Horizon: Zero Dawn (PlayStation 4)
One of, if not, the biggest announcements from E3 was Horizon: Zero Dawn. We knew Guerrilla Games has been hard at work on a new franchise for some time, and despite some earlier Horizon related leaks, nothing prepared me for how incredible Horizon actually looked on stage. I love post-apocalyptic experiences that showcase a fresh take on the “world has fallen” aesthetic and Horizon looks to do just that.

Following some unknown circumstances the world had fallen and in its place robotic dinosaurs have taken over. Little is known about the event that occurred, how these robotic monstrosities came to be, or what others horrors could be found throughout the new world. But one thing is for sure; Horizon looks incredible and I cannot wait to find out more. – Jamie Briggs

Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)

The recent Tomb Raider reboot was received with critical acclaim and success. The gritty nature of the title, combined with the compelling plot and stellar gameplay mechanics led many gamers to rekindle their love for the long-standing franchise and introduced many more to the series in a big way. With the footage we’ve seen of Rise of the Tomb Raider, the sequel looks to keep that same gritty attitude, offering more of that mature experience gamers loved in the last title. If the multiplayer is stricken from the game, or is fixed, it will already be headed in the right direction. – Eric Pepper

Star Wars Battlefront (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
You know it’s bad when anything labelled with publisher “EA” automatically leaves a horrible thought. I had not shaken this feeling ever since I learned EA was publishing Battlefront. However, after re-watching Battlefront‘s gameplay footage from the conference (when you cover E3 via streams, you only realistically see about half of what’s going on), I can’t help but be excited for this, which really surprised me. The game visually looks stunning, the gameplay looks solid from third and first-person views and sound effects taken from the films are used greatly. I was bummed when I learned there wouldn’t be many single player elements, but DICE revealing the Horde-like mode eased the pain.

I’m still approaching with caution because, well, EA, but a part of me can’t help but be excited to get back in Stormtrooper armor this fall. – Robert Key

What Remains of Edith Finch (PlayStation 4)

What Remains of Edith Finch, the newest game from the brilliant team that bestowed The Unfinished Swan (2013) upon the art gaming world, is one of my top picks from E3 2015. Spanning the early 1900’s to present day, players will discover the lives of the Finch family as they traverse through their family home in Washington state.

What’s particularly different about this from “similar on the surface” titles like Gone Home, is that the game doesn’t just let you explore the lives of the Finch relatives – you actually live them. Through first person perspective vignettes of different Finch family members, players leap through time and learn about themselves, the estate, and how the dead impact the living.

I’m super excited for this game because of how complex and varied the themes of the game appear to be through interviews I’ve seen. It’s meant to resonate with our real world and its values, while at the same time providing a fantastical remediation of it in Edith Finch. Look for this Playstation exclusive sometime in 2016. – Rebeccah Bassell

Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One)

I’m not going to lie, I was defiant when the Halo franchise switched developers from Bungie to 343 for Halo 4. However, I’m glad I decided to play it because Halo 4 is now one of my favourite Halo games. Halo 4 told a more personal story between the Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana, moving away from the larger war themed focus of Bungie’s Halo games. Chief still played the role of humanity’s saviour, but the focus was on the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. On the multiplayer side, 343 Industries attempted to modernise the shooter with perks, loadouts and a killstreak system, while still keeping with the fun Halo gameplay. At first I was not a fan, but it grew on me over time.

I’m excited for Halo 5: Guardians, because I trust in 343. I’m interested to see how the new squad based campaign changes the single player experience, and the new situation the Chief is now in. I also can’t deny the intrigue of the whole “Hero or Traitor” marketing campaign. Truth be told, however, the multiplayer Warzone game type has me even more excited, because it will probably be where I spend most of my time. Big Team Battles is one of the most popular game types, and this increases the scale even more with 24 players, AI bosses and an objective based way of playing. – Nathan Manning

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution was one of my favourite games of the previous generation, and from all accounts it looks like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided could be one of my favourite games from the current generation.

Graphically, Mankind Divided looks incredible. Though moving away from the gold and black colour scheme from HR, Mankind Divided will keep the same futurist-themed architecture that made HR such a grand visual spectacle. Though we haven’t had an extensive look at the different method to tackling situations, Eidos Montreal has promised you can progress through the entire game without killing a single enemy; which is great news to every Deus Ex fan.

Mankind Divided has a lot of potential and if Eidos is able to recapture that same HR spirit, while improving on the abysmal boss encounters, Mankind Divided could blow us away. – Jamie Briggs

Rainbow Six Siege (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)

Rainbow Six titles have always been about strategically working your way through rooms or buildings, eliminating hostiles while simultaneously minimizing innocent casualties. Entering situations with guns blazing is not a successful strategy in these games, which is an incredibly refreshing approach to the FPS genre. While Rainbow Six Siege has the potential to forego all of this by being multiplayer-centric and letting random players dictate how they wish to approach each scenario, players will quickly learn that plotting a course of action, or at the very least working together, will give them the highest chance of being victorious. There will inevitably be the kinds of players who attempt to stop an entire squad by themselves, but hopefully the series title is enough to prevent the majority of those individuals from playing. – Eric Pepper

Fallout 4 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
While this game is one of the more obvious choices thanks to hype and praise from the industry as a whole, there’s a reason it’s a predictable choice. Bethesda’s first E3 conference was overall fantastic. A good chunk of this can be contributed to Fallout 4‘s amazing official reveal.

