SIE Santa Monica is on a high right now – the E3 2016 reveal trailer for God of War, the newest addition in the saga and the first for PS4, has passed 15 million views on YouTube. This makes it the most viewed trailer on PlayStation YouTube, even beating out Final Fantasy 7 in the process.

Director Cory Balrog was stoked to hear the news. On Twitter, he said that it was, “Pretty freaking cool! Thank you to everyone for supporting us!”

Furthermore, when one user talked about almost crying when Kratos appeared on screen, Balrog responded, “Me too. I almost cried when I heard the audience reaction.”

As for what fans can expect now that the trailer has passed 15 million views, Balrog clarified that there will be something to watch for. “Yeah, definitely don’t get too hyped about it. I said I would do something cool, but don’t expect too much!”

God of War currently has no release date.

For as big a reveal as it’s had at E3 2016, SIE Santa Monica’s God of War on the PS4 has been on the down-low. No information at Paris Games Week, nothing at The Game Awards and not a peep at PlayStation Experience. That doesn’t mean the development team isn’t busy working on it though.

Director Cory Barlog actually fielded questions about the game’s progress on Twitter recently. Asked whether any news would emerge about the new God of War and Barlog said, “I hope so. Focused on getting things done right now.”

Barlog further revealed that he’s not perturbed by questions on the game. “It’s all good. I love it too. I promise, the soonest I can share some new stuff I will. Am as excited to show as you are to see.”

As for some fans who really want Barlog to reveal something (and hint at trouble if that’s not the case), he replied, “Sorry man, we are pushing like crazy and I really want to share but its just not time yet. Hang in there.”

And no, he’s not evil for making you wait (some part of me wishes that was the case though). Barlog said that, “I am just incredibly busy with the game. We are in a big push to meet a deadline.” Perhaps that hints at a reveal of sorts in the coming months?

Meanwhile, we received some other snatches of information on the game from Barlog’s tweets. He confirmed that Kratos and his son would be together for more of the game.

As for that strange rune spotted on the enemy Troll’s shoulder in the reveal trailer, Barlog said, “That is something you, Kratos and his son will find out on the journey.”

Will Kratos be called Spartan in this new Norse-based world? You never know. “They might, I would not want to spoil anything for anyone,” said Balrog.

God of War currently has no release date or an estimated year of release. Thus far we know that it’s based in a Norse mythology-based world, levels will be more open, Kratos will still have some form of progression system and much more. What are your thoughts on the game’s current status? Let us know in the comments.

Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding was one of the highlights of Sony’s E3 presser even if the trailer was very much a “proof of concept”. Director Hideo Kojima, however, faced his fair share of stress in keeping the game under wraps on route to its reveal.

In the latest episode of HideoTube, Kojima discussed the road to E3 and how leaks inevitably occur. “So every single year, there are leaks before E3. No matter how careful we are, in this era, something always makes its way to internet. Up until this year, at least half of our stuff had been leaked. And this time around, it was supposed to be a surprise.

“So we didn’t let more than 5 people at Sony know about it. We kept it extremely secret. We absolutely didn’t want this to be leaked.”

In fact, Kojima didn’t even give the impression that he was in Los Angeles. Along with staying a hotel away from the expo, Kojima also didn’t tweet about his visit. There were times when people saw him though, especially when he went to watch Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, and there was a worry that his pictures would show up online, thus leading to people speculating about his presence in the city.

“As E3 was getting close, many other titles were getting leaked,” he said. “And we were thinking, ‘How many could be left?’ We were nervous; could barely sleep.”

When rehearsal time happened, Kojima actually took a backdoor to avoid detection (cue Metal Gear Solid references) and when the show itself took place, he arrived at the venue early and stayed backstage. Heck, he even used a separate restroom from everyone else.

It’s fascinating to hear about the entire journey so check out the rest of the video below. Death Stranding is currently in development for PS4 and PC.

Game Informer have revealed their covers for the August issue, and there will be not one, but two games that they will be celebrating with this issue: Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, naturally, because any post E3 coverage has to include that game, and also, Sony Santa Monica’s new God of War.

“To celebrate the annual gaming extravaganza, we commissioned the talented artist Alex Griendling to create two unique covers starring two of the biggest stars of E3 2016 – Kratos and Link,” Game Informer said, and indeed, the two covers they have for this month look absolutely great- you can check them out below.

