five months into the year, and the game is still slated for a launch for later this year- plus we’ve seen a whole lot of the game recently, which seems to indicate that it’s on track for for its promised 2016 launch. Ditto with Horizon– they debuted it, and they promised a 2016 launch. While there have been rumors about a delay of the game to 2017, so far, the game is still officially set for a 2016 launch.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake was announced, and… that’s it, there wasn’t actually much of a promise made there. We were told it would launch first on PlayStation 4- and you know what, when it eventually launches in 2017, it might. As of right now, it is certainly only slated for 2017. But again, it’s hard to assess the effectiveness of a promise that hasn’t yet been made good, or defaulted, on. The same is the problem with Shenmue 3– it was announced, and true to Sony’s word, we got a Kickstarter campaign for the game, one which broke all records with just how much money was pledged to it. As of right now, the game is in development, due to release in 2017, and definitely coming to PS4. So it met the promises it made- except it didn’t make much promises to begin with.

No, to assess the effectiveness of the showing, one must look at the smaller announcements made, not the big ones that grabbed all the headlines. It was in the smaller announcements that Sony got more specific, that they made promises that we can look back on and see if they did live up them a year later. These are the announcements that don’t seem as exciting in retrospect- for instance, Sony showed off games like Destiny: The Taken King, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and Hitman, promising exclusive partnerships and content for each of those games on the PS4. Or, on the PlayStation ‘exclusive’ front, they showed off Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4, or Capcom’s Street Fighter 5, promising both for this year- release dates that were met. One year later, then, we can confirm that all of these promises were in fact kept.

"To assess the effectiveness of the showing, one must look at the smaller announcements made, not the big ones that grabbed all the headlines."

One big major third party announcement Sony made was regarding Call of Duty- starting with Black Ops 3, which launched in November last year, Sony announced that PlayStation would be ‘the new home of Call of Duty,’ ending the multi year long timed exclusivity partnership for Call of Duty DLC that Microsoft had had for Xbox- instead, all DLC would come 30 days earlier to PlayStation now. This was another promise they kept, as they did with their promises regarding exclusive bundles and content for the other big shooter from last year- Star Wars Battlefront got multiple PS4 only bundles, and it also launched on PS4 with content not available on other platforms, including PS4 versions of classic Star Wars games such as the SNES title Super Star Wars.

Speaking of Star Wars, another Star Wars game where Sony managed to snag some exclusive content for PlayStation was Disney Infinity 3.0, which Sony promised would be ‘best on PlayStation,’ apart from promising that Boba Fett, who would be in the game, would be exclusive to PlayStation at launch. These promises weren’t necessarily kept as well as Sony’s other promises, though- Boba Fett’s figure was definitely exclusive to PlayStation, but Disney Infinity figurines are platform agnostic- meaning that you could play as him in Xbox or Nintendo versions of the game just fine, too.

In the end, Sony’s conference becomes hard to judge- if you were to only look at the big announcements, your The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Horizon: Zero Dawn, or Shenmue 3, you’re still waiting to know whether or not Sony did what they said they would. Get into the smaller announcements, and we find that everything Sony said they would do, they did, with very minor technicalities tripping them up. In that sense, they come out of this exercise better than Microsoft does.

"Going into E3 this year, Sony would be well advised to stick to showing things that fans will actually be able to play within reasonable timeframes, instead of showing off games that are scheduled for a nebulous future."

But that is also missing the context to last year’s E3. Sony used those big name announcements to ‘win’ E3, to gain mindshare, to ensure that their platform and their showing would overshadow Microsoft’s. It worked, and they got their victory- but to do so, they broke the rules, they circumvented them, they made it impossible for them to be held to account a year later. Their biggest, show stealing announcements have still not come to pass, and on a sheer technicality, they can’t be taken to task for that.

No, while Sony may have kept their smaller promises, they reneged on their larger ones by never making them- and going into E3 this year, they would be well advised to stick to showing things that fans will actually be able to play within reasonable timeframes, instead of showing off games that are scheduled for a nebulous future. Their tendency to do the latter is why we get games like Agent, which are still padding some desperate fan’s list of PlayStation exclusives due out later this year.

But I’m not going to bash on PSX 2015, even if I did think Sony threw a whole bunch of announcement in for the sake of such and nothing else. Rather, it was the nature of the announcements which took me off guard and its given rise to a rather odd trend in the past few years.

One can trace this back to when Sony (ironic, we know) announced its PS4 reveal event in 2013. The event itself was actually put together rather well – the box itself and its price wasn’t known, creating intrigue; we got a look at several top-tier titles and what the box was capable of delivering (even if many of those games like Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack weren’t that great); and above all, even at two hours, Sony managed to stuff in enough significant announcements. Was there bloat? Sure, but what was shown had weight.

"Did The Modern Zombie Taxi Co. really need its own segment? While Eagle Flight and Rez Infinite looked decent, did they really need their own time on stage?"

Cut to the Xbox One reveal event which was a disaster for numerous reasons. When Microsoft wasn’t focusing on triple-A titles, which was most of the time, it went on and on about television, Kinect, sports and the all-in-one entertainment solution the console provided. Then there was the always-on nonsense which we won’t repeat.

You’d think that such awful events couldn’t hurt a console’s prospects but even when Microsoft did a total 180 on many of its policies, the Xbox One struggled against the PS4 in the early going. It’s only when the company focused on games was the ship properly righted. Both E3 2014 and 2015 were chockfull of amazing announcements which not only released soon but were awesome games (except for that little thing called Halo: The Master Chief Collection). Within these events Microsoft fit in a number of important reveals, balancing out future games with near future releases and building upon the Xbox brand in interesting ways.

Whether it was the sheer number of events that would take place in the past two years – Gamescom, Paris Games Week, E3 2015, etc. – or simply a desire to remain in the marketing eye, Sony began to slightly slip. Its E3 presentations were still pretty good – even we’re still sceptical about some of the announcements made this year – but the bloat was becoming more obvious than ever. While Microsoft dropped the idea of TV in 2014, Sony featured an entire segment devoted to the show Powers (where is Powers today? Your guess is as good as ours). While Microsoft featured HoloLens briefly at its E3 2015 press conference, Sony devoted segment after segment to PlayStation VR, regardless of the quality of games shown. Did The Modern Zombie Taxi Co. really need its own segment? While Eagle Flight and Rez Infinite looked decent, did they really need their own time on stage?

In this day and age, it’s becoming less about how much time you take on stage and what you do with that time. The Game Awards is a great example. The awards felt like they meant something, to both the presenters and the winners. There were interesting world premieres but you also had great segments like the tribute to Satoru Iwata. Was Shaquille O’Neal revealing Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn all that awesome? Not really, but at least The Game Awards didn’t end abruptly with that, much less devote lots of time to it. Overall, TGA was a long but well balanced show.

"When a company insists fitting every single damn thing, regardless of quality, on stage thus over-saturating your interest (or even showing you something you couldn’t possibly care less about), then it becomes nothing but an embarrassing marketing ploy."

And if you want to talk about short and focused, there’s Nintendo Direct. They rarely surpass an hour and fit in both a number of important announcements and some small little snippets about other games in development. Are they always amazing? Hell no but they’re not as universally reviled either, even at the E3 2015 presentation which featured Metroid Prime Federation Force. When a company insists fitting every single damn thing, regardless of quality, on stage thus over-saturating your interest (or even showing you something you couldn’t possibly care less about), then it becomes nothing but an embarrassing marketing ploy. And if there’s one thing that’s easily identifiable, it’s an obvious attempt to shove something uninteresting or downright awful down a viewer’s throat.

