Poll: Did E3 2021 Suck?

Yes it did..... Hard

It was the worst E3 I've ever seen and maybe it's time to say goodbye for good

No. Nintendo and Xbox saved it from being bad. It wasn’t great, but it’s not the worst it’s been either.

@nessisonett When has it been worse?

Meh, I liked what Nintendo had to show and River City Girls 2. Capcom should have sat that one out as it was basically pointless for them.

Yes apart from Nintendo it was a dreadful waste of time 😑

The only good announcements to me were: Elden Ring, Mario+Rabbits, STALKER 2, Stranger of Paradise, and Advance Wars Remake. For someone like me who normally gets interested in a ton of games after each E3, this was pathetic.

All E3 did was lock the stream down and put E3 at the beginning of everything. I much prefer the idea of a festival type event, funded by advertising and let the developers/publishers show what they want for free. Who says no to free?

@LiamCroft @nessisonett "When has it (E3) been worse?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfzThMe7bBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5zeIMoEr8
And quite a few more, but I know you lot are busy.
You're welcome.

It was really bad but Xbox and Nintendo fans will suggest otherwise as well as accuse us of being 'salty'.

If the third party developers had performed better it may have been okay.

Xbox had the best show but it was still merely alright, Nintendo's was definitely preaching to the choir. If you weren't already a fan of theirs before the show I doubt your position would've changed come the end of it.

Sony may return next year, the coming slate of games over the next few years may demand their presence but should they continue to sit it out I really wouldn't blame them.

This E3 wasn't very good. However, I would still say that it was better than E3 2006. Still, there was pretty much nothing of value except for Microsoft and Nintendo.

@LiamCroft E3 2019 was absolutely worse. Especially when you look back at that Cyberpunk footage and see that it was all a big lie.

Jeez what's with all the negativity? It was what it was. Blame the publishers that didn't up to their gaming convention. Don't blame the publishers that did. Certain publishers came and did fantastic (Ubisoft, Xbox, Nintendo, Wholesome direct) while others did more panel discussions and longer game reveals. The only thing that sucks is all the whining about it. We need to put the gaming industry in balance. People expect WAY too much. People don't blow their minds every year at other industries conventions. This is commonplace across all industries. Stop looking up rumors and spoilers and leaks and appreciate we are getting the information from the source. Can't stand all the doom and gloom when we are talking about GAMES. It's a fun HOBBY.

@ObeseChihuahua2 2006 was also an awful year, especially for Sony. An absolute catastrophe of memeable content.

@Col_McCafferty No. As much as Nintendo Life forum users enjoyed Nintendo and kinda Xbox's E3 conference, we all hated E3 2021, so please don't generalize.

I still enjoy the flurry of new announcements and the excitement of E3 even if it wasn’t as special as previous years.

@Turismo4GT I get where you're coming from — there have been "worse" moments for sure. Like Konami's infamous E3 press conference and the countless Xbox conferences where we had to sit through the horrific Kinect demos.

BUT at least those events had talking points. They were dreadful, but we could laugh about them because they were so bad. This E3 was particularly terrible because it was so boring and unnecessary. It felt like almost every show was a waste of time.

The word 'suck' is so American. This is a British site. The article headline should be - Was E3 2021 sh*te?

E3 was awful this year. Only good conferences was Xbox and Nintendo, but even with those, you have to really be a fan of them or their studios or games.

Everything else sucked.

Except the indie and intellivision showcases, those weren't bad.

@ApostateMage as an american, I love that word.

It was better than the 2020 one!

You have to view it in context. Both Microsoft and Nintendo promised releases this year. I don’t think Playstation needed to be there, but it does have to eventually show stuff so we desire a PS5 or want to keep our PS4’s plugged in.

Because recently I haven’t been bothered about either.

@ApostateMage "E3 2021: The dogs bollocks or just bollocks?"

As a huge action RPG fan, no. It was pretty darn awesome.

Remember that one year Konami announced a press conference, and they never showed up? 2015 or 2016, what a weird bunch.