Both, God of War and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild look absolutely incredible- they were among our E3 Games of the Show, with Zelda winning top honors on this site (and on most other sites too, it sounds like). Both are due out some time in 2017- God of War exclusively on PS4, while Zelda on Wii U and Nintendo NX.

We thought The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a fine looking game at E3- so much so that we awarded it our own E3 Game of the Show award. But we’re not the only one who thinks so, either. The Game Critics Awards for E3 also awarded Nintendo’s next game top honors.

It didn’t stop there for Zelda there, either- the game won three overall awards, the most for any game, beating out other E3 titles like God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Civilization 6, Battlefield 1, Final Fantasy 15, and Sea of Thieves in the process.

You can check out the full list of winners below:

• Best of Show: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Best Original Game: Horizon Zero Dawn
• Best Console Game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Best VR Game: Batman: Arkham VR
• Best PC Game: Civilization VI
• Best Hardware/Peripheral: PlayStation VR
• Best Action Game: Battlefield 1
• Best Action/Adventure Game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Best Role Playing Game: Final Fantasy XV
• Best Racing Game: Forza Horizon 3
• Best Fighting Game: Injustice 2
• Best Sports Game: Steep
• Best Family Game: Skylanders: Imaginators
• Best Online Multiplayer: Titanfall 2
• Best Independent Game: Inside
• Special Commendation for Graphics: God of War

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is due out on Nintendo NX and Wii U next year.

Bethesda had announced that they had been working on Fallout 4 to modify it for 3D in secret, and with the current trends in the gaming industry heading ever closer to an onslaught of Virtual Reality headsets (i.e. PlayStation VR to Oculus Rift and more), it quickly became very clear that Bethesda was indeed looking into future gaming experiences with their own franchises. Fallout 4 was running on an HTC Vive, which I hadn’t had the opportunity to try out just yet, so it was indeed a thrilling announcement.

Within the anti-chamber where the demo had been administered, The HTC Vive headset was put onto my head, the two controller sticks were placed into my hands and the demo began. If you’ve played Fallout 4 you would have immediately recognized the location in which you are placed. The Red Rocket gas station within the Sanctuary Hills’ location, just outside of the first area of the game. There was no escaping the immediate area as the demo was strictly held within that location.

Interestingly enough there was nothing to do other than explore the gas station, examine my classic 10mm pistol in my right hand and my Pip-Boy on my left arm. No enemies of any kind were around so taking shots was confined to bottles and mannequins lying about. The feel of the pistol in my hand was unreal. I could lift my right hand up and see the pistol; I could move it around, bring it close to my face and examine the beautiful details on it; that’s something you can’t do in the regular version. Shooting the bottles was a bit tricky at first, especially from the hip. But taking it slow and aiming felt truly natural. Even though I missed most of the bottles, I was lucky enough to get off two or three hits on them — so I didn’t look like a complete fool.

"I could lift my right hand up and see the pistol; I could move it around, bring it close to my face and examine the beautiful details on it; that’s something you can’t do in the regular version."

The next thing I noticed was that there was no button to activate the Pip-Boy to bring it up to the screen. Nope. Instead it was all done naturally. Lift my left arm and viola! The Pip-Boy was there, in my face, ready for commands. I could look through the on-screen menu and see what there was to offer. Of course, since this was a demo there wasn’t much I could do within the Pip-Boy other than look. I should also note that the Pip-Boy didn’t have a virtual arm when I lifted my own arm. It was simply a Pip-Boy floating in midair. But that didn’t take from the excitement of feeling like I was really controlling one.

Dogmeat was there running around, coming up to me, but there was no way I could interact with him or do anything interesting, such as pet him. It was sad but at the same time I remembered that it was just a demo and the full version would most likely have more interactivity.

"The next thing I noticed was that there was no button to activate the Pip-Boy to bring it up to the screen. Nope. Instead it was all done naturally."

Movement within the demo was based around walking from one location to the next; however, with extremely limited room within the booth to actually do so, the HTC Vive tracking was of little use to the walking within the game. It was done by transporting me from one point to the next with a click of a button from one of the hand controllers.

After I finished the extremely short demo of only a few minutes, I really could see this working out at the end. Sure, it wasn’t the best demo I ever experienced, but the clear graphics lined with a simple presentation was enough to make me a believer.