Sony has no need to be worried obviously – it’s sold 30 million PS4 units worldwide. Then again, it’s investing a hefty amount of money into VR and its games. Who’s going to buy PS VR if Sony tries to push it so aggressively on to players, that too with such terrible games? We may be a ways off from dedicated events to game reveals like the next Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed but shows like PSX don’t help one bit when it comes to emphasizing the importance of announcements.

The future may yet feature more events as more developers and companies try to market their games in the most bombastic way possible. If PlayStation Experience has taught us anything though, it’s that something as spectacular as the first gameplay footage from the Final Fantasy 7 Remake shouldn’t be sharing the same stage as the goddamn Modern Zombie Taxi Co., regardless of how badly you want to push your products.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization. 

Dishonored 2 was officially unveiled at this year’s E3 and while we knew there were a couple of changes to this game when compared to the original, we just got a brand new video that shows off a new territory in the world of this video game. The new trailer shows off a place called Karnaca which is apparently the “jewel of the Southern territory in this game.” Arkane’s Co-Creative Director Harvey Smith sat down in the video and explained some of the reasons that the video is centering on this particular portion of the world.

It appears that the game’s creators want to make a very immersive world that feels like our own, with a few changes here and there. Smith says that this place isn’t exactly like the real world, but it’s close to what you might expect to see in our world in the 1850’s. Of course, there are plenty things in the world of Dishonored 2 that aren’t really similar at all to what you would expect to find in the world of the 1850’s.

Smith introduces us to one of the native creatures of Karnaca. These creatures are called “Blood Flies” and they are a nasty looking insect. He also explains that these things are going to be popping up more and more, depending on how many dead bodies are laying around. Smith says clearing the streets of these bodies in order to avoid a really bad situation. Check out the video, get acclimated to Karnaca and wait for the release of Dishonored 2.

Speaking to GamingBolt’s Leonid Melikhov, executive producer at Turn 10 Studios, Ryan Cooper talked about the various aspects of Forza Motorsport 6 at E3 2015 including the number of vehicles, overall improvements to the game’s mechanics, the return of Drivatar and much more.

"We have over 450 Forza Vista Cars, those cars will be available on day 1 when you put your disc in or you download the game. And just to remind you a Forza Vista Car is a car that has a cockpit, has working doors, you can enter the car and you can inspect all of the details."

Leonid Melikhov: Forza Motorsport 6 is coming at an interesting time. Forza Horizon 2 was renowned for its open world missions and visuals. How will Forza Motorsport 6 look to top that?

Ryan Cooper: Great question. Well, our game is beautiful; we feature a gorgeous track in Rio de Janeiro. Really, the experiences that we try to create are as authentic as possible and we try to capture as much as accuracy about the real world as we can and then we replicate that into our game so we can create an authentic experience that’s based around simulation. All of our gameplay is at 1080p/60 fps and with the introduction of racing in the rain and racing at night we think the game looks absolutely beautiful.

Leonid Melikhov: Will there be any micro-transactions in Forza Motorsport 6?

Ryan Cooper: Forza Motorsport 6 is built from the ground up. Our economy is tuned and it doesn’t need tokens so there will not be any at launch.

Leonid Melikhov: Forza Motorsport 5 faced quite the criticism for its relative lack of cars, locations and tracks compared to the fourth iteration. How many cars and tracks can we expect this time around?

Ryan Cooper: So we have over 450 Forza Vista Cars, those cars will be available on day 1 when you put your disc in or you download the game. And just to remind you a Forza Vista Car is a car that has a cockpit, has working doors, you can enter the car and you can inspect all of the details.

Leonid Melikhov: So a full on experience?

Ryan Cooper: Yes a full on experience. You’ll be able to experience Forza Vista on all of our cars, and we have 26 tracks.

Leonid Melikhov: What other failings of the previous game will you look into improving this time around?

Ryan Cooper: We’re always looking to push the boundaries. Take our Forza Tech engine for example; that’s an engine that’s been in development for over 10 years and with every version of the game we’re always trying to push the technology boundaries of what that engine can do. With the addition of night racing and racing in the rain and the ability to present that to players at 1080p/60 fps is a technical achievement we’re proud of.

"The power of the cloud is providing the ability to update our Drivatar system to make Drivatars feels more realistic."

Leonid Melikhov: The Drivatar system in Forza 5 was arguably the highlight of the game, offering aggressive yet realistic AI that constantly evolved. Can we expect the sixth game to build off of that further?

Ryan Cooper: Absolutely. Forza Motorsport 6 features updates to our Drivatars system we’re really excited about. So over the last couple of years, with the introduction of Forza Motorsport 5 Drivatars system and Forza Horizon 2 we learned a lot about how our Drivatars act and behave. We started to pick up little bits what we called “Race-craft” which are characteristics of how people drive. Things of like late breaking, or locking up 1 wheel or fish-tailing, we’re introducing those in Forza Motorsport 6. We think Drivatars are going to race even more realistic than ever before, they’re very human-like.

Leonid Melikhov: How are you utilizing the power of the Xbox One?

Ryan Cooper: We’re not disclosing a lot of details about how we’re utilizing the power of the Xbox One, but it’s an incredibly powerful box. We actually had the last 2 years to just learn more about its capabilities and what the box can provide. As with any game, as time goes on you just have more time to work on the game and as you work more on the game you discover new ways to present things and build things that allow for the game experience to be better.

Leonid Melikhov: What kind of new online features can we look forward to in Forza 6? Has the power of the Xbox One’s cloud aided in providing a better online experience?

Ryan Cooper: Absolutely. The power of the cloud is providing the ability to update our Drivatar system to make Drivatars feels more realistic. So, absolutely. 24 player multiplayer, we’re really excited about that and then of course Leagues. Leagues are essentially ranked competitive races strictly controlled by divisions.

"We love Kinect. It is a great product, but we don’t have anything to announce with respect to Kinect features for Forza Motorsport 6."

Leonid Melikhov: What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s Kinect currently, especially since Forza 5 was pushing some of its features at launch? Will Forza 6 implement Kinect in some way?

Ryan Cooper: We love Kinect. It is a great product, but we don’t have anything to announce with respect to Kinect features for Forza Motorsport 6.

Leonid Melikhov: Forza Motorsport 5 was one of the first Xbox One games to run at 1080p and 60fps on the Xbox One, despite the console’s eSRAM. Almost two years have passed since then, what kind of improvements have Xbox One engineers done towards eSRAM and how are you using it in Forza Motorsport 6?

Ryan Cooper: I don’t have any specifics to land with respect to eSRAM. I’ll just reiterate the earlier point quickly. As time goes on and you become more familiar with the console, you learn more and you have the ability to improve the game with optimizations and we think we’ve done that with Forza Motorsport 6

Leonid Melikhov: What is the one thing which Forza Motorsport 6 possible only on the Xbox One?

Ryan Cooper: That’s a really good question. What’s the one thing? I wouldn’t say it’s the one thing, or two things or three things. I’ll just highlight that we’re really excited about the updates to our Drivatar system and Xbox Live provides a tremendous amount of computing power that we can take advantage of. We’re going to continue to invest in our Drivatar system as well as Leagues through ranked competitive races.