It was horrible.when sony its not there its not good.but man😳capcom e3 was dissapointing.no dragon dogma 2.word up son

E3 2021 was more pointless than anything. Hard to say I was disappointed when I wasn't anticipating much.

@ApostateMage. Because they have a lot of 🇺🇸 Americans on this site😏. Like myself.simple as that playa.word up son

@ShogunRok Point taken. My overall feelings, like many others here, is that E3 in it's current form is no longer necessary. Kinda feels like the companies that took part in it had money burning a hole in their pockets and decided to prop up the ESA to 'keep the tradition alive'.

MS was good, Fora Horizon 5 was the stand out looked good fun and the environment is really detailed. Not surprising that DF were praising it so much. Do like Flight Simulator. While Nintendo is not really my cup of tea they showed a lot of games coming this year and ones a lot people are looking forward to so they were good to.

From what Ninja Theory just said and showed looks like Hellblade 2 is way off, said the main actress has been training for 2 years for the combat!

No Wind Waker HD for Switch = whole show sucking and worthless.

I mean it wasn't really that good. If you want to have a good laugh I recommend watching the Kinda Funny and Easy Allies reactions to the Koch Media and Gearbox conferences. They were hilarious.

I did enjoy Square Enix until Chaos, Nintendo was alright but nothing in their I will really play except Hyrule and Shin Megami Tensei. Maybe Metroid. I was hoping for a Fire Emblem Tease at least lol.

Gearbox, Bandai Namco, Koch and Capcom shouldn't have had a conference at all.

Devolver can do whatever they want lol. Ubisoft did well showing off new games and updates to current games.

Elden Ring was the best thing out of the show.
Nintendo's I kinda ruined for myself by hoping for a Switch Pro + Bayonetta 3 announcement or BotW 2 to be out this year...

From Square Enix I was hoping for Tomb Raider, FFXVI, Forspoken... and none of that turned up. Guardians looked good but maybe not great gameplay-wise.

Microsoft had a good showing tbh but I obviously can't get hyped for stuff the PS isn't getting.

E3 sucked and Nintendo had the best show by far, but was still kinda "Meh". People say Xbox was great but I think it was overblown. They learned from Sony by doing the game-after-game reveal which was good strategy, but the game reveals were "meh". Very little gameplay and when there was, then just guns guns guns and dull color palettes.

@Turismo4GT 100% agree.

Feels like an obligation rather than a time to celebrate. If everyone didn't have sideshows and showcases of their own then it would have probably been a lot better and more focused. I think Nintendo and Xbox did best out of all of them but of course they did. Capcom talked about games already out for goodness sake! Where were all the rumoured games?! Elden Ring stole the show

Isn't this just the same article as before but slightly different?

@playstation1995 You're from New York, the accent there is the best of America. Word up son.

It only sucked for devoted Sony fans. Xbox Series X owners (well even last gen MS too) are laughing all the way to games heaven.

Love how this site didn't give an option for Sony as the company who had the worst E3. The fact Sony weren't there was their choice.

@InvaderJim
In the Microsoft showcase, I completely agree. Forza Horizon 5 looked fantastic! Maybe it’s because it was one of the only games to actually have gameplay. Outside of that, the only thing that interested me was Elden Ring.

@Porkman85
I’m not sure what you’re getting on about. I think The Outer Worlds 2 trailer succinctly summed up Microsoft’s presentation.

Meanwhile, Sony has actually released games for its systems.

After a horrible year honestly I’m surprised they have something to show except Capcom they really had nothing

@lacerz Did Sony have a worse E3 than MS? Since they didn't even bother to show up, it's a pretty conclusive yes.

I'm a PS5 owner and don't have an Xbox of any generation, but I'm objective enough to say it as it is.

Why is Push Square so negative when it comes to E3?
We are still in a global pandemic and after the Cyber Punk fiasco I am sure devs/ publishers aren't rushing to make outlandish claims for upcoming games.

Everyone did their best and I expect some really exciting things for next year.

Nintendo was definitely my favourite. Lots of games that are actually on the horizon, including a brand new metroid game.