We’ve always maintained that these fanboy fueled console wars are remarkably dumb and short sighted, and they completely miss the point. While a lot of the gaming community fights amongst itself about which box is the best one to play games on, the companies that actually make these consoles seem to all be friendly with each other- something that has been evidenced repeatedly, as executives from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have all been largely respectful and complimentary towards each other.

We already know what Sony and Microsoft both thought of Nintendo’s showing at E3 this year- but in an interview with GamerTag Radio, Microsoft’s head of marketing for Xbox Aaron Greenberg was posed the question about what he thought of Sony’s E3 show too. His response? He liked it, and as a gamer, had great appreciation for what Sony brought to the table.

“I thought [Sony] did a great job,” Greenberg said. “I have always had admiration for Sony, and I know Yoshida-san and the team there, I hosted them at E3 last year. He’s a great guy, always super complimentary, and [there’s] a lot of respect. I think the beauty of this is that I feel super lucky to work in the game industry, to be able to work in a space that I love. We’re part of one big gaming community. And while we’re competitors when sometimes people decide what box to buy or what games to buy, at events like this, I think we’re all trying to get people excited about gaming.

“As a gamer, I think they showed a lot of great games. I think they did a great job. I love the idea of integrating an orchestra into the show, and so I thought they had a great show. And yeah, they were super complimentary to us as well, so yeah, that was great to see.”

You see that? At some level, he is able to put aside his own personal feelings and allegiances (and at least his allegiances are justified! Most gamers have no excuses for how passionate they get about which console they prefer), and he is able to appreciate the competition as a gamer- which is more than can be said for a lot of fans of these companies.

As gamers, one should be excited when a cool looking new game is announced on any platform. As gamers, we should want the competition to do well, because competition breeds success. As gamers, we should want more healthy platforms and systems, because that is indicative of a healthier industry on the whole.

Hopefully, instances of these executives from rival companies being friendly to each other so openly will hammer that point home.

"For perhaps the first time in a while, it’s hard to look at something as just being objectively better than everything else."

This year’s E3 was weird but not in the “Oh lord this is an unmitigated disaster” sense. EA didn’t really deviate from its sports-game mindset and yes, the cringe was real with Zac Efron and Jamie Foxx afterwards but it still showcased Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, not to mention teasing Mass Effect: Andromeda.and that maybe Watch Dogs 2 would be worth looking into. It also pushed for new ideas like Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Steep and Trials of the Blood Dragon (which flopped with critics but that’s a different story).

Microsoft had one major hardware reveal and a major hardware tease with the Xbox One S and Project Scorpio respectively. Sure, the Xbox One S isn’t all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, especially if you already own an Xbox One (Microsoft itself outright admitted that it’s not going to provide a huge boost to current games) but it’s still a significantly cool announcement to entice new players. Sony fired back by unveiling great footage for a number of exclusives including God of War, Detroit: Become Human, Days Gone, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Spiderman and so on. It also continued its campaign to make VR look appealing with Here They Lie, Batman Arkham VR and How We Soar.

Finding a common theme this year, aside from too much talking during some key games (I’m looking at you, Ghost Recon: Wildlands), is difficult. For perhaps the first time in a while, it’s hard to look at something as just being objectively better than everything else. As much as I loved The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it didn’t feel like it towered above the rest of the show. It was more like something amazing in its own right, especially if you were a fan of the series.

"Perhaps that was this year’s “good” aspect – that there something for everyone. Even if you weren’t a particular fan of something, there wasn’t anything that looked outright terrible."

In my opinion, Sony had better looking exclusives than Microsoft but I still loved Gears of War 4 over Days Gone (and no, not by directly comparing their genres). Titanfall 2 looked fantastic enough for me as a fan of the original game but there were still plenty of die-hards complaining about the new movement options like the grappling hook. I found Dead Rising 4 and Scalebound to be alright while others loved them. Dishonored 2 was dope as hell but I could completely understand those who found it boring because it simply wasn’t to their taste. And hey, crucify me if you wish but Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s campaign looked much more interesting than those gameplay “teases” from Battlefield 1 (though not as good as Titanfall 2’s campaign because, again, huge fan here).