"We’re really excited about DX12 and I think there is going to be a ton of potential with that. However, We’re don’t have any plans for using DX12 in Forza Motorsport 6."

Leonid Melikhov: You guys showcased Forza Motorsport 5 running on DX12 during last year’s GDC. What kind of benefits do you think the new API could bring to Xbox One’s performance?

Ryan Cooper: We’re really excited about DX12 and I think there is going to be a ton of potential with that. However, We’re don’t have any plans for using DX12 in Forza Motorsport 6.

Leonid Melikhov: No PC version at the moment?

Ryan Cooper: We don’t have anything to announce about that.

Leonid Melikhov: Before we finish, is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?

Ryan Cooper: Sure. We love our fans; we’re very passionate and committed to continuing to develop a great game for them. We’re really excited about the launch of this tile. We think it’s our biggest game we’ve created; we think it’s our most technically advanced game we’ve ever created and we look forward to seeing everyone online on 9/15.

Leonid Melikhov: Thanks for your time.

Ryan Cooper: Thank you.

GamingBolt’s Leonid Melikhov managed to speak to lead technology engineer Nick Burton at E3 2015 regarding a number of details surrounding Rare Replay before its release along with what can be expected in Sea of Thieves (it also seems we’ll have to wait before we actual get that new Conker game we’ve been craving).

" One of the things we were looking at coming up to our 30th birthday – there were actually two things going on in the studio at the time. The development lead on Rare Replay, James Thomas, his wife is a museum curator and he’d been going through our entire heritage, physical assets just as a pet project because he wanted to save them."

Melikhov: I know there was a Kameo 2 in the works. But I know something happened to that.

Burton: You’ll have to see the behind the scenes documentaries in Rare Replay.

Melikhov: With Rare Replay, when did you guys decide to do that, and how long was it in development for? What was the origin of that game?

Burton: One of the things we were looking at coming up to our 30th birthday – there were actually two things going on in the studio at the time. The development lead on Rare Replay, James Thomas, his wife is a museum curator and he’d been going through our entire heritage, physical assets just as a pet project because he wanted to save them. We wanted to save so much stuff. At the same time I started doing that without digital assets as a pet project. James and I got talking about this and we decided to go and archive all of the stuff we got properly because it’s not all in one place.

Save it to make sure it didn’t decay for posterity. At the same time as that, we were sort of discussing how we could celebrate our 30th birthday. This was end of last summer. One day I got a call from Craig. “Can you come chat? We were thinking about doing something for the fans with our old back catalog. I know you and James have been looking at the physical and digital– could we actually do that?” and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah. We could do something.” And then we said, “Well, when’s it going to come out?””It has to come out our birthday year.””Well, we can’t do it. Rare’s about to have its 31st.” (laughs)

Melikhov: That would defeat the purpose.

Burton: Exactly. A few things got thrown around. More people got involved. I can’t remember who it was, but somebody wrote “30 times 30” on a white board. 30 games to celebrate 30 years. And we were like, “Well, we have 120 games in out back catalog. I’m sure we can find 30 good ones.”

"We went back and filmed a lot of interviews with original developers of those. A lot are still around, some moved on. We got everybody back together."

Melikhov: Now you have to find the special ones.

Burton: We start looking at those, then we were wondering how much we’d charge for this. We did an exercise. We looked on eBay to find out how much it costs to put all those games together. There was no way we were charging hundreds of bucks for this. That’d just be dumb. It’s for the fans. Someone, again on the white board, just wrote “30, 30, 30” That’s really quite obvious isn’t it? We have to do that. That was about end of September, last year. Quite a quick project.

Melikhov: It’s just old games…

Burton: Well, it’s not. That’s the thing. First of all, talking about the actual titles themselves. We have 120 titles. Collins and Chris, one of our designers, they made a set of top trumps cards for all of our games that had how much the fans loved it; how much we loved it; how much relevance we thought it had today; how much relevance we thought it had to our history and our heritage; would it fit well in the package; could we do it in the time scale that we got?

Melikhov: Considering there are a lot of things.

Burton: A lot of things. Then we got it down to about 40 out of the 120. Squeezing it down to the last 30 was hard. We felt that we got really strong games that told the story and narrative of what Rare was and is and what it’s going to be in Sea of Thieves. Because it showed that trajectory. We were really happy with that. Of course, we had to do it now. The thing we didn’t want to do was just stick 30 games into a box.

So it is a lot more than that. With the old games we’ve added things a Hi-def, Low-def. It’s a 1080p simulation of how an old CRT TV looked. And it is really accurate. You can turn it off, you can turn it on. It’s about what the fans want. They get to choose. Some of the games are really hard. They’re very difficult for modern gamers– modern children who are used to games that are not so brutally difficult. Like Battletoads, for instance.

Then we put a rewind feature in as well, so you can rewind time which is cool. We went back and filmed a lot of interviews with original developers of those. A lot are still around, some moved on. We got everybody back together. We did a back story about it, added Achievements. Added something we call Snapshot Challenges which is where we’ve added extra gameplay into some of those old games. For instance, do you remember Turbo Tunnel back in Battletoads?

Melikhov: Yes.

Burton: Very hard. We now have infinite Turbo Tunnel as one of our challenges because the way we’ve approached the development to the games allows us to do that kind of thing. Again, it’s celebrating just what the game is. And let the fans play that. As we get newer and we come all the way up to Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, Kameo, Perfect Dark as you just said — they are new enough, fresh enough to actually play. You can still just enjoy them as they were on the Xbox 360 and everything in between.

Melikhov: I see. You said there was 10,000 Gamerscore. How are you guys spreading that out in one way? Does each game get an even amount?

Burton: If we look at the Xbox 360 titles, the Achievements stand on those because they had Achievements, of course. And we bring those over. So if I’ve played Kameo, for instance, I get my Achievements and everything I had in Kameo brought over. Because we aren’t going to give you the Achievements again. You’ve done them once. But the unlocked progression that we get with those, that comes across.

As we look to the others, we spread it as evenly as we can. Sure, there are some hard ones. There are some really easy ones. We’re not going to throw one ‘G’ out at a time. It’s as balanced as any Xbox game would be when you think of approaching it like that rather than me trying to tell you for each game.

"You know what Rare’s like: We’ve always had this silly irreverence. I’ve been asked so many times over the past few days, “are you doing a Banjo 3? Another Battletoads? Another Kameo?” Everybody’s got their thing they want."

Melikhov: If there are any glitched Achievements that won’t unlock, are you guys going to go back and fix it in a patch?

Burton: You will always have that. Because any first party studio at Microsoft– one of our key talents is to make sure the games are the best they can be for our fans. So of course you do title updates. That happens with every title. And Rare Replay will be no different.

Melikhov: I know some developers will release the game and then just never come back to it. People get mad about it.

Burton: Not first party.

Melikhov: Makes sense. You’ve talked about the video diary in Rare Replay. Is that something that’s already unlocked or is that something you have to unlock?

Burton: Some of the content you start with. The progression we have with the Snapshot challenges, you get stamps for that. The stamps allow the progression to unlocking those features. Because that is the progression mechanic for the game.

Melikhov: Is there something special that happens when you get everything 100 percented in the game?

Burton: The satisfaction that you have 100 percent.

Melikhov: That’s it? There’s not some secret video unlocked of Avengers three?

