The Highs and Lows of Sony's E3 2016

Sony's booth was particularly large at E3 2016, stuffed with theater demonstrations, an assortment of smaller titles for hands-on, and lot's of VR. And despite the fact that many of the games the company revealed aren't coming out until next year, there was a lot to get excited about at Sony's E3 press conference too. But overall, here's how we think Sony did at this year's E3.

What better way to steal the show then reveal the next game from acclaimed developer Hideo Kojima? After his split from Konami last year, we've all been wondering where the eclectic creator would end up. Sony revealed the partnership with Kojima in December, and during its E3 press conference walked him out onstage to raucous applause. With the reveal of his new game Death Stranding--starring none other than The Walking Dead star (and former Silent Hills protagonist) Norman Reedus--Kojima stole the show.

We now know we're getting the PlayStation VR on October 13. Pre-orders opened a few months ago, but there's still time to get your order in. We've already reviewed the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift as the headsets shipped earlier this year, but we're excited for PlayStation VR because of experiences like Farpoint, Batman VR, and the recently-announced and much anticipated Resident Evil 7.

Sony knocked it out of the park with their press conference right from the start--opening with a live orchestra lead by acclaimed composer Bear McCreary playing the soundtrack to an unannounced game. That game turned out to be a new God of War, for which we immediately got a live gameplay demonstration. And from there the conference just got better. The presentation moved quickly between trailers, we got a few live demos--including one for new IP Days Gone. There was very little downtime in Sony's well-paced presser.

October 25, 2016. Hopefully it sticks!

Sony usually dedicates a significant chunk of time during its press conferences to indie games. Both Microsoft and EA presentations took some time to talk about indies they've taken under their wing, but smaller titles were strangely absent from Sony's presser. Their absence was notable, and even though there were a ton of indies playable in the Sony booth on the show floor, we missed seeing them on stage.

t Microsoft's press conference, the company announced not only a smaller Xbox One model, but Project Scorpio, a more powerful Xbox set to launch next year. But Sony said ahead of its press conference that it would not talk about the now-confirmed PlayStation Neo. And other than PlayStation VR, the company did not discuss hardware during their press conference at all. With Microsoft making the first moves into the next wave of consoles, it would have been a great time for Sony to mention its own.

We're getting a new God of War and it appears to be set in a new area of the world (here's everything you might have missed from the reveal) Snowy landscapes and hints at Norse mythology peppered the live demo we saw at the beginning of Sony's press conference. Gone is the fixed camera of previous God of Wars, and the soundtrack is being composed by well-accomplished Bear McCreary. We're into the idea of this new Kratos mentoring a young boy, who calls him father. It looks like a fresh take on a series that needed refreshing.

Sony Bend unveiled its new game during the press conference: a new IP called Days Gone. The game features characters who ride motorcycles through a post-apocalyptic landscape infested by zombies. In the live demo we saw at the end of the show, we learned that you can tackle situations in different ways, and watched the protagonist escape to the top of a barn while mowing down a horde of zombies trailing behind him.

We were shocked when Sony revealed that we'd be getting another Resident Evil game. It wasn't so much the fact that it existed--we'd heard the rumors--the surprise was how it abandoned the static camera and action-adventure gameplay of previous Resident Evils for a first-person exploration slant. What we saw is reminiscent of the P.T. Silent Hills demo--and we can't wait to see more.

Created by Hideo Kojima, starring Norman Reedus. PlayStation console exclusive. It's a long way off for sure, but we can't wait.

Also, we saw Norman Reedus' butt.