Summary: <h4>E3 has come and gone. There were actually some pretty neat things presented thereat, albeit EA has once again refused to announce a new single-player Ultima.</h4><a id="more-5775301"></a><p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id978223252" style="font-size: 10pt;">Subscribe on iTunes</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> | </span><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/spam-spam-spam-humbug" style="font-size: 10pt;">Subscribe on Stitcher</a></p><h4>Intro</h4><p><em><a href="http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00810">Ultima VI Gates of Creation</a></em> by OC ReMix</p><h4>Podcast Topic(s)</h4><p>Sergorn Dragon and I have this thing we do every year, just before the first-day EA showcase at E3: we each pick odds that a new, single-player <em>Ultima</em> game will be announced. Over the years, we've broadened this category a little bit: we're not necessarily asking for a BioWare-level AAA cinematic experience, after all. It would be perfectly fine with us if EA took a page from Ubisoft and had a smaller indie studio do a new <em>Ultima</em> title that aimed to check off all the classic features of that series that fans have been missing in games ever since. (Ubisoft, as you'll recall, did exactly this with <em>Might & Magic X</em>, which was developed by Limbic Entertainment; the result was pretty great, all things considered.)</p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">EA, of course, continues to disappoint in this respect...and to be fair, the general consensus seems to be that their presentation at E3 this year was a disappointment overall. That said, they did announce a couple of interesting things, and we'll take a look at those in a bit.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">This year, I </span><a href="http://www.lazygamer.net/e3-2015/everything-important-that-has-been-announced-at-e3-so-far/" style="font-size: 10pt;">followed LazyGamer's E3 coverage</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, and they did a pretty bang-up job of it. So expect that most of what gets linked to in these show notes will be to articles of theirs. (</span><a href="http://www.lazygamer.net/e3-2015/e3-2015-in-pictures-the-madhouse-opens/" style="font-size: 10pt;">Check out their photo gallery</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, as well; wild stuff therein.)</span></p><p><b style="font-size: 10pt;">Bethesda:</b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> This was apparently Bethesda's first E3, but it didn't show. Okay, there was </span><a href="http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/06/13/did-bethesda-just-accidentally-leak-dishonored-2" style="font-size: 10pt;">that supposed “gaffe” whereby they “accidentally” went live on Twitch</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> during a rehearsal, and inadvertently outed that they were going to </span><a href="http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/e3-2015-bethesda-shows-off-dishonored-2/" style="font-size: 10pt;">announce <em>Dishonored 2</em> during their show</a><i style="font-size: 10pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">...but I'm not sure I buy that it was actually an accident, you know? And even if it was, it certainly didn't hurt the official reveal of the game. The </span><i style="font-size: 10pt;">Dishonored</i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> series, you'll recall, is developed by Arkane Studios, who previously gave us </span><i style="font-size: 10pt;">Arx Fatalis</i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> (which game was nearly called </span><i style="font-size: 10pt;">Ultima Underworld 3</i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">). Harvey Smith, one of the studio heads at Arkane, is also a former Origin Systems guy; he was the QA Lead on </span><i style="font-size: 10pt;">Ultima 8</i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, and was </span><a href="http://ultimacodex.com/interviews/oh-no-not-moonglow-again-an-interview-with-mike-mcshaffry/" style="font-size: 10pt;">instrumental in the development and release</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> of the massive patch for that game which (among other things) corrected issues with the jumping mechanic.</span></p><p><s></s></p>