Burton: (laughing) Oh, dear. You know what Rare’s like: We’ve always had this silly irreverence. I’ve been asked so many times over the past few days, “are you doing a Banjo 3? Another Battletoads? Another Kameo?” Everybody’s got their thing they want. We are not going to say what we are doing. And we are not going to put it into a video. Phil Spencer, he likes to hint in bizarre ways.

Melikhov: He was wearing a Battletoads t-shirt at a conference. I mean–

Burton: I gave it to him.

Melikhov: Yeah, but still–

Burton: He did that on purpose.

"If you look at Kinect Sports, it’s actually an amazing game. Especially for younger gamers. You take them into schools and you let 10 year olds play it. It’s not a “cool” game. That’s not what it was for or what it was about."

Melikhov: Obviously just to mess with people. People knew that Rare was going to be there but they were like “Is it going to be a new IP? Is it a remaster? Is it a sequel? What’s going on?” You know, we got two things. So you have 30 games — I’m not going to have you list all of them.

Burton: There’s plenty to list on there.

Melikhov: I’ve already seen the list, so you don’t need to do that. It’s 30 dollars which is phenomenal. How did it go through the publisher’s side? Because that’s very cheap.

Burton: They absolutely loved it.

Melikhov: I think it’s one of the best things that has come from Rare recently.

Burton: We are super proud. A lot of us that work there, we love working at Rare because we are Rare fans ourselves. The game that I first bought with my pocket money was Jetpac, which is actually in Rare Replay. It was the game that got me into computer programming that ultimately lead me to a University which ultimately led to me working at Rare.

Melikhov: How many years have you been at Rare?

Burton: I’ve been there for 17 years.

Melikhov: So you’re quite a veteran.

Burton: Yes. There are quite a few of us that have. It’s such a great place to work. It’s been so amazing. Always has been. Always energized. I just can’t imagine doing anything else.

Melikhov: You’re coming back in full force with your collection Rare Replay. Is that your way of saying, “We heard the fans say you don’t want us to be on Kinect anymore. It’s not what Rare is. We are coming back full force. Here’s a new IP and here’s our memory and your memory of what we are known for.”

Burton: No. It isn’t actually. First of all I should say I was one of the Kinect technical leads. Kinect is an amazing piece of technology. If you look at Kinect Sports, it’s actually an amazing game. Especially for younger gamers. You take them into schools and you let 10 year olds play it. I am super proud of all those games. And they are still very Rare. If you think of it like this: Rare has always done something different. We always want to do something different. We don’t want to stand still and we don’t want to do the same thing again.

And you look through Rare Replay and that’s what that’s like. Kinect was our “we are doing something different.” We’re doing the silly, irreverent, crazy British humor thing that we’ve got. With motion gaming, “let’s try that and see where it goes.” But if we were to have done a fourth Kinect thing, that wouldn’t have made sense. It was time for us to do something new to get really energized about something different because we wouldn’t have been energized about doing another Kinect game. I’ve honestly been proud of every single game that I’ve worked on. I’ve worked on all three Kinect Sports games. I know it’s not necessarily what the core fans wanted.

"Back in the past we had a character called AskUncleTusk. He was Rare’s social portal. It would start off with people asking him genuine questions about our games, and he sometimes would give them genuine answers. He was quite abusive sometimes. It turned into people just asking UncleTusk to be horrible to them. Which he did."

Melikhov: I think that’s what it was, the core fans.

Burton: But if you think about gaming fans — and everybody’s a gamer now — the fact that my kids go to school and say, “my dad made Kinect Sports.” All of their friends think that’s amazing. Of course it wasn’t just me. There’s a big team at Rare. It was time to do something different. This is the same thing we did with Kinect Sports. But now is the time to do something like Sea of Thieves.

Melikhov: Speaking of Sea of Thieves, I know you guys are a little quiet on that. I am just going to talk about what I saw in the trailer or press conference myself. From what I’ve seen it seems like a pirate game.

Burton: Of course.

Melikhov: Parrots walking down the plank, battles between the ships. From what I have seen, it has a very big emphasis on cooperative play. Like you said, Rare does something different. Most people expected a new Banjo sequel or Perfect Dark or the next Battletoads, or whatever the core fans wanted. But you come out with this pirate game. There aren’t that many pirate games out there. “Look a pirate game from Rare. This is going to be good.” You guys have pretty good 3D graphics. Is this based on playing with multiple people or this some sort of a single player component?

Burton: You’ve done a brilliant description of what’s there. In the way we’ve launched the new logo, which is inspired by, let’s call it “classic Rare” like Rare Replay. We are getting in touch with our roots. We are also getting in touch with, what’s the word? Coy and a bit playful how we let out the information. We’ve been super teasey. What we do have is…I’m not going to tell you anything. But we do have someone on Twitter who may or may not tell you things.

Melikhov: That doesn’t tell me anything.

Burton: Oh, it does. You need to Follow: “AskCaptainBones” on Twitter. He’s our skeletal pirate captain. He’s been here in L.A. with us. He’s already lost one of his legs and has now got a wooden leg– and I am not joking. I am completely serious about that. You can speak to him and he might tell you pirate stuff, he might tell you stuff about transcendental meditation.

Back in the past we had a character called AskUncleTusk. He was Rare’s social portal. It would start off with people asking him genuine questions about our games, and he sometimes would give them genuine answers. He was quite abusive sometimes. It turned into people just asking UncleTusk to be horrible to them. Which he did. For a small group of fans he became a “real” thing for them. And AskCaptainBones…

Melikhov: On Twitter.

Burton: On Twitter. He is most definitely in that mold. You should ask Bonesey about Sea of Thieves.

"Going back to that top trumps kind of thing where we got into this big war with all the games. We got Live and Reloaded and we got Bad Fur Day. And we also got all the different Battletoads games. Going to the Battletoads for a moment, we looked at the NES and we said we had to put the NES Battletoads in there because that’s childhood memories. That was a no-brainer."

Melikhov: I see. So that’s your nice way of saying “no.”

Burton: (laughs) What we wanted to do with the announcement is we wanted to get it right.

Melikhov: What was your original intent on that?

Burton: We’ve been developing this for a while. So we are like giddy school children. “This is actually really good! We are going to show the world!”

Melikhov: What’s considered “a while”? A year or two?

Burton: Uh… Since we finished development on Kinect Sports: Rivals.

Melikhov: Sounds like about 1.5 to two years.

Burton: Before that we have an incubation department at Rare that just generate ideas and things all the time. We do game jams just to generate ideas, generate excitement. They got something that was pretty cool, that was cooking. You are never quite sure if something is going to work. Iterate on it a little bit more. And it was sort of like, “yeah, this is it. Let’s go for it. Let’s build a proper development team.” Teams scale up and down all the time.

Melikhov: So you have two titles in development Sea of Thieves and Rare Replay which is…

Burton: Ah! We never say how many we have in development. We have an incubation team.

Melikhov: So when can I play the next Conker?

Burton: (laughs) Nice try. You’d have to ask Bonesey.

Melikhov: People have been asking that for a long time. And Battletoads. You guys have such a great catalog. There are people who love to see new things. There’s the core fan base that loves to see sequels. Why did you guys decide to not release Conker’s Live and Reloaded?

Burton: That’s interesting. Going back to that top trumps kind of thing where we got into this big war with all the games. We got Live and Reloaded and we got Bad Fur Day. And we also got all the different Battletoads games. Going to the Battletoads for a moment, we looked at the NES and we said we had to put the NES Battletoads in there because that’s childhood memories. That was a no-brainer.

