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Microsoft Flight Simulator
The arrival of a new Microsoft Flight Simulator game used to be like the next version of Microsoft Word coming out: regular, incremental, and only exciting to a particular kind of person. There hasn't been a new one since Microsoft Flight Simulator X in 2006, and now is the time to get excited. The series is returning in 2020 with the power of cloud-enhanced GPS mapping to let you fly through a surprisingly detailed recreation of our world. Like, all of it. You'll probably find a more detailed version of Tokyo than a square mile of farmland in Kansas, but it's still the whole dang Earth.
Doom Eternal
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Google Stadia
Release date: November 22, 2019
Doom Eternal is one of those games whose existence is entirely justified by its predecessor. Doom 2016 was a fantastic shooter, we want more of that, ergo bring on the sequel. But if you needed more convincing, or if watching somebody else rip and tear demons for a few carefully choreographed minutes makes the wait easier for you, then Bethesda had your medicine at its E3 show - speaking of which, you'll also want to read our hands-on Doom Eternal preview from before the show. Bethesda also finally gave us a release date for Doom Eternal, so we know when to clear out our schedules for Hell on Earth.
Deathloop
Platforms: TBA
Release date: TBA
The developers of the Dishonored series at Arkane Lyon are leaving their eldritch Elizabethan world behind for more modern, but no less strange, climes. Deathloop is one of the biggest mysteries we've seen from E3 so far, and we only have a cinematic trailer to judge it by so far. Thankfully, it is one slick trailer, introducing a pair of assassins who are trapped in a time loop that repeats whenever one kills the other. It's like Edge of Tomorrow if Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt's characters were replaced by Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu from Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. But probably more fun than that, because Ecks vs. Sever was awful.
GhostWire: Tokyo
Platforms: TBA
Release date: TBA
Another mysterious new game from Bethesda, but at least we know that GhostWire: Tokyo is "a new kind of action-adventure game in which you are the hero rising up to purge Tokyo of supernatural evil". It's being developed by Tango GameWorks, which is best known for its survival horror lineage as the studio that brought us The Evil Within. Don't worry, Tango says GhostWire will still be plenty spooky. It has "ghost" right in the title, so that's a good start, and the idea of living in a world where most people vanished and then a bunch of monsters started showing up to take their place is pretty creepy too. Just remember that this is the kind of horror you're supposed to fight, not run from.
Halo Infinite
Platform: Xbox Project Scarlett
Release date: Holiday 2020
The new trailer for Halo Infinite showed us little that we didn't already know or couldn't guess - Master Chief's back in the fight after the events of Halo 5, imagine that - though it was good to see Chief back in his old suit. The really important part of Halo Infinite's E3 2019 appearance was the fact that it's going to lead off Xbox Project Scarlett as a launch game in the Holiday 2020 release window. The last time we had a Halo game as a launch title for a new Xbox console was, er, the first Halo, so this is a pretty exciting development.
Gears 5
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Release date: September 6, 2019
The Xbox E3 2019 stage show was a dizzying array of games past, present, and future, and Gears 5 was the lynchpin at the center of them all. It started with a video that continued the series' predilection for trailers that set the mood rather than teasing gameplay outright: we spend a solid minute and a half staring down Kait as she grapples with aspects of her identity as well as the memories of friends, allies, and the Locust Queen herself. There's a Billie Eilish song playing, it's a whole thing. Then we saw the meatier, screamier side of Gears with a cinematic trailer teasing the new Escape mode that could keep co-op fans playing way past the end of the campaign. Two halves of the whole.
Borderlands 3
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release date: September 13, 2019
Borderlands 3 has been one of the year's most hotly anticipated games ever since it got announced, and we got a slick new Borderlands 3 trailer at E3 2019. It gives you a closer look at the four new Vault Hunters in their element, as well as the many maniacs you'll be shooting in your quest to take down the villainous Calypso Twins. If you're amped up from all the Borderlands hype, you should download the Borderlands 2 E3 DLC for free that explains the story leading up to Borderlands 3: Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary.
Elden Ring
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release date: TBA
Elden Ring is the next game from Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team at FromSoftware, and they've recruited quite the fantasy heavy-hitter to help: Game of Thrones author George RR Martin. The Elden Ring reveal trailer is appropriately mysterious, featuring a blacksmith forging an item seemingly at the cost of his own, slowly cracking body, plus tons of stirring imagery like freakish hands reaching out from the darkness and regal warriors clad in impossibly ornate armor.
Blair Witch
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Release date: August 30, 2019
Bloober Team, the studio that brought you terrifying games like Layers of Fear and Observer, is going back to the classics with a first-person horror game set in the Blair Witch universe. The year is 1996, and you've gone looking for a lost boy in the Black Hills Forest near Burkittsville, Maryland. Your only companions are your dog Bullet and a handheld camcorder, both of which seem to feature prominently in the creepy gameplay.
Cyberpunk 2077
Platform: PC, PS4 Xbox One
Release date: April 16, 2020
Cyberpunk 2077 could have just shown its release date and the entire crowd would have burst into applause. Then CD Projekt Red had Keanu Reeves do it, live on stage, right after we met his digital counterpart at the end of an intense cinematic trailer. It even made up for the fact that we didn't actually see any new gameplay - though it looks like we'll see plenty more of Cyberpunk 2077 at the show proper. CD Projekt Red says it has separate demonstrations planned to show off behind closed doors and on the convention floor, which means twice as much hacking, shooting, and looking up to Keanu Reeves as our hero now and forever. Man, he'd better not turn out to be a bad guy...