I probably wasn’t all that excited for Watch Dogs 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands or For Honor but I could see how they might appeal to consumers. The same goes for FIFA 16 – I can imagine FIFA fans wanting to enjoy a deep story to go with the usual yearly tweaks and additions. There was nothing that one could “objectively” hate this year. I could sit here and tell you why Ghost Recon Wildlands didn’t impress me all that much but that’s only from the POV of someone who watched it, not played it. Heck, at this stage, it holds enough potential to make me want to play it. The same goes for Scalebound – that boss fight looked alright, nothing compared to the likes of Bayonetta 2 but I’m not going to pretend the entire game’s potential doesn’t excite me.

Perhaps that was this year’s “good” aspect – that there something for everyone. Even if you weren’t a particular fan of something, there wasn’t anything that looked outright terrible. Not even Sea of Thieves was ruined by its terrible commentary (though my ears most definitely were). Not even the lack of release dates for a number of big exclusives – whether it’s Scalebound, Mass Effect Andromeda, Detroit: Become Human, Tekken 7 or Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 – hampered the week.  Maybe that’s me looking on the bright side but the future of gaming actually looks pretty bright.

"E3 felt like a proper celebration of games more than just high-profile announcements and showcases. It made some of us forget the real world for a few hours and just get excited for what was to come."

I could look at the bad side of things. Mass Effect: Andromeda needs more information at this point. Titanfall 2 probably shouldn’t be releasing so close to Battlefield 1 even though it means I get it this year. Many VR experiences like Final Fantasy 15 VR Experience don’t look like all that much more than first person VR (the same which could be said for Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope and Killing Floor: Incursion). And yeah, maybe Resident Evil 7: Biohazard doesn’t look all that much like Resident Evil though I’m very excited for its direction. Maybe Ubisoft could stand to revamp its open world mission structure a lot more heavily. There were plenty of things to not like but again, it will be completely subjective because finding something objectively terrible was much harder now than in years past.

In the end, this week’s E3 felt like a proper celebration of games more than just high-profile announcements and showcases. It made some of us forget the real world for a few hours and just get excited for what was to come. Plenty of people will hype up this new “war” between consoles that’s coming. Even more will tell you what looks objectively shit before it’s even released. But if you found something that excited you at E3 2016 and makes you look forward to its release, then it’s certainly served its purpose, regardless of how much my opinion could convince you about its quality or lack thereof.

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.

The biggest damp squib at E3 this year was Mass Effect Andromeda, which, after almost six months of incessant teasing by Bioware, was a complete and total no-show- we ended up getting another concept trailer for the game, which was in engine, and which looked great, but we still haven’t seen a single moment of gameplay for the game, nor do we have a concrete release date though Bioware still insist that it will launch by March 2017.

However, according to Bioware, this kind of a skeletal showing for the game was not indicative of any development issues the game may be having, but was instead deliberate on their part. According to what BioWare studio boss Aaryon Flynn and Mass Effect creative Mac Walters told Eurogamer, the game is primed to have a ‘big reveal’ after ‘other games’ have been released- by which I can only assume other big games in EA’s lineup, such as Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, both of which are due out n a few months.

“There’s definitely more stuff we could have shown or talked about,” Flynn replied. “But now we’re shipping next spring, the time to really blast all that out there is after the other games come out. We’ll be there then to have a great big reveal and release all the details.”

Bioware also confirmed that we won’t be hearing from the game, as a result, for a very long time now- more details will not be shared until November 7, which is the annual N7 day celebration that Bioware holds to celebrate Mass Effect, based off of the iconic designation that Commander Shepard had in the original trilogy. That would make the reveal of the game awfully close to its final release, which can be by March at the latest.

Mass Effect Andromeda is due out in the first quarter of 2017 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

At this point, one thing is abundantly clear- in spite of bringing only one game to the E3 showfloor this year, Nintendo somehow managed to dominate a lot of the conversation around the convention. The reason for this was just how good The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild appears to be- it seems to have managed to break through to everybody. Everybody wanted to play this new Zelda game.

You don’t believe me? Well, then this video by Polygon, which was taken on the last day of E3 with just hours left before it ended, should help make my point. It shows a veritable stampede taking place, as everyone rushes to try and get a chance to play the game before E3 ends, and there are no more chances. It shows you the extent to which Nintendo and Zelda dominated the showfloor- the last time they did it to this capacity was when they revealed the Wii ten years ago.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launches on the Nintendo NX and Wii U in 2017.