Then Gregg Mayles who was our design director said – he’s the guy invented Battletoads and Banjo – he said, “Well, the definitive Battletoads, how Battletoads was always meant to be is Battletoads Arcade.” Then we’d be playing again and it was awesome. So we had to put two Battletoads in there. So then we were looking at other games. Bear in mind we had to squeeze the amount down. We though, “what about Conker? What are we going to do with Conker?” And then we were like, “the graphics are way better in Live and Reloaded.” It was one of the high points of the original Xbox.

"I remember being a student and my friends and I would come back from the pub and we’d put Perfect Dark on. And I was way better at Perfect Dark than any of my friends. I remember one of my friends actually having me around the neck on the floor saying, “if you kill me with a mine one more time I’m actually going to hurt you.” "

Melikhov: Beautiful.

Burton: Beautiful game. And still stands that way now. We wanted to know what the fans wanted so we, let’s call it “read the internet.” We see what people post online and ask for. The thing that people seemed to be clamoring for was Bad Fur Day. So we said, “let’s do Bad Fur Day.” And we didn’t have enough room to do both of them, as well. So we thought that is what people would want to play. The key term was “It’s for the fans.”

Melikhov: You guys have so many games in that collection. More than half of them I haven’t even seen or played. The only ones I remember was Conker’s, Battletoads…

Burton: But that was the time you played them.

Melikhov: But I, personally, never played the originals. Even though I’ve heard great things about them.

Burton: Again, this is important because there’s a part of your gaming history there that you can relive. But then there’s a new bit of narrative that you’ve never seen.

Melikhov: And that’s exciting to me.

Burton: It’s exciting to me that I can show my children– I can play the old Sinclair Spectrum games I grew up with. Even though you’ve probably never seen them. Since we have such a broad spectrum of things, we want to try and have something that’s going to really resonate with everybody. I’m sure you could have your perfect 30. I could have my perfect 30.

Melikhov: Right. I remember one of my favorite times was playing Conker’s Bad Fur Day down stairs in a basement on an N64. When we come home we were able to just play Heist and just beat the crap out of each other with bats. It’s just something addicting about it. Or playing that map with the dinosaurs and hitting each other with boots. I will never forget that moment.

Burton: I remember being a student and my friends and I would come back from the pub and we’d put Perfect Dark on. And I was way better at Perfect Dark than any of my friends. I remember one of my friends actually having me around the neck on the floor saying, “if you kill me with a mine one more time I’m actually going to hurt you.” (laughs)

Melikhov: Damn. Some real competition there. As you said previously, you guys want to do something new, you like to innovate. So you have Sea of Thieves. Speaking of that, are you guys going to be at Gamescom?

Burton: We’ll be at Gamescom and we’ll be at Comic Con.

"How it works internally at Microsoft, is all of the game studios, all of the teams, we all work together collectively. Like great friends. Lionhead, 343, there’s a load of guys that work on Halo that are ex-Rare. So we have these big get-togethers."

Melikhov: Can we expect to see more on Sea of Thieves at Gamescom?

Burton: (laughs) Ask Captain Bones!

Melikhov: There’s a reason you’re going to Gamescom, obviously.

Burton: The big reason for it, the big push at the moment for a trade show is to let as many of our fans play Rare Replay as possible.

Melikhov: So that’s your biggest thing right now because it’s on the horizon, and it’s coming out in two months.

Burton: You’re going to have to wait and see if there is any other…

Melikhov: And Gamescom is in, what, six weeks? Pretty close to E3. Lot of work.

Burton: Well, Comic Con comes first. Comic Con in about three week’s time.

Melikhov: I see. Alright, sounds good. Speaking of branching out and doing new things. For the 360 you did the Kinect stuff. You did the camera for Viva Piñata. What do you think of HoloLens?

Burton: It’s an amazing piece of tech.

Melikhov: Yeah. I went to the Halo 5 HoloLens experience. I thought it was a pretty good. I don’t know if you’ve done it…

Burton: I have.

Melikhov: So you’ve probably seen all the crazy stuff that we haven’t seen. Seeing a change live one to one as I walked through a real life environment… It’s a really nice way of immersing yourself. It’s not V.R., it’s A.R., it’s the alternate reality that comes here instead of the reality that you’re putting yourself into.

Burton: It feels more tangible because part of it is in the real world to me.

"If our labs team came up with something that was just the most awesome thing ever, and it required HoloLens, then absolutely we’d go there."

Melikhov: People ask what’s more immersive, V.R. or A.R. I say a combination of both. It’s hard to say in today’s day.

Burton: I think it’s too early to say. It’s one of the things that we say about HoloLens is it isn’t in competition with V.R.

Melikhov: No, it’s not. It’s a completely different thing.

Burton: It’s a completely different thing.

Melikhov: That’s what I like about it. Microsoft has this thing that has nothing to do with– it’s in a realm of future technology of immersing people. But it’s not virtual reality. It’s alternate reality.

Burton: Exactly. It’s its own thing. And it’s going to take…who knows what direction it goes.

Melikhov: Right. I saw the demo for Minecraft. I personally don’t like Minecraft. But I think it was a perfect to show it off at.

Burton: It’s amazing.

Melikhov: I was like, “wow!” You guys played with Kinect so I’m thinking, “I’m sure Rare is going to think of something.”

Burton: (laughs)

Melikhov: Or very early talks or proof of concept. You know. In the back of your mind you think about this.

Burton: How it works internally at Microsoft, is all of the game studios, all of the teams, we all work together collectively. Like great friends. Lionhead, 343, there’s a load of guys that work on Halo that are ex-Rare. So we have these big get-togethers. And even the research guys, we all work with those guys as well. We are just trying to push the envelope of what technology can do. And we are the entertainment to all of that. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t personally excited about it. Are we actually doing anything with it right now? We are concentrating on Sea of Thieves and Rare Replay. If we were to have an idea for it that made sense, we’d absolutely go there.

Melikhov: Right now you have other priorities and that’s fine. I’m thinking that eventually, that will be put in– maybe not seriously in this generation but it will slowly transition over in the next six years.

Burton: The thing is, if it’s the right thing–

Melikhov: And the right time.

Burton: We’d factor that in, right? If our labs team came up with something that was just the most awesome thing ever, and it required HoloLens, then absolutely we’d go there. But it’s the experience. What’s the best, coolest, most amazing experience that we think people were going to love? Right? What is the technology we need to do that? We never go, “we have this technology, and we are going to make something for it.” We always do it the other way around.

"There aren’t so many 3D platformers. I think there are some beautiful 2D platformers. Ori, for instance Playtonic guys, they are not in competition with us. They’re our friends where we are doing something different from what they are doing."

Melikhov: I’m sure you guys have heard of Yooka-Laylee.

Burton: All the guys who do Yooka-Laylee are my mates. I’ve known them for years.

Melikhov: How do you feel about that? What do you think about that game?

Burton: It’s cool!

Melikhov: Do you feel like it’s a Banjo spiritual successor?

Burton: I’ll have to wait and see and play it.

Melikhov: Did you help kickstart it?

Burton: Well, they’re my friends. It’s an awesome thing that they’re doing. Going and doing a Kickstarter, wanting to work in a smaller team, that’s awesome. I love 3D platformers.

Melikhov: I honestly think, right now, that 3D platformers are, unfortunately a dying genre. I don’t want it to be, but there’s not that many developers that do that. 

