Bethesda E3 2018: The Seven Biggest Announcements

Bethesda’s 2018 E3 showcase took place Sunday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m. PT. The press conference was entertaining in its own right but also full of surprise announcements.

Here are the six biggest stories of the night.

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1. The Doom Slayer will return in “Doom Eternal,” the sequel to 2016’s “Doom.”

“For the past two years, it’s been so inspiring to hear you talk about what you’d like to see next — and I gotta tell you, we’re right there with you,” said id Software creative director Hugo Martin during the Bethesda E3 Showcase. “You want the Doom Slayer to feel even more powerful? We’ve got it. You want even more badass demons? There are twice as many in this game. You want to see Hell on Earth? We just teased it. But what we’re most excited about is showing you some of the things that you might not be expecting.”

More of “Doom Eternal” will be shown on Aug. 10 during the annual QuakeCon in Dallas.

2. An all-new “Wolfenstein” is on the way from MachineGames.

Anyone who played “Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus” knows this is bound to be a major highlight of this year’s entire E3. In “Wolfenstein: Youngblood,” players will battle Nazis in an alternate future. The co-op game will star B.J. Blazkowicz’s twin daughters and take place in Paris, France, during the 1980s.

“Two decades have passed since B.J. Blazkowicz rallied the resistance and sparked the Second American Revolution in ‘Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus,'” Bethesda said in an announcement. “However, the battle for freedom is far from over. B.J. has gone missing in Nazi-occupied Paris, and now all hope resides in his children to carry on the fight.”

3. “Fallout Shelter” is now on PS4 and Switch.

Bethesda’s popular mobile game “Fallout Shelter” is now available for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, studio director Todd Howard announced Sunday.

“Fallout Shelter” is a free-to-play sim where players build and manage their own Vault-Tec vault, fill it with survivors, and go on quests out in the post-nuclear wasteland. It first launched on iOS and Android in summer 2015. Over 120 million have downloaded and played the game since, Howard said.

4. “The Elder Scrolls: Blades,” a new full-fledged Elder Scrolls RPG, is coming to mobile devices.

A new free-to-play RPG set in the Elder Scrolls universe (as seen in “Skyrim” and “Morrowind”), this game was announced for the first time on Sunday night.

“Blades contains the many hallmarks Elder Scrolls fans enjoy from the franchise,” Bethesda revealed. Such features include “beautifully rendered, console-quality environments; powerful magic; tons of gear to collect; upgradeable skills; and, of course, real-time fantasy battles! Fights are settled using the touchscreen to slash [with] your sword, deflect oncoming attacks, cast a mighty bolt of lightning, and more.”

The game will launch on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices in fall 2018. Players can sign up now for access to an early beta of “Blades,” which will be used to test the game’s multiplayer functionality.

5. The long-rumored “Starfield” is real, and now there’s a trailer.

Bethesda Game Studios has confirmed “Starfield,” a new single-player space epic. It’s the developer’s first new original video-game series in two and a half decades.

In June of last year, a widely circulated claim, which is said to have originated on 4chan, alleged that Bethesda would reveal a game called “Starfield” at E3 2017. The project was described as a “long-rumored game that transplants the publisher’s role-playing foundation onto a sci-fi setting.” So, as it turns out, sometimes the rumors making the rounds on anonymous message boards aren’t entirely without merit. However, we still know very few confirmed details about the game.

6. The free-to-play collectible card game “Elder Scrolls: Legends” is making its way to PS4, Switch, and Xbox One soon.

What’s more, players can get their start now on mobile devices and then transfer their progress over to new platforms later.

“There’s no reason to wait to play the game,” community manager Christian Van Hoose said. “Download ‘The Elder Scrolls: Legends’ for free and join me tonight on PC, mobile, or tablet, and any progress you make in the game will be carried over to the console versions through your Bethesda.net account.”

7. It’s true: “The Elder Scrolls VI” is in development.

Players got their first glimpse of the project in a short teaser during the Bethesda E3 Showcase.

The previous entry in the Elder Scrolls series, “Skyrim,” was a massive hit for Bethesda, and fans have since waited seven long years for the first hint of news regarding another sequel. No release date has been given, but at least there’s now a video to fuel speculation as fans analyze and dissect it in light of the Elder Scrolls franchise’s decades’ worth of lore.

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This year’s E3 takes place this week, from June 12 to June 14, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Twitch’s official coverage of the event began in earnest Sunday afternoon.

Follow all of Variety‘s E3 2018 coverage, which includes breaking news, original interviews, and hands-on impressions, right here.

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