Pre-E3 News & Rumor Round-Up (Thus Far)

E3 2016 is officially less than a week away, but plenty of new trailers and announcements have made headlines over the weekend ahead the entertainment expo. Let’s take a look at a few.

Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee received a brand new gameplay trailer, but that’s not all. The Team17 published 3D platformer has been officially delayed until Q1 2017.

On the plus side, the new trailer is pretty fantastic. It’s colorful, shows off a variety of gameplay styles, and makes me want to pop in Rare Replay to revisit both N64 classics.

Oh, and there’s a quick glimpse of a Banjo Kazooie jigsaw puzzle piece at the end there. The teases.

I already posted about this earlier today, but Square Enix confirmed an HD remaster of the PS2 classic Final Fantasy XII for PS4. Dubbed Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, the remaster is currently scheduled to release in Japan sometime in 2017. It’ll feature revamped character models and cut-scenes, an improved turbo mode, trophy support, a re-recorded soundtrack, and a new auto-save feature.

The Zodiac Age is based on the Japanese re-release, entitled Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Job System, and modifies character progression by including job classes that determine their learned abilities and equipment.

UPDATED June 7th: Square Enix also released a new trailer for the cute-as-fuck World of Final Fantasy, and confirmed its North American release date as October 25th. Talk about an all-star cast of characters.

World of Final Fantasy is exclusive to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

Horizon: Zero Dawn debuted a brand new gameplay trailer, softening the blow of their confirmed delay out of 2016 and in to February 2017. The new trailer is the first to show the open world RPG’s story elements, giving some background to Aloy and the world itself.

Horizon seems like an ambitious title for a developer known for linear shooter campaigns, but it’s coming along quite nicely. The trailer is drop dead gorgeous and I’ll happily wait until February for a more polished experience.

Volition announced Agents of Mayhem, a brand new IP set in the Saints Row universe. It appears to be a single-player open world game, similar to Saints Row, but how it ties in to the series is unknown at this point.

Bethesda is rumored to announce an enhanced version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at E3 2016. According to Gematsu, if confirmed, the enhanced edition will include all of the game’s DLC, as well as mod support for consoles–similar to what Xbox One currently has with Fallout 4.

UPDATED June 7th: Also during the Bethesda presentation, Eurogamer fully expects them to reveal sequels to both Wolfenstein: The New Order and horror title The Evil Within. They’ll also re-introduce us to the new version of Prey 2 (not the cancelled Human Head-developed Prey 2, but the one reportedly being developed by the new Texas branch of Dishonored developer Arkane).

The same industry insiders who talked about Bethesda’s enhanced Skyrim release also believe Capcom and Microsoft are working together on a new Dead Rising game, aptly titled Dead Rising 4.

The sequel, which may in fact be a “remake of sorts” of the original Dead Rising, takes place in Willamette, Colorado, and will allow players to explore outside of the mall. It’s rumored to support 4-player co-op and release exclusively on Windows 10 and Xbox One.

UPDATED June 7th: Eurogamer also has reason to believe Microsoft will unveil State of Decay 2 during their E3 presentation.

Ubisoft confirms Watch Dogs 2 with a brief trailer, entitled “Hello World.” This came five days after popular YouTuber TheRadBrad posted an image on Twitter of Watch Dogs 2 merch they received from Ubisoft. The teaser trailer is relatively pointless, outside of confirming the existence of a game we all knew was coming.

According to Kotaku, Watch Dogs 2 takes place in San Francisco, follows a new protagonist (which people seem excited about, both since he’s a minority in the starring role of a AAA game, and Aiden Pearce was more bland than a boiled potato) named Marcus, and should release this fall on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

There’s still six days to go before E3 presentations kick off, so we’re bound to see more announcements. Why so many this year? My guess is that both major console presentations will be devoting stage time to their upgraded models, VR ventures, and more, and that means less talk about video games.

Anything excite you thus far?