Burton: There aren’t so many 3D platformers. I think there are some beautiful 2D platformers. Ori, for instance Playtonic guys, they are not in competition with us. They’re our friends where we are doing something different from what they are doing.

Melikhov: But it still has that Rare magic to it. Because it is ex Rare devs.

Burton: Well, it is ex Rare guys.

"The one thing Craig Duncan had in our studio, who is one of the most awesome guys I know, he says, and he’s right, “If we were ever to revisit something, we do something which is new and exciting, not just the same thing over and over again.”"

Melikhov: Personal choice?

Burton: Yeah. It’s totally cool in the same way that you saw the art style in Sea of Thieves, it’s got that Rare look to it. It’s a very distinctive style.

Melikhov: That’s awesome. So when is Rare Replay coming out? August–

Burton: August 4th.

Melikhov: A month and a half? That’s not long at all.

Burton: Yes. Not long at all.

Melikhov: I can’t wait to play it. How many do you think it will take to get 10,000 Gamerscore?

Burton: I don’t know exactly. What I do know is we did the math on how long it was going to take to play most of the content. Because the thing to remember as well, on the 360 games, all of the DLC comes with it as well.

Melikhov: That’s a lot of stuff.

Burton: That’s a lot of stuff. So when you think of that part of it, it’s at least 700 hours of gameplay.

Melikhov: So I have 700 hours to go until Sea of Thieves.

Burton: (laughs) Well, it’s going to keep you busy. That’s for sure. Seriously, though. If you were just chasing the Gamerscore you could probably do it quicker than that because you would miss some content. I don’t think we’ve done the math to figure out what that would be. There’s a lot of game in there to play.

Melikhov: I love those games. I was hoping you guys would announce Viva Piñata 3–

Burton:(laughs) It’s interesting you keep saying, like, “is there Battletoads, another Viva Piñata…”

Melikhov: There’s so many games.

Burton: There’s so many games. The one thing Craig Duncan had in our studio, who is one of the most awesome guys I know, he says, and he’s right, “If we were ever to revisit something, we do something which is new and exciting, not just the same thing over and over again.” You can still take that with whatever you want. Say well, “there’s new platform mechanics.” Maybe…or something. Would you want to do just a Banjo 3 in the same…do you know what I mean?

"It’s an amazing time to work for Microsoft because there are very few companies that can do this type of thing and we’re one of them. It’s the super smart people. I work with the smartest, most creative people I’ve ever met."

Melikhov: Right. I think a lot of people want for nostalgia.

Burton: Yeah. Which is one of the reasons Rare Replay exists. It’s for the fans.

Melikhov: I think it’s nostalgia, but I also think it’s….when N64 came out people were floored by Super Mario 64. That game was a revolution at the time. When was the last time you played something so revolutionary? The only thing coming close this generation is VR. People haven’t experienced that to where they say, “this is the most absolutely, phenomenal thing ever experienced.”

Burton: But one of the things that happened when we went from 2D to 3D is we opened up a whole new set of interactions that didn’t experience before. A whole new way of experiencing a game world.

Melikhov: I feel like VR could do that.

Burton: They could. Whether they found it yet…

Melikhov: I don’t know, I haven’t personally experienced enough.

Burton: Oh, no. I’d agree. We need to experience this stuff in order to find the best things that work with it. It’s a very exciting time because this is happening.

Melikhov: This is something that’s never been done before.

Burton: It’s an amazing time to work for Microsoft because there are very few companies that can do this type of thing and we’re one of them. It’s the super smart people. I work with the smartest, most creative people I’ve ever met.

Melikhov: It must be an honor.

Burton: It is. It’s great. So I’m really excited to see what happens. But who knows?

"Sea of Thieves will not be a myth."

Melikhov: The last question I have– I know you’re going to tell me to “ask Captain Bones,” but I’m going to ask anyway. Sometimes people do like and don’t like when a title is announced early, super early. With Sea of Thieves, we don’t really know what’s going on with that game at all. Usually when people are quiet they’re like, “Oh, this is coming in 2017.” In that sense, are we going to see something in the next two years? 

Burton: Personally, I don’t think it would be right to announce something that early. I think when projects take that long they get into trouble somehow.

Melikhov: Yeah, and people don’t like that. People start to worry that it’s going through development hell. So it’s either going to fall down, flat on its back, and fail. We don’t want Sea of Thieves to become a myth.

Burton: Sea of Thieves will not be a myth.

Melikhov: That’s all I need to hear, that it will not be a myth. That we will hear something about it soon.

Burton: I’m not saying that. But you will not have to wait five years for it.

Melikhov: Thanks a ton for your time. It was great speaking to you.

Burton: Thank you.

GamingBolt’s Leonid Melikhov spoke to Ghost Games producer Lianne Lim about Need for Speed. How many cars will the game have? When did development start? Will there be a Wii U version (spoiler: no)? Find out below.

"This Need for Speed is open-world anyway; you can drive wherever you want to in the map. Open world gives people the ability to either do the story/progression/narrative or do the destruction gameplay and go off to do what they want. Sometimes you just want to free-roam, just to drive and chill out."

Leonid Melikhov: I think the biggest surprise for a lot people was that Need for Speed, for at least the last decade if I remember, was a yearly franchise and this time around you decided to take a year off. What made you guys do that and why?

Lianne Lim: We just felt like the franchise needed rebooting. The last few games were great, but they we’re too Burnout-like/style and we wanted to go back to what Need for Speed really is. So wanted the time to think about all the Need for Speed games over the last 20 years and really look at what we could bring from each one of those, the best parts and how we would marry them together with the narrative and deep customization. So, we just wanted to give ourselves some time to really provide the fans for what they’ve been asking for and also a high-quality game.

Leonid Melikhov: How long has the new game been in development for? Did you start right off the bat right as Rivals finished or did you already put a couple of people on the new one as it was near the end of production?

Lianne Lim: No, we started at end of Rivals. We did a little bit of DLC for Rivals and then we started on this game.

Leonid Melikhov: I see. And this is the first Need for Speed that’s exclusive to current gen systems?

Lianne Lim: Yeah.

Leonid Melikhov: You guys were okay with dropping PS3/360? You think it was about time right?

Lianne Lim: Yeah, I think Rivals came out when Gen 4 consoles were big and just about there. And being on those platforms gives us so much more fidelity and performance. So, I think it’s good that we can focus on that and provide a really high-quality game to our fans.

Leonid Melikhov: Is the game running at 1080p/60 fps on PC, Xbox One and PS4?

Lianne Lim: So we’re not talking about exact requirements/specs right now cause we’re still kind of confirming some of that and going through the development phase. We can confirm that a bit later on.

Leonid Melikhov: What’s your opinion on open world games kind of like The Crew or Forza Horizon where you can go anywhere and do anything you want? Has that ever crossed your mind, maybe with the same mechanics but Need for Speed where you just drive across the entire US?

Lianne Lim: This Need for Speed is open-world anyway; you can drive wherever you want to in that map. Open world  gives people the ability to either do the story/progression/narrative or do the destruction gameplay and go off to do what they want. Sometimes you just want to free-roam, just to drive and chill out.

"Fans have been asking for a deep customization for a very long time so we knew we had to give it to them. Rivals had personalization so it was sort of touching on it but it didn’t go fully into what we have now."

Leonid Melikhov: Have you guys had problems developing on the Xbox One’s eSRAM and Programming?

