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A few years ago, there was something of an unspoken question hanging over the E3 conferences: did the audience have a genuine appetite for a new generation of consoles? In 2015, it seems clear that the answer, broadly speaking, is yes - meaning that, for the third-parties, the blockbuster is centre-stage again, even if the fundamentals that underpin it have shifted slightly with an emphasis on fewer, bigger bets. At E3, where two more publishers have decided to stage their own conferences this year, it's increasingly all about mega-games whose release dates send competitors scurrying, in much the same way that an extinction-level meteor scatters clouds as its entry sets the surrounding atmosphere on fire. Will there be genuinely new stuff on show at the conferences? Hopefully - but it might be hard to find space for it amongst all the behemoths we already know about.Fewer and bigger? E3's about cannier bets, too, and exhibit A in this regard is Bethesda, which has been smart enough to control the headspace of E3 - before the first lanyard has been checked at security - with the reveal of Fallout 4. If you're playing trends bingo - and what else is there to play when so much of the games industry's attention is focused on one spot? - this is a board filler: open-world, story-driven, gritty, post-apocalyptic, sprawling. Fallout's always been beloved, but in the hands of the Skyrim people this is now a blockbuster pitch of such megawatt assurance that it risks turning the new Doom into a sort of arty side-project. Never underestimate the allure of one of gaming's most primal titles, mind: it may be curiosity as much as enthusiasm, but at Bethesda's conference, Doom would follow up Fallout 4 very neatly. Much more neatly than The Elder Scrolls Online, anyway, which, regardless of any success it may find on consoles, continues to feel like a game that missed its bus. Elsewhere, it's probably too early to hear something new from Shinji Mikami, but we can hope. Still: Dishonored? And oops - I almost forgot Battlecry.
EA's likely to play it safe, too, after a strange showing last year that suggested the publisher was so in thrall to Early Access that it had decided to ship a half-finished presentation that it would later patch. BioWare was present, art designers' eyes glittering in the half-light as they sketched concept Krogans on tablets. Casey Hudson (now off to Microsoft) whispered soulfully, as if beckoning you into the world's gentlest cult - but, as with a lot of cults, tangible details were hard to come by. An interesting approach, and yet the biggest takeaway from the whole conference was probably that Criterion now works in a pub, or something just like one. Criterion's game looked great - a sort of demolition derby where you could turn up in a chopper or riding a jetski if you fancied - but it also looked like a project that was still very early on in its development. Just beyond the back-of-the-beermat point. Hence the pub?
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