A somewhat confounding theme park setting aside – trust us, you had to be there – Bethesda’s E3 2017 showcase didn’t carry an abundance of earth-trembling shocks last month. Among the most welcome attendees, though, were the Wolfenstein and The Evil Within franchises, both of which earned themselves sequel announcements from the studio.
At the time the publishers confirmed the respectively Machine Games and Tango Gameworks-developed series would return to Xbox One, PS4 and PC. However, with the former hardware’s ‘console family’ expanding to include the Xbox One X at E3 too, Microsoft shifted the pieces on the industry’s chessboard for every publisher, Bethesda included…
Takeaways:
- Enter the newly-announced Xbox One X versions of both MachineGames’ fantasy FPS follow-up Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Tango’s chilling third-person survival The Evil Within 2, which owners of the upgraded One console can witness via High Dynamic Range (HDR) graphics and a healthy 1080p 4K resolution.
- The two upcoming productions join heaps of other titles set to launch both on the original One and in a technologically ‘enhanced’ form on the X, including past hits like Battlefield 1 and Dishonored 2 as well as many of 2017’s most-anticipated remaining AAA releases such as Assassin’s Creed: Origins and Need for Speed: Payback.
- As to what players can expect from Bethesda’s partner studios, details are slim beyond the trailers below, but The New Colossus will likely pick up where 2014’s New Order left off, with wearied warrior B.J. leading the Resistance through further Nazi turmoil, whereas Evil Within 2 will almost certainly test how much psychological torment anyone brave enough to try its campaign can endure.
Naturally such news won’t appease those Bethesda fans still reeling from the near-complete absence of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series from their E3 agenda, yet both underdog licences aren’t doing themselves any critical harm right now, with The New Order reaping a healthy 80% Metacritic score and 2014’s original Evil Within falling just behind at 72%.
But regardless of whether you’re a hardcore fan of these two franchises or haven’t heard of them until today, rest assured we’ll continue to bring you all the newsworthy updates on both projects’ development right up until The Evil Within 2’s October 13th debut on Xbox One, its X counterpart, PC and PS4 and The New Colossus’ launch two weeks later on October 27th.