Lianne Lim: No, not really. It’s on Frostbite 3 so we get a lot of fidelity through that anyway and obviously certain development things we have to go through but nothing too specific or crazy.

Leonid Melikhov: What was the most challenging thing in developing the new Need for Speed?

Lianne Lim: I think the narrative because I think it’s the most important part of the game but it’s also something new for us as a development studio, we’re super excited about bringing it to our fans and we’re going to talk more about it. I think that whole process of making sure that we’re bringing the best parts of the 5 icons we got in the game and making sure that each of those narrative icon threads makes sense and marry together so you get an exciting experience that puts you through the progression.

Leonid Melikhov: I am glad you guys brought customization back because I had a lot of friends and myself asking”where is the customization?” When did you realize you had to do that?

Lianne Lim: Fans have been asking for a deep customization for a very long time so we knew we had to give it to them. Rivals had personalization so it was sort of touching on it but it didn’t go fully into what we have now. We’re really excited; this is the best part of the game in my opinion. We’re working with Speed Hunters to make sure it’s authentic and it’s all about real car culture and using real aftermarket parts and companies so yeah it’s going to be amazing.

Leonid Melikhov: How big is the map/world size in Need for Speed?

Lianne Lim: The map is twice as big as Rivals, so it’s pretty damn big.

Leonid Melikhov: What is it inspired by?

Lianne Lim: It’s fictional Los-Angeles. Obviously, the city-scape in Los Angeles is beautiful so we’ve kind of taken the best bits and made it drive-able so you’re not stuck in traffic.

"The reason we’ve done that is because our fans want different things. Some fans like the grip from more traditional Need for Speeds and some people like the drift handling from Most Wanted, Hot Pursuit and Rivals."

Leonid Melikhov: How many cars are we going to have in the game off the bat?

Lianne Lim: Lots…lots…lots!

Leonid Melikhov: In double digits or triple digits?

Lianne Lim: So again, numbers can’t be specific. (laughs)

Leonid Melikhov: What about the Outlaws? Can you talk about Outlaws a little bit? What kind of game modes do the cops have? Anything new or different in particular that we haven’t seen in previous games? In Rivals it was cops chasing the racers and the racers just racing. Do you get to total cars here or bust them?

Lianne Lim: Well you can’t play as a cop in this game. There are still cops in this game and they still bust you, all of the cops are AI, they’re not human players. That was something that we listen to our fans as well, because a lot of people prefer to play as the racer and it’s more kind of authentic Need for Speed as well. So yes, you can only play as the Racer but the cops still bust, they still chase after you if you’re doing bad things. If they find you, you have to pay money, so it’s more authentic this time.

Leonid Melikhov: You can collect money but what about customization parts? Talk about the customization more please, cause it seems to be a big focus. How detailed is it, to what point?

Lianne Lim: Right. So we have visual customization in which you can see in the demos, so parts as well as paints and we’re going to go into more detail about how deep that’s going to be. Then we got performance as well and we’ve got handling, so really the big thing we’re bringing to this game this time around is 2 different types of handling. You can either have Grip handling or Drift handling and that is the first time that option has been available in a Need for Speed game.

The reason we’ve done that is because our fans want different things. Some fans like the grip from more traditional Need for Speed games and some people like the drift handling from Most Wanted, Hot Pursuit and Rivals. So, we wanted to make sure we provided both and in the demo you can see that there is a ton of handling options. How much suspension and rear wheels and all that kind of stuff.

"There are 2 kinds of systems in the game. Reputation is the main Points System which pushes you through the progression through the narrative/campaign. You can’t spend reputation on anything. When you do races and events you earn cash and that cash you can spend on customization."

Leonid Melikhov: Can you please talk about the Points system and how it’s handled?

Lianne Lim: So there are 5 ways to play in the game and those 5 are based on the narrative icons as well. So, we got Speed, Style, Build, Crew and Outlaw. Depending on what you do in the game you’ll get reputation for those 5 different things. So, if I am going really quick at 150 Mph I will get loads of speed rep. I am drifting around corners and doing loads of cool stuff in my car I’ll get loads of style rep.

With the build rep, it’s if I do lots of customization on my car and I make it really personalized and really cool, then you are going to get loads of build rep when you’re driving around. For crew that’s when you’re playing with other people and for Outlaws is when you get chased by the cops you’ll get more rep.

Leonid Melikhov: So the longer you get chased the more points you get?

Lianne Lim: Yes.

Leonid Melikhov: Is it similar to Rivals, when you decide to kind of try to play the strategy game? You know, “I have enough points now I will try to escape?”

Lianne Lim: Kind of similar rewards, but this time you get fined. You can either try to escape the cops and get away from them and keep all of that reputation and keep your money or you can decide to pay the fine.

Leonid Melikhov: Once you have a certain amount of reputation, do you use that to buy something in the shop or how does that work?

Lianne Lim: There are 2 kinds of systems in the game. Reputation is the main Point System which pushes you through the progression through the narrative/campaign. You can’t spend reputation on anything. When you do races and events you earn cash and that cash you can spend on customization. It’s fictional cash, obviously. But you spend that on the customization parts and bits and pieces in your garage.

Leonid Melikhov: Were micro-transactions ever considered?

Lianne Lim: It’s not planned.

"Super excited about bringing this game to our fans cause we listen to all the comments and I feel like we’re giving them what they want. So we’re really proud of this game."

Leonid Melikhov: If you were to combine previous games that came out in the Need for Speed franchise, what do you think is the best combination?

Lianne Lim: Like I said, we kind of looked through all of them and listened to our fans and try to understand what they would want. I think it’s the original Most Wanted with the narrative and story in there because we’ve got live action and the seamless into game. And obviously, Underground because of the deep customization and those are the two things people have been asking for.

Leonid Melikhov: I remember people were begging for Underground 3 so we can build our own things.

Lianne Lim: (Laughs) But this game is called Need for Speed for a reason. It’s not Need for Speed: Something Else.

Leonid Melikhov: It’s just Need for Speed, thus making it an official reboot.

Lianne Lim: Yeah, cause it’s a reboot, no need for subtitles. And then we can carry on and give them what they want throughout the franchise.

Leonid Melikhov: Do you guys have collectibles in the game such as gates, billboards from something like Most Wanted?

Lianne Lim: Yeah, we have something similar in that regard. We will go into much more detail on what they are later on.

Leonid Melikhov: With that being said, what would you like to say about Need for Speed to the fans?

Lianne Lim: Super excited about bringing this game to our fans cause we listen to all the comments and I feel like we’re giving them what they want. So we’re really proud of this game.

Leonid Melikhov: No Wii U version?

Lianne Lim: No. (laughs)

Leonid Melikhov: Can you guys talk about why not?

Lianne Lim: No, it’s not planned and those are the only platforms I can confirm right now.

Leonid Melikhov: Thanks for your time. 

Lianne Lim: Thank you.

(Note that this interview took place at E3 2015)

Microsoft has had an amazing turnaround as far as its perception goes over the last few months, and that has a lot to do with its great conferences that it held at E3 and Gamescom, where it made a bevy of exclusive game announcements, while also highlighting how the Xbox One would continue to grow and evolve as a machine.

This happened largely because of some thorough foresight and planning on Microsoft’s part- they had a lot of announcements and things to show off, and instead of just cramming them all into one conference, they made the wise choice to spread things out, and also sustain their momentum better that way.

