It’s no secret to anyone following the video game industry that Microsoft needs a huge showing at E3 2018. While it’s easy to state the obvious, what exactly does that mean for Microsoft? Which games need to have a presence this year? We know how powerful the hardware is because it’s been beaten into our skull for the past couple of years. However, now we must see what software we’ll be playing on the most powerful console on the market. With the delay of Crackdown 3 (yet again), Microsoft has to wow us in order to win us back. So let’s get right to it. Here are our predictions for what we think we need and will see from the Microsoft stage this year.
1. Let’s start with a semi-easy one. At some point during their conference Microsoft will announce a new Turok game and it will be exclusive to the Xbox and possibly available on Windows as well. This feels like a no brainer with the this year’s re releases of Turok 1 and 2 recently as Xbox exclusives. During the N64 era the Turok series were the video game kings of the dinosaur craze. With the revitalization of the franchise and the return of the Jurassic Park series to theaters, expect to see this reveal at E3.
2. Microsoft will also announce a new killer IP from their stage in 2018! This will be the best looking game we’ve seen from Microsoft to date and it will show off the true power of the Xbox One X. With franchises like Gears of War covering their third person shooters and Halo holding down first person, we would expect this to be more of an action adventure game in the vein of Uncharted. They tried bringing Tomb Raider to their console as a timed exclusive which seemed to have upset more people in the process rather than using that leverage to win new fans. So, this time around, they will be going in-house and creating their own first party title to compete with the likes of The Last of Us II and Uncharted (should the series ever make a return).
3. One of the biggest questions leading up to E3 for Microsoft involves Halo and Gears of War. Which one will we see this year at the conference? The answer to this burning question is both. That’s right, both. As stated earlier Microsoft needs to go big or go home and what better way to do that than to announce not one, but two of your biggest franchises have games coming in the near future. While it’s not expected either would hit this year, we’d bet that Halo would be announced for a 2019 release and Gears of War for 2020. Imagine how excited the crowd would be for either of those reveals and then imagine what it would be like if both are announced. If Microsoft wants a chance to win people back at E3, this is the way to do it.
4. The reason that Halo will come out next year with Gears being released in 2020 is because of prediction number four. The Coalition has been hard at work helping out on or possibly even developing themselves the next Perfect Dark game. There were some quick rumors about this and it’s too good of an idea to not be true. With Gears of War 4 being more recently released it makes perfect sense for Halo to come out next while the Coalition puts the finishes touches on their most recent non Gears of War game…Perfect Dark.
5. Finally it’s time to reveal our final prediction for Microsoft’s conference and it is a doozy. Closing out the show will be the reveal for Minecraft 2! After buying developer Mojang and beating every red cent that they could out of the original Mincraft, the time has finally come to reveal to the world what the next iteration of this franchise looks like. This wont be another entry in the Telltale series but a true sequel in the core series. We know it’s going to happen eventually and they need software now! What better way to end the show than with a huge reveal like this one. Gives us chills.
Well that wraps up our predictions that we expect to see from Microsoft when they finally take the stage on Sunday, June 11 at 1 PM PT and 4 PM ET.
Let us know on our Forums what predictions you have about Microsoft’s or any of the other conferences at this E3.
