It’s time, boys and girls!! How was that concert by Andrew W. K.?! Awkward enough for you? It also looked like many of the presenters were a little bit flustered. All except for Todd Howard, which really knows how to work a crowd. Oh well. I’d be freaked out to present in front of rabid fan gamers too. So which games am I looking forward to?

RAGE 2: It looks okay. The gameplay looked a little rushed and “presented”, but the open world experience and vehicle combat reminds me a lot of Borderlands and Fallout combined. We’ll see how it turns out. I won’t be pre-ordering it, but I’ll probably pick it up at some point.

Elder Scrolls Online: Wolfhunter and Mirkmire! I also will be playing Summerset later on this month and reviewing the main story once I play through it.

DOOM Eternal: Ooh! Sequel! Can’t wait to see it at QuakeCon! I need to play the 2016 version and review it.

Quake Champions: Eh. Maybe. From what I’ve seen, it does look okay. Unique heroes and their abilities will add something awesome to the mix.

Prey Mooncrash: DLC available now, you say? Ooh. It might make me pick it up.

Wolfenstein Youngblood: Twin daughters! Co-op! Cool! I’ve never been a Wolfenstein guy, but I should give the games a try. I’ve watched them all the cutscenes on Youtube, and it looks like a good time.

We’re all here for Todd Howard! And the moment you’ve all been waiting for:

SKYRIM ON EVERYTHING.

Oh, wait. No, that’s not right.

Fallout 76: West Virginia! November 14, 2018!

Okay, the online-always aspect of the game is really concerning. This means a rocky first few weeks of gameplay when the servers won’t be able to handle the load. This also naturally means no mods beyond Bethesda’s own (it may also mean people with money for Fallout 76’s Creation Club can power themselves up over other players with exotic gear, but I’m 75% sure Bethesda is aware of how bad this would look and function in game). They showed footage of someone wielding a machine gun going against someone with a rocket launcher. What if I start up a new game and find I’m in a “server” with half a dozen “level 50” players looking to grief the newbie vault dwellers? The reason I don’t play Call of Duty is that I’m not talented in the gunplay department. Does this mean they’re going to dumb down the weapons and increase the effect of armor and the HP bar to create the illusion of fairness, removing player skill and turning everyone into a bullet sponge? Do they plan on balancing servers based on player level? If that’s the case, I don’t think I’d like to play on “level 50” servers where everyone is in X-01 power armor and nothing but a team of four equally power-leveled players with Fat Men will get rid of them… Or everyone has found the Chinese Stealth Suit and you get backstabbed every ten minutes.

Todd Howard said the game can be played solo but will be “easier” with a group. Well, yeah, sure. I’ll be shocked if anyone besides supremely talented solo players will be able to infiltrate the heavily infested nuclear launch sites dotted across the map and actually launch nukes. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s what the beta is for: to determine the balance between teams and solo players. Okay, game progression goes with you in death, so no douchebag is going to be stealing my weapons. But there’s going to have to be a robust respawn system that will enable me to respawn close to avoid having to travel halfway across West Virginia when a team of four jerks show up, all wielding Shishkebabs.

It’s Bethesda. There’s a story. That’s what I’m playing for. If I have to struggle over ten other players — or worse, multiple groups of four players — to complete story mode quest objectives, then I’m going to cry. Bounties are intriguing, sure. But I want to option to turn off PVP. I’m not a raider, and I never play as one. Will other players be alerted of my presence and receive a bounty notice to come after me if I get too close? Or just if I attack? Can players be set to neutral? If I get a mile into a dungeon just to get gangbanged by a team of twelve-year-olds with pipe rifles and frag grenades, I reserve the right to be pissed.

Will I be building my base (all in real time) or upgrading a bunch of neat guns I just found only to get blown away by a sniper? Does the settlement system serve a purpose like it does in Fallout 4, i.e. rebuilding a faction and settling down? Or is it all temporary and I’ll have to rebuild or resettle parts of it in a new location if I want to get my bearings and rest? The apparent temporary nature of settlements with the C.A.M.P. device doesn’t appeal to me if that’s the case.

Is there a fast travel system? With a map four times the size of Fallout 4, surely this is the case. But always being online doesn’t make this seem very fair. If I can build literally anywhere (that’s not irradiated, obviously), you just know some team of “level 50” douchenozzles plan on setting up their bases in front of story-critical dungeons and covering them with auto-turrets, daring any low-level player or team to fast travel in. That’s what griefers would do for fun, right? Impede others from enjoying a game? Do I have the right to identify these “raiders” from afar with my sniper rifle and put up a high bounty with my own caps to entice others to band with me to break the blockade? Is that what I’ll be expected to be doing for fun in the endgame? Breaking up other players’ camps? Can this be accomplished at all as a solo player beyond X-01 and Fat Man-ing it up? Either by a Fat Man or an ICBM, getting destroyed in nuclear fire while I’m trying to enjoy myself doesn’t seem particularly rewarding.

In MMOs, I know the rules. PVP is often optional. Playing with friends is never an issue. But this is a totally different beast. I’m more worried than optimistic at this point that I’ll have to concern myself more with my friend’s online availability than my own skill and time to enjoy this upcoming Fallout game. Don’t even get me started on how immersion-breaking it will be to come up against xxxSephiroth6969xxx in a one-on-one gauss rifle staring contest. But I’ve worried about this kind of thing coming to pass ever since I entered the Fallout franchise. Do I trust Bethesda to overcome some of these problems? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is the fact that this beta will certainly iron things out, and I recognize why they’re calling for one.

EDIT EDIT: Dead video, so I linked to reputable ones. More info! Mods and private servers, just not at launch. Okay. Okay. I’m liking this. Oxhorn is the man, by the way. Check him out if you have any questions about the lore of Fallout.

Elder Scrolls: Blades: Sure, why not? Okay, actually, I now think I’m more interested now that I’m aware of a PC version.

Starfield: IT’S A THING!!

Elder Scrolls VI: IT’S A THING!!

So yeah, all in all, quite the E3 presentation. More questions and concerns than answers from me at this point. And Poor Andrew W. K. Probably not the best audience he’s ever had.