“We actually planned E3 and Gamescom at the same time this year. We had enough content, I think, to show at two big shows. I kind of felt that way yesterday, I looked at the Quantum Break demo, which I thought was fantastic, and that could easily have been in our E3 show and vice versa. We treated Gamescom as a top-tier show and we had 90 minutes of content I was really proud of.

“It was nice to have the third party support. Just Cause looked really good, having Dark Souls in the show was great. All the teams spend so much time preparing for these shows, and many of them have games to ship this fall. The ability to juggle those things – I felt good about the show,” Xbox head Phil Spencer told Eurogamer.

It is a strategy that has paid off, and allowed Microsoft and Xbox to be the topic of discussion constantly, even as PlayStation seems to have had an off year following their otherwise stellar E3 showing. Whether or not this positive mindshare translates to increased marketshare for Microsoft remains to be seen, but they certainly deserve any success they get now if it does.

Nintendo’s E3 this year was spectacularly bad, in a complete contrast from just how amazing their showing was last year. It was so bad that Nintendo even issued an apology for the event. It also made sense that it was bad, given that Nintendo has to pad up the Wii U and 3DS with filler software for now, as all the real games are being shifted over to the NX which presumably launches next year.

Fans have already made their displeasure with Nintendo’s poor E3 showing known- but if you wanted to tell them how you felt their E3 show was, as well as discuss the general brand direction that Nintendo is taking, you can now do it via this new survey that they put up today.

It’s a bit abstract and long winded, but essentially, it seems as though Nintendo is asking fans what they want Nintendo to be like going forward.

Just make sure you have 45-60 minutes freed up before you decide to take it.

Of all the features that Microsoft has added to the Xbox One since release – including support for external hard drives, dedicated servers for Party Chat and even backwards compatibility in the next few months – there’s been one common complaint surrounding the user interface. That is, it’s rather slow. We don’t even mean it should be loading up in two seconds rather than three. Oftentimes there can be quite the delay in launching an app, ranging several seconds, and that extends to generally navigating the user interface as well.

However, it seems all that will finally change when the Fall update goes live. GamingBolt’s Leonid Meikhov had a chance to speak to Xbox One platform manager Richard Irving at E3 2015 about the same. During this time, a demonstration of the user interface’s various aspects was showcased and Irving revealed a wealth of new information.

Irving cut to the chase immediately when he stated that the, “Brand new Xbox One User Interface experience that will be going out this fall and is really focused around speed and getting to things faster.

“Our design point of the new Xbox experience is speed and making all of the things you do on Xbox Live, both in and out of the game much faster. What is familiar is that the user can go left and right through the categories, but we have added a vertical scroll element that takes you deeper within the category.”

“So as you can see my recently played games and apps, I can now scroll vertically through it and when I reach the end of the list, I can find another game in the collection that is ready to be launched and just below you will find pins. And remember we want everything you want to do on Xbox One to be faster so we have some great accelerators. Hold the left trigger and I’m right at the top of the list and when I hold the right trigger I am right at my pins.”

What exactly does that mean for your average gamer though? “So one scenario, I am on Fable Legends right now and I want to play Minecraft which I know is in my pins. I just pull the right trigger and I am in my pins area and I just hit A and am ready to launch Minecraft.”

There’s a lot more to the pins than just launching games though. “One of the things we are changing is that as you can see in my pins are contextual items and so the animated avatars and gamer pictures represent my friends that are online and are playing this game right now and I can join them and play. We also have a quick link to the Game Hubs.

“Game Hubs are a feature that we shipped earlier this year and they are aggregation of all the social information on Xbox Live about a particular game so activity feed, Game DVR clips, achievements, leaderboards, all of the stuff in one place. What is neat about Game Hubs is that game developers can control them and when they do that they will be able to post announcements in the activity feed and amplify content. But they will also be able to publish headlines directly on the home screen. So for example, the Fable Legends devs have released a new heroes bundle and they can announce it on the home page or the Ori development team has released a new patch and they want to reveal the details of that.

“One of the things that our fans really wanted was as they were making this content about their gaming history such as screenshots, Game DVR, achievements, leaderboards and they are making these big narratives about a particular game so they need faster access not only to the content but also be able to share them faster. So you see the link here and I can share achievements and I just press A and I see the list of content and the same goes for screenshot and GameDVR and I can even write a comment to brag about it to my friends.”

When asked if screenshots would automatically be taken when Achievements were unlocked, Irving responded, “However, it will not take screenshot automatically whenever you unlock an achievement. You would still need to double tap the button.

“So I just shared that screenshot and it will go to my activity feed. The community area includes an evolution of the friend’s area compared to the current Xbox One home. So you can see my activity feed, the screenshot I just shared and using the vertical scroll, I can see a Game DVR clip from a friend; I can see an animated text post that we have decorated with an avatar which adds more vibrancy, and even friend’s suggestion.

“So strengthening your circle of friends on Xbox Live and helping you make more friends is something that is very important to us so we are adding friends’ suggestion right in the activity feed. When I respond to those suggestions by adding them as friends, my activity feeds gets automatically updated with my friend’s content which is super cool.

“Another feature is the Trending area which is about what is happening globally on Xbox Live. So I can scroll through it and see that Fable Legends is the most talked about game right now and Minecraft is the most popular game. We are also working to amplify players that are using Xbox Live more. For example we have players who edit a lot of Game DVR clips and broadcasting very popular Twitch streams, gamers who are reaching milestones like 1 million Gamerscore so we want to amplify those accomplishments on the home page itself.

“A lot of fan requests such as ‘Hey, I checked my friends list a lot and I just want it to load faster’ or ‘I want messages to be faster’ so you will see those icons to the left of the home. So I scroll to the left and I get the guide, which is similar to the one found in Xbox 360 but it’s reimagined specifically for the Xbox One. You can see friends list, notifications, messages, and even settings that I may want to manipulate while am playing the game. Of course, I will still be able to snap apps.

“So imagine if am playing Fable Legends, I just double tap the Xbox button and it slides out on the top of the game. You will see the game did not scaled down, you did not saw any loaders for the friends list to load, and it’s instant and responsive.”

That’s some fairly good news for players who like to launch parties or send messages and play games side by side. “One of the important things is to party up with friends and play multiplayer. In my friends list I can now start a party, I can send an invite so now I have a party status so I can go back to playing my game and can check my party status. Same thing with messages, I can see my full conversation history and also record a voice message and send it across. I can go back to gameplay which is all super fast and easy.”

Though there will likely be other features added to the update as we approach the Fall, speeding up the Xbox One’s user interface in nearly every aspect and area of the Dashboard is the top priority for Microsoft right now. Whether it will catch up to the speed of the PS4’s UI remains to be seen but at this rate, it looks to be a very significant improvement over the current status quo.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Fall update for Xbox One? Let us know in the comments.

CI Games didn’t show much of anything to the public with Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3. However, there was quite a lot showcased behind closed doors and that 25 minute demo has finally been released into the wild. With lead narrative designer Jess Lebow offering commentary, we get to learn a bit more about the next iteration in the popular sniping series.

It also seems that Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 will be showcased in a hands-off demo next month at Gamescom. This will be a different demo from E3, interestingly enough but there is hope that it eventually makes its way to the public once the conference is over.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is scheduled to release in the first half of 2016 for PS4, Xbox One and PC. It will be the first iteration in the series to be developed exclusively for current gen platforms. What are your thoughts on the gameplay footage below? Let us know in the comments.