I got all I wanted: News on BotW2

Overall, yes it did but Nintendo did great and were focused on the near future for once. People singing Xbox praise but they mostly had cgi, including a cgi trailer to announce they had nothing to announce about a sequel that surprised no one. Xbox needs to be careful revealing games so early or they'll end up the house of vaporware.

With the exception of Elden Ring, it sucked for Playstation. It was good for Xbox though.

Still not seeing why everyone liked the Nintendo showing. They're continuing to strip mine their past. Re-releasing ancient games that weren't that great to begin with. They even dug up the rotted corpse of a cancelled game because they have absolutely nothing new to show.

I thought xbox put on a great show and Nintendo's wasnt bad either. From a Sony point of view it was obviously a non event but dont think this was the worst year at all

What a ridiculous headline.
Has the writer just left preschool?
I thought this was supposed to be a serious games website?
Did E3 suck….
Give me strength

@Col_McCafferty I love that opening prophecy cause it shows how little self-awareness you have.

Still waiting to see any of that happen in this comment section...outside of your own comment of course lol 😉

It was really really bad. Don't care about Elden Ring, so there was no massive AAA announcement that mattered to me

How is no one talking about how fantastic Take2’s game presentation was?

@clvr Maybe not on this site but on PushSquare's sister sites for sure.

E3 2021 was the suckiest suck that ever sucked.

@ApostateMage. Haha. No doubt playa.haha cheers.good times.sanford and sons.married with children.the Jeffersons.saved by the bell.in living color.threes company.different strokes.the wayans brothers.😄word up son

Nintendo aside it was pretty awful and just more reason they should end E3 as its just a waste of time now. At least Nintendo was pretty great though, loads of games i liked the look off and want and of course footage of BotW2 what is now my most hyped game.

It is E3, something YouTube made irrelevant. Not to mention anything that looked cool is still years off.

I imagine if you only play PS, it probably sucked. If you play PS and Switch, it was probably okay if you love BotW or Metroid. I imagine most people that play on Xbox thought there was some good stuff in that conference.

No SONY and PlayStation = ZERO EXCITEMENT :-/ It was BORING again this year then.

@nessisonett And don't even get me started on 2013. Although technically, it was the XBox One reveal that caused Microsoft's reputation to go south, and not E3 itself.

I only watched the Nintendo presentation (and then saw snippets of the rest, or heard about them) so my perspective on this E3 is obviously very limited and I'm not voting on the overall category.

I did like the Nintendo showcase, though - quite better than I expected.

I’m not sure about sucked, but it was very underwhelming. Games I was interested in were few and far between.

It's takes a lot of effort for devs to get prepared for E3 and sometimes it even causes crunch. I'd rather they could keep their development schedule and run their advertising campaign how they want rather than crunch to meet some arbitrary deadline in June (usually just to be drowned out by bigger announcements).

@Loftimus I think that’s what Geoff Keighley is trying to do with Summer Games Fest.

@ApostateMage yeah that or “Was E3 2021 utter bollocks?”

(Edit - bollocks is in the dictionary so I assume my comment isn’t offensive?! Lol)

It wasn’t the worst E3.. as others have said Nintendo and Microsoft had great presentations. By all means, this should have been the worst one with companies having endured the pandemic and no hardware expected to be shown ( I did not believe Switch pro would be shown, despite the rumors. Nintendo made it clear it was focusing on software, and when was the last time it showed new hardware at e3?)

If you're a Sony-only fan I guess this E3 was pretty terrible. But if you're a Sony-only fan, pretty much every E3 is going to be terrible. Sony refuses to participate, for some bizarre reason, while giving their competitors a megaphone. The third party publishers didn't do much of anything that would placate a Sony-only fan. That's not E3's fault. That's Sony not participating. And yes, Take Two, Bamco, and Warner really did badly pretending they had a showcase when they didn't. Capcom put on a quality show, even Gearbox put on a quality show, even if they either only covered things we knew about or in Gearbox's case, spent half on a movie, and the rest on what little Gearbox actually does have.