Fallout 4 director Todd Howard killed it in showing the game’s new features, but without revealing too much to spoil the story, which starts out players in the pre-war era for the first time ever in the series. I’m incredibly intrigued by the settlement building system, and I can’t wait to grab everything I find in The Commonwealth to make weapon mods. There’s easily more to talk about, but that’s the tip of the nuclear iceberg with Fallout 4. – Robert Key

Dreams (PlayStation 4)

My second pick to watch from E3 is Dreams from Media Molecule, also known informally as “those guys who made Little Big Planet”. Still vague on some details, Dreams is a game that allows players to create, sculpt, animate and play through whatever they can imagine. This ranges from creating backgrounds, characters, plot lines and so on with ease and artistic flair. The game centralizes around sharing your dreams, and building on what has been created to make something even better.

In the age of the remix, I think this game looks like it could be a lot of fun for a specific crowd (then again, the same was said about The Sims when it first came out, so I could be wrong). Details are vague at best at this point, but I won’t knock this out yet just because the game may have been announced a bit too early to form solid opinions. From what I did see and read, the game looks absolutely stunning. I’m interested in following its development and seeing further details about what may come. Without a release date as of this posting, watch for updates about this PS4 exclusive in the coming months. – Rebeccah Bassell

Ghost Recon: Wildlands (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)

I loved the last game in the Ghost Recon franchise, Future Soldier, and I am confident that I’ll love Wildlands just as much. What’s not to love about a trailer that combines Ghost Recon and Imagine Dragons? For me, that trailer was the perfect way to reveal a game that is not far enough in development for a full demo; there was enough gameplay to get a small idea of what gameplay will entail. Ghost Recon: Wildlands is being developed by the same team that worked on Future Soldier, and you can see that from the game’s visual aesthetic and some of the gameplay elements. I don’t know if Wildlands will feature as many futuristic gadgets as Future Soldier did, but from the trailer we at least know there will be a drone. Not much is known about the title at the moment, except that it will be the largest open world action adventure game that Ubisoft has ever made, and that it will feature non-linear gameplay elements and mission selection. I doubt we will hear much more about Wildlands until next year because Ubisoft currently has Rainbow Six Siege and The Division to focus on, but I feel it will be worth the wait. Future Soldier was overlooked by many in 2012, but I highly recommend it. You can probably find Future Soldier for a cheap price if you want a potential glimpse into the team working on Wildlands. – Nathan Manning

Now that you know what our favourite games of E3 2015 are, we want to know what you are most excited for. Leave your comments below!

E3 2015 was all about the games. Every press conference, from Bethesda on Sunday night, until Square Enix on Tuesday morning, featured trailers and gameplay for games in all stages of production. There was a lot more show than tell during the press conferences, and the games benefit because of it. From the extensive gameplay footage of Fallout 4, to short gameplay reveals of Gears 4 and The Last Guardian, and a CGI trailer for the long requested Final Fantasy VII remake, the press conferences featured a tonne of gameplay. Publishers are finally realising that gamers don’t want to be told about games, they want to be shown games. It seems the first parties have finally stopped openly fighting against each other and embracing why fans love their consoles.

Whether you agree with what Nintendo is doing or not, they chose to focus on games closer to release rather than making announcements about what’s to come in the future. Almost all of the titles they showed will be released this year, with exceptions being Mario & Luigi Paper Jam, Metroid Prime: Federation Force and Fire Emblem Fates. Regardless of your views towards Nintendo and their reliance on the same few core franchises, there are a lot of games heading to the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS this holiday season. Star Fox Zero, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Super Mario Maker will keep Wii U owners entertained for a while until new games are announced, and perhaps a Zelda Wii U release date. Meanwhile, 3DS owners can look forward to new a new Animal Crossing, Yoshi’s Woolly World and The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes. There was also new Smash Bros. content released this week for Wii U and 3DS. Nintendo has not had a press conference at E3 for a couple of years now, so they may make other announcements through Nintendo Direct videos later this year.

