Best of E3 2015

The best included the Mad Max Magnum Opus truck, PlayStation’s immense dual-tier Project Morpheus area and EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront zone where attendees could have their photos snapped with Storm Troopers before exploring the recreated icy lands of the Hoth.

Konami wowed Metal Gear fans by creating a real-life Mother Base complete with parachuting sheep and live demonstrations of Metal Gear V: The Phantom Pain. Bethesda built up hype for Dishonored 2 and Fallout 4 with large-scale robots and models in a museum-like display.

One of the busiest booths was Atlus’ niche PlayStation VITA rhythm-action game Persona 4: Dancing All Night, where visitors would awkwardly bust a move under the disco lights – perhaps this had something to do with the stage’s position by the entry, the free T-shirts and that it was advertised in the passes handed out at reception… Smart move.

Hosted by Square Enix, Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Sony and main-stage newcomers Bethesda with the industry’s top journalists primed and ready to live-tweet the latest gaming announcements.

These were no disappointment, with the perfect mix of shock announcements and main-stage controversies - did Sony crash that Uncharted 4 demo on purpose? Was that Microsoft HoloLens demo really true to life? Did Nintendo purposefully play down the Wii U to make way for codename NX?

Our five top announcements

1. Surprise resurrections of Shenmue 3 and Japan Studio’s The Last Guardian had the crowd erupting into applause and received a standing ovation.
2. Microsoft announced backwards compatibility for the Xbox One – don’t throw out your old Xbox 360 games!
3. Guerrilla Games unveiled new action-RPG IP Horizon: Zero Dawn, which blends a tribeswoman protagonist with mechanical dinosaur enemies – crazy!
4. Minecraft is now officially a HoloLens game, using voice and gesture commands to build an AR pixel-y world.
5. Sony and Square Enix unveiled Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation 4 – a complete rework from the ground-up. Cloud Strife is officially back.

Some may say Sony “won” this year’s E3 2015, others may crown Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Zero Dawn “Best in Show” – we just say, bring on E3 2016.