Doom

Bethesda kicked the doors down hard, as their known to do, by starting off the conference with a lengthy demo of the new Doom title. Our hero appears to be on a spooky space station of some sort with a bunch of fire everywhere. Honestly, for the first minute, it could have been a Dead Space game. Then you pull the heart out of a monster’s chest to kill him and any similarities it shares with Dead Space fly out the window. The new Doom game brings back the utter brutality the first game brought. From stuffing a grenade in a monster’s mouth and pulling the pin to chainsawing (yes of course that’s back) enemies in half, the awesome kill cams in this game alone make it extra awesome. They’ve also tried to spice up multiplayer buy adding in not only custom game types, but custom maps as well, all of which you can build in game. All in all, it looks like a strong entry in the Doom series.

Dishonored 2

Honestly, the original Dishonored was met with a very divided reaction. You either loved the game or hated it (and that typically had something to do with Deus Ex). But one thing’s for sure, the game sold well and a ton of people have asked for more. And Bethesda’s here to deliver. In Dishonored 2 you can take control of the well-known and loved Corvo or a super badass new female hero named Emily. The latest entry in the series sees the return of moral choices through the form of being able to choose to kill anyone in the game, or finding nonlethal ways to accomplish your goals, as well as the sweet powers the (now) series is known for. The original game and all its DLC is also coming out for PS4 and Xbox One under the title Dishonored Ultimate Edition.

Fallout 4

And now what we’ve all been waiting for. Ever since that trailer dropped, Fallout 4 is all anyone is talking about, and for good reason. Bethesda has been working on this game since Fallout 3 came out (that’s six and a half years!) and it really shows. The game starts out pre-war with your character (male or female) and their family having a nice day changing their appearance in front of the mirror. To give you an idea of the attention to detail in this game,wWhen you select the name for your baby, they prerecorded thousands of the most popular baby names so that your robot assistant could say it out loud. How awesome is that? The story continues with you getting approved for a Vault just in time for nukes to start falling. You and your family make it to the Vault just in time. Flash forward 200 years and you pop out of Vault 111 as the sole survivor, which makes the baby name thing even more impressive since that character get axed at the beginning of the game.

Instead of having to go optionally find your dog companion like in Fallout 3, you get a dog in the beginning of the game. Also unlike Fallout 3, you can actually command your dog to do things for you, like go to places, fetch items, or attack people. This dog is gonna be your best buddy, I just know it. Speaking of combat, the VATS system is also back, but it’s a little more functional and has better killshots. Hard to improve on something as awesome as stop-time-shoot-head mechanics, but there you have it.

Possibly the biggest and best change is that nothing looks the same. Fallout 3 had a huge problem where the whole world was just kind of grey and brown and bleh. Fallout 4 has colors all over the damn place, making it look not only visually interesting, but not tiresome, which can go a long way for a game you can spend 200+ hours in. The new Pipboy looks pretty great and functions similarly to the one in Fallout 3, but also has a layered armor system and games you can play on it. As if that weren’t enough, if you preorder the collectors edition, you get your own real life Pipboy that you can put your phone in to, download an app, and cosplay your ass off.

Bethesda has also promised that they’re dedicated to making all Fallout 4 mods for the PC work for Xbox One and Playstation 4. Huge props to them for this as it makes the gap between console and PC gaming smaller but likely puts a lot of work on them.

Another feature they showed off in the Microsoft conference was the ability to scrap and build things in the world. Now any useless junk you collect in the world can go toward crafting new items instead of hanging out in your inventory until you throw them away. You can also customize your weapons more than ever using the items you find. You can also craft your own custom bases with different furniture and items outfitted to it. You can even have power generators that turn on lights, weapons, traps, or whatever. Basically, it’s a simplified Minecraft redstone mechanic. You can also have multiple bases and run brahmen caravans between the two to transfer supplies. See? The attention to detail with this game is insane.

Fallout Shelter

And for mobile gamers, Bethesda decided to do a bad thing and take all your time away on the go. Sorry ’bout it. Fallout Shelter puts you the role of an Overseer for a vault. You manage your citizens health and resources while trying to build out your vault. You can accept in new people from outside or sent people out to get resources so you can add new rooms to your vaults. Some rooms will build stats for your citizens like schools for intelligence or bars for charisma. You can also rely on nature’s way of adding population and wait for some of your vault dwellers to have a little miracle. Of course you get to name all the kids. The game is currently only out for iOS with an Android version not announced, but presumably on the way.