Microsoft had a strong showing this year choosing to bombard viewers with gameplay demo after gameplay demo, with a few trailers thrown in to keep the conference from reaching the two hour mark. Microsoft chose to focus on Halo 5: Guardians to start the show, premiering the first campaign footage and a new 12v12 multiplayer mode called Warzone. Several trailers were shown off for ID@Xbox games in production including Tacoma, Ashen, Beyond Eyes and Cuphead. It also announced a new Game Preview program similar to Steam Early Access with Elite Dangerous and The Long Dark available now, while DayZ will be coming soon; all Game Preview titles must have a free trial. Away from the games, Microsoft announced Xbox One backwards compatibility with select Xbox 360 titles starting this Fall, and a new extremely customisable controller. Microsoft also had its other first party games on show with a trailer for Forza Motorsport 6, first gameplay for Gears 4, and a gameplay trailer for Rare’s new game Sea of Thieves (it’s not Banjo, but it does have pirates). Surprisingly, the Hololens demonstration with Minecraft was quite fascinating, especially with the technology they used to show it off to the audience. Finally, with the impending launch of Windows 10, Microsoft announced that published titles are going to begin seeing cross platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, as well as more Xbox titles being made available on PC – Killer Instinct, Fable Legends and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition are the first batch.

For PlayStation fans, I assume it’s the press conference they’ve been waiting for. Sony finally showed gameplay for The Last Guardian and a Final Fantasy VII remake was announced. Sony also continued with its third party partnerships, with exclusive missions in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and Batman: Arkham Knight which releases next week. In a big step for PlayStation, Call of Duty: Black Ops III gameplay premiered at the conference, with downloadable content coming first to PlayStation. Sony’s conference appeared to be about looking towards 2016 and beyond, with announcements of new IPs from Killzone developer Guerrilla Games, and Little Big Planet developer Media Molecule. Sony has had strong showings from first party games in the last few years with big guns like The Last of Us (2013), Infamous Second Son (2014) and Bloodborne (2015). However, the second half of 2015 will see Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, God of War III Remastered, Tearaway Unfolded and the Heavy Rain/ Beyond: Two Souls bundle keeping PlayStation 4 gamers busy before, hopefully, a first party filled 2016 – I hear some small project called Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is gaining some attention.

And yet, who needs first party titles when publishers like Bethesda Softworks, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have some great looking titles set for late 2015 and early 2016. Bethesda has the much anticipated Fallout 4 set for a November 10 launch, and DOOM is looking at a 2016 release, with perhaps Dishonored 2 joining it. Electronic Arts will launch its Need for Speed reboot in the Fall, and Star Wars: Battlefront on November 19; Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is set for a February 23, 2016 release. Ubisoft’s big titles for this year are Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Meanwhile, there will also be a new yearly entry in the fan favourite dance series Just Dance. For 2016, Ubisoft has The Division on its schedule, with unspecified release dates for Ghost Recon: Wildlands, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Anno 2250 and new IP For Honor. But wait, there’s more from other publishers too. Square Enix has Just Cause 3, Kingdom Hearts III, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and a new Hitman on the horizon. As usual, there are also EA’s extremely popular sports games. 2K Games has NBA2K16 on the way, as well as XCOM 2 and MOBA-style action game Battleborn (Gearbox Software). Oh, and let’s not forget the return of rhythm game behemoths Guitar Hero and Rockband making returns this year. If that’s not enough for you, there are plenty of independent developers creating games to fill the void of genres triple-A titles won’t touch.

As you can see, gamers definitely won E3. It’s a great time to be a lover of video games. No matter what platform you play on, there are plenty of exciting titles on the way. The first party publishers, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, have stopped visibly fighting against each other and have shifted their focus to their own player bases and what they expect. Of course, PC gamers don’t miss out either with loads of exclusive games not available on console like an expansion for Guild Wars 2, and a Total War/Warhammer cross over that is somehow not called Total Warhammer. Regardless of which brand you lean strongly towards, there is something for everyone this year at E3, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This year at E3, everyone is a winner, and it feels great.

Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 will contain 6 new character classes and will be the first game in the franchise where the plants are on the attack against the zombie horde.

One of the new classes is called the Imp, the smallest and fastest character in the game. Another class is known as SuperBrainz, a melee focused character class, while Captain DeadBeard is the first zombie sniper class.

It was also announced the original Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare has been played by over 6 million players.

Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 will launch in spring, 2016 and will receive free content packs post launch.

It then showed the enormous scale the game will offer, with each star being a new location upon the thousands of different locations. The developer demonstrated how you can scan each new planet to see if life is present on the planet and showed off the habitats and creatures.

The footage offered up the potential for an abundance in content, which you can check out for yourself in the video below.

Players will assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet, which can be viewed in 360 degree detail with the use of VR technology. Players will be able to interact with the ecosystem and unearth incredible secrets.

“Ever since Crytek was founded, we have been striving to build the most realistic, believable worlds we possibly can for player,”said David Bowman, Crytek’s Director of Production. “Today’s VR technologies are enabling us to bring together CRYENGINE’s capabilities and our legacy in creating immersive gaming experiences like never before. The time we’re spending in Robinson: The Journey as we develop it is transforming the way we think about games, and we can’t wait until everyone has the chance to set foot in this universe for themselves.”

The reveal was also accompanied by a CG footage trailer of the assassin sister, Evie who showcased her devastating combat skills with a variety of weaponry. The exclusive DLC will see the twins work together to solve crimes, influenced by one of the most famous detectives.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will release on October 23, 2015 and will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.