But the bias on the Blue site is going to be extreme. E3 isn't an event for Sony fans anymore. It's just not. And that's a shame. But Sony made that decision years ago. If you're a Nintendo fan, it was a pretty good event. If you're an Xbox fan it was a very good event. If you're a PC gamer, there was a decent amount of quality content. If you're a Sony fan, there's not much of an event. And if you're a fan of multiple platforms, it was pretty good, if not exactly 2014. This was quite a bit better than 2019.

As a fan of all the platforms, I tremendously enjoy E3, including this year's abbreviated show. I feel the vacuum of Sony and miss their presence. I'm not mad at E3 for continuing without them. I'm mad at Sony for abandoning an event that used to shine a bright light on them, and still could if they weren't led by cheap, stubborn, short-sighted fools.

a lame e3 indeed

Honestly i got what i wanted, smt 5 gameplay lmao
(and some farcry 6 stuff too)

Overall it sucked. I enjoyed Nintendo’s Direct, but it just did not seem like E3 was worth the effort overall. Too many shows simply seemed to exist for the sake of existing. If they don’t have anything worth showing off, don’t bother.

On top of that, I still do not understand how publishers don’t get the format right. Use the show itself to introduce games and save in depth stuff and interviews for post show content. I’d rather have something short and sweet instead of a bloated show trying to fill a time slot. Also know the audience of who actually watches these shows. Some games might be better off being discussed elsewhere.

EA doing their own thing next month is probably the right idea.

Nintendo I thought had the strongest E3 they've had in a long time, Xbox games were a decent way into the future but the future looks healthy

Sony will have the strongest E3 once Abandoned is confirmed to be Silent Hill

Only for Sony fans

You didn't have Take 2 on the worst poll. That was the worst by far. At least all the other companies announced a game.

@RubyCarbuncle Yep, any time you see CGI only you can bet it's at least few years off, if you see it at all.

At least with Square Enix we got GotG and a demo lol

Look.

Did it suck? Yes

Was Metroid Dread and SMT V more than enough to make up for it? YES.

I mainly watch for the Nintendo announcements these days, so I was pretty happy with it. I can think of several years where E3 came and went and I was left feeling vaguely unsatisfied. This wasn't one of those years.

It was bad. I am so over trailers and teasers for games with release dates more than 6-9 months out.

Looks like Sony was right to skip out this year. Their hands are clean of the hot mess that was this expo. It's like the people organizing it forgot what they were supposed to be there for. Games. Next year it should just be presentations from Microsoft and Nintendo and the publishers can just put their games in there too.

Hi there fellow gamers.
While I don´t think E3 sucked, it was kinda lame.
One of the biggest anouncements happen before E3 even started.
I mean, nothing beats Elden Ring 😉
And has for the event itself, there were quite a few duds.
At least Nintendo delivered some goodies, like Metroid Dread, Advance Wars Re-Boot and BOTW2.
And Forza Horizon 5 looked absolutely fantastic.
Oh, and what was that Atomic Heart trailer? Wicked stuff.
Cheers, stay safe good people and happy gaming to us all

@TheFrenchiestFry Hmm, not really unless you own a Switch. I don't and never will. I did do a double take watching the SMTV footage as I was sure I had seen the same enemies from another game but I think you or someone else explained that they shared these demons with the Persona series.

Look, if you're someone with enough money, time and space to own multiple platforms then good for you but I suspect most people don't. It's simpler to pick one and play exclusively on that hence why an E3 without Sony is going to be seen as a bit dull to PS fans.

I'm sure if Nintendo weren't there or Xbox missed it that fans of those platforms wouldn't be too upbeat about E3 either.

If the third party developers had put on great shows then maybe it would've passed muster but they didn't and so this year E3 offered very little indeed to PS owners.

The next few years promise to see a huge number of anticipated games so I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Sony were to return to E3. Of course they'll get pelters whatever they decide to do, for some reason they are slagged off more than either of the other platforms amongst the media and so-called gaming community and I'm not sure why.

