It’s that time of year again. E3 is this week, and with it will come the best and most exciting video game announcements, trailers, demos, and releases for the upcoming year. Many companies benchmark their entire remainder of the year on this show, making or breaking 2015 before it even finishes. Rampant speculation fuels the show year in and year out, and this year is no exception: a few days out of the show and there have already been announcements and rumors flying. But if I could have things 100% my way, we’d be gearing up to hear the following ten announcements at E3 2015.

10. Capcom dispels rumors of Street Fighter’s Ryu being in the new Smash Bros.: It’s actually Breath of Fire’s Ryu

Throwing a complete curve ball and squashing any hope for hardcore fighting fans, Capcom announces that Ryu is indeed coming to Nintendo’s mascot-driven brawler, but not the Street Fighter alum. Instead, the main protagonist from Capcom’s seemingly forgotten Breath of Fire RPG series will pick up the challenge. This character reveal comes alongside the much anticipated next installment in the RPG series, set to release on PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U this holiday season!

9. Konami goes to Kickstarter to try to save Konami

After seeing the success of old franchises oft-forgotten like Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9 and the recent success of past-Konami employee Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Konami has decided it’s made too many mistakes and needs crowdfunding to get back on its feet. They reach out to the fans to save the future of beloved series’ like Dance Dance Revolution, the classic arcade style of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, and the waning popularity of the Shoot-em Up genre. But the Japanese company still will part ways with Hideo Kojima, confident the developer will make even better games on his own somewhere else.

8. Retro Studios secret new project is Bubsy the Cat

Rather than take another existing Nintendo franchise and beef it up with awesome visuals, new gameplay mechanics, and some of the best controls of this generation, Retro Studios is instead taking a well forgotten franchise and giving it the second try treatment. After a failed attempt at a 3D game on the PlayStation 1, Retro hopes this new Wii U exclusive will launch the bobcat into stardom with the likes of Mario and Sonic (which was always the intention). Featuring wall climbing, collectible yarn balls, and plenty of sassy commentary, Bubsy Wii U will bring the sarcastic animal to a whole new generation! What could possibly go wrong?

7. Nintendo does announce the NX: It’s a cellphone

What fools we’ve been. Of course Nintendo wouldn’t release their IPs on a competitor’s console, so why would they release them on a competitor’s mobile device? The partnership with mobile company DeNA wasn’t to make quality Mario games on iPhones and Android devices: it was a means for Nintendo to enter the mobile market with a phone of their own! The Nintendo NX is a touch enabled flip phone capable of recreating full Nintendo 3DS games thanks to it’s two screens, while bringing new gameplay mechanics to the medium thanks to the mobile nature. Social integration is easy thanks to a 4G or Wi-Fi connection, allowing you to update your games, make microtransactions, post to social media, and, last but not least, make calls. You can even set your phone’s background image and sound set to be Zelda themed without having to compromise your warranty!

6. Fallout 4 is a MOBA

Instead of letting players explore the vast, mostly dead but still more colorful landscapes of post-apocalyptic Boston, Bethesda’s Fallout 4 will instead focus on team-based combat in the vein of increasingly popular games like League of Legends and DOTA 2. Players can choose a variety of classes, including the well-rounded Vault Dweller, the beefy but slow Super Mutant, the highly skilled Brotherhood Member, and thanks to a special guest appearance the kind of annoying Three Dog! The MOBA has dozens of settings throughout the Boston area, most of which were seen in the previously released trailer, and thanks to Bethesda’s past success with the Elder Scrolls games, an intricate and robust level and skill system will make each player’s character unique! Expect the game to be out on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and iOS and Android devices by Q1 2016!

5. Nintendo releasing a card battle game featuring all of its famous characters

Seeing the success of Blizzard’s HearthStone series, Nintendo decided to make its own card battle game with Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and the rest of its storied catalog of famous faces! Already having a solid setup thanks to the decades of success with the Pokemon Trading Card game, this new game seems like the Super Smash Bros. of card games! Player’s can collect, trade, and battle with a variety of card types and strategies on the Wii U, 3DS, and upcoming NX upon release. Best of all, the game will sync between consoles, something Nintendo said, “We should have done a long time ago!”

4. Sony and Microsoft jump onto the Amiibo train, release just 2 copies of each figure to create demand

First there were Skylanders, then there was Disney Infinity, now there are Amiibo, and soon there will be PlayStation Pals and Xbox Buddies to add to your growing collection of tiny video game toys. Enamored by Nintendo’s success and rampant supply and demand issues, Sony has decided to create NFC versions of some of it’s most famous characters, including LittleBigPlanet’s Sackboy and the Thievius Raccoonus himself Sly Cooper. Sony’s figures will interact with their respective games, unlocking bonus skins, levels, and in some game’s exclusive story modes! Microsoft didn’t detail their figures yet, but stated they will cost $24.99 at retail, and are targeting a more mature audience with support from developers and games like Halo and Call of Duty.

3. Microsoft is bringing back ClayFighter

After the success of the revitalized Killer Instinct exclusive to the Xbox One, Microsoft has decided that the next franchise to bring back from the grave should also be a fighter. a CLAYFIGHTER! Last seen on the Nintendo 64, ClayFighter was a fun spin on the fighting genre, not taking itself too seriously and offering a wide assortment of bizarre and funny characters. This new game will offer familiar faces and new ones as well, destructable environments, tag team fighting, super meters and super combos, and a spin on Mortal Kombat’s finishing moves! Promising to be the next big fighting game, ClayFighter is due out this holiday season!

2. Square Enix can’t handle the pressure of making both Kingdom Hearts series and Final Fantasy series; decides to combine them into one

The Kingdom Hearts series already features many Final Fantasy characters as protagonists, so it actually kind of makes sense that the games are merging. Perhaps we should have seen this coming, too: it explains why there has been so much work on the new Final Fantasy games, but nothing new for Kingdom Hearts for years. The new series called Final Fantasy: Hearts will feature a rotating cast of main protagonists, with the first game in the new series featuring Sora, and will often venture to Disney inspired areas as well as completely original lands and locales. Square Enix hopes this will satiate the fan base clamoring for a new release every month. Series director Tetsuya Nomura has stated this is what he originally intended Kingdom Hearts to be, and he hopes fans will like it!

1. Power Stone 3

Having teased the game a scant here and there the past decade, Capcom finally unveils the one game we’ve all been wanting: Power Stone 3! With the recent partnership with Nintendo going smoothly thanks to the aforementioned Super Smash Bros. DLC, this new multiplayer brawler will be exclusive to the Wii U! It will return the favor as well, and feature a couple of Mario characters as combatants as well, with the portly plumber himself and Legend of Zelda’s Link as a playable character as well. Capcom says they were looking for the right audience and right time to release this new game in the fan favorite series, and with the upcoming Street Fighter V sure to please the hardcore fans, and Smash Bros. creating an audience on the Wii U, apparently 2015 is the time! Powerful!

Laters,
Jsick