Is it because they release so many great games? Because they had such a great time with the PS4? It's likely the Switch will end up outselling the PS4 anyway, maybe once it has people will start giving Nintendo some grief. I doubt it but I remain hopeful.

@nessisonett I agree there have been worse moments, don mattrick for example,but as whole this year was total garbage

I remember when you use to get demos after e3, what happened to that

It was so bad I didn't even bother to watch it live (only watched highlights for relevant new information) and I useally watch it live every year without fail, that really does say something about how I feel

I was too busy enjoying Ratchet and Clank to notice it was even happening. Metroid 5 and Advance Wars reboot will be amazing though, very excited for them and Elden Ring of course.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Sony released a big title over the E3 weekend. Honestly, I'd much rather get a quality game to play while all the posturing goes on than sit through a bunch of CG trailers for games two years away then check out the highlights later on.

@huyi The only one worth watching live imo was the Nintendo Direct

Xbox had some cool stuff but the Direct was a goddamn experience

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone thought Nintendo had a good show. Was it that bland as hell looking Metroid game? Wario Ware? Advance Wars? Both look like games you'd find on google play. The 20 seconds of BOTW2? Fair enough, that is highly anticipated. Still, wasn't all that much. They could show up with a cup and ball on a string and people would lose their minds, I just don't get it🤨

@Ichiban Metroid looks awesome, Advance Wars 1 & 2 are brilliant titles and the series is back after 11 years. Equating it and WarioWare to mere google play shovelware shows your complete ignorance of both series.

I gotta go. My damn wiener kids are listening.

This is why Sony quit it. They saw the writing on the wall.

E3 is dead. The internet, social media and companies doing their own showcases has killed it.
I remember I used to get so excited for E3 to see what games were coming and new consoles but now we know about these things from online leaks and other sources so it kills the excitement.
Also showing a trailer for a game that's 2 years away isn't of interest to me either. Sad really as it was once the highlight of the year for gamers. Man I feel old.

As a multiplatform gamer it was ok. Xbox has a good future ahead (FH5, Atomic Heart, ...). Even NS has some interesting games with Wario, Super Monkey Ball, Advance Wars, BotW2 and Metroid Dread. Considering we're still in a pandemic ... PS is not done either ...

Yes, very much so.

worst E3 to date. not even close. most conference was just bad, really bad, just few of them were mediocre at best.

Take-Two's E3 thing has to have been the worst. Not for the message itself, but for it being a case of "wrong place and time".

Third-parties conferences all were very bad.

Sony was not present at all, they skipped completely because probably they hadn't much to share at the moment. PS5 games are highly time consuming to develop and costs expensive, we have to deal with it.

Microsoft had something, yes, but nothing really surprising or at the horizon.

Nintendo won the show, because they were able to reveal many great new games that will be available this year. Metroid 5, Advance Wars, WarioWare, Cruis'n Blast and Shin Megami Tensei V are all very much anticipated games. And BOTW 2 is now 2022 confirmed.

I'm both Playstation and Nintendo long time fan, so when one of the two fail to surprise maybe the other (as in this case) can still make you happy

For me, it just felt like so many of the companies were at e3 because they felt like they had to be at e3 as opposed to have anything to share. Like Capcom just going over things already known about or mentioning that RE8 DLC is in the works but without any information on it. Plus, a common problem with a lot of gameplay videos and demos at e3 is that they are there to look the best possible as opposed to what they will look like at the end (ie. Watch Dog).

Like other people have said here, with the companies doing their own presentations (like nintendo's direct or sony's state of play) or even the ability to just announce on social media they will have a presentation on youtube, twitch, etc for people to watch and know that people will tune in, e3 is not as "needed" today as it was 10, 20, even 5 years ago.

Having said that, I know e3 is also when companies do a lot of meet and greets and deal making behind the scenes the public aren't privy too so I'm not sure how that part of e3 would be sublimated without it

I much prefer what Sony and Nintendo do: have digital presentations whenever they want to announce games or release new footage or information for previously announced titles.