I have been to most of the various press conferences at E3 over the years (thanks for nothing Sony), but the Ubisoft conference this year was definitely the best one I have been to yet. Right out of the gates they surprised me and it kept getting better. As with the Xbox conference I am not going to recap it because it was streaming and you can see videos and will instead just give my impressions.

First and foremost, they started out with the new South Park game Fractured but Whole. The trailer looked awesome and then they almost killed me outright when Aisha Tyler brought out Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Three of my favorite people on stage talking about a game I wanted to happen but never thought it would. Fractured but Whole continues to follow the New Kid in an RPG adventure but rather than mining the same fantasy conventions that Stick of Truth did, this time we are getting a super hero adventure which means teaming up with the Coon. I don’t even really know what else to say. This is awesome beyond words. Matt Stone described the story as getting deep in the new kid’s butthole. Hell yeah.

Next up we were treated to footage from a new game, For Honor, that again I had never heard of but looks pretty awesome. It is tactical battlefield combat in which you take charge of a warrior and fight along side common troops and other player controlled heroes in melee combat. What we were shown was four on four multi-player in which teams are fighting for control of territory that you have to occupy to gather points. There are common soldiers to fight through which looks like a Dynasty Warriors sort of game but when two players face off it almost looks like a one on one fighting game with deep and strategic fighting. The game is playable on the show floor so I will definitely try to get hands on with that when I have my appointment with Ubisoft. This one is easily my top priority. Unless there is something for South Park because I want that right this instant.

We were treated to more of the Division which continues to look sweet although it looks roughly the same as last year. The specific mode they showed us this time was ‘the Dark Zone’ which puts multiple character squads into an environment with AI enemies all scavenging for supplies. This looked pretty cool as you can communicate with your people and not necessarily other player teams. You can team up with them to take down AI enemies and share loot or you can take them out to steal the stuff they have already gotten. If you die before evac you lose it all so there are risks in engaging when you don’t need to. The demo showed a player squad team up with another squad of players to take out AI enemies and then double cross the other squad while waiting for evac. This was a total dick move but not nearly as much as when the third member of the double crossing squad dropped out of the squad and killed the other two to take everyone’s loot and then run off. Super dick move but it really demonstrates just how cut throat this game can be and that sounds pretty awesome to me. Given that I tend not to like to double cross people, I foresee myself getting ganked a whole bunch.

Okay so I am not a fan of Just Dance but they brought out Jason Derulo, who I am also not really a fan of, but it was a pretty cool presentation anyway and if I had the ability to dance I might be more interested in this. Apparently the next iteration of Just Dance will not require a camera for you system and you can use your cell phone’s camera instead. So it has that going for it, which is nice.

Next up they showed the Terror Hunt mode of Rainbow Six Siege which was made all the more awesome by Angela Bassett coming out to talk about her role in the game. It is amazing she is in the game and it was amazing to see her live on stage. Her appearance was followed by a live gameplay demo of Terror Hunt with five person co-op. There is the option to do it solo with AI companions if you don’t have any friends but this looks like it will be a lot of fun to play with buddies.

The game play reminded me of a deeper version of Payday 2 with the pre-mission prep and the need for coordinated attacks and tactics. There is a lot of cool stuff to use here including drones that can disable bombs and destructable environments that allow teams to see opponents through holes made in walls and doors. This is a one shot deal so if you die you die. Teammates can revive you when you go down but you retain damage and you can’t just be a bullet sponge and expect to be revived each time. This makes the stakes a bit higher and increases the importance of proper tactics and coordination. Rainbow Six Siege is playable on the show floor and I defintiely want to get my hands on it. There will be beta September 9^th this year on all platforms so that is sweet.

As expected, we were shown footage from Assassin’s Creed Syndicate an as expected it looked pretty cool. I am pretty excited about this one because Industrial Revolution era London is inherently badass. The gameplay look we go was cool looking but I am going to reserve judgement until I get my hands on this one. Assassin’s Creed games have a tendency to either be the coolest games I have ever played to the far opposite end of the spectrum. I didn’t have issues with Unity really but it never grabbed me. It might just be because of how obsessed I was with AC4 but this one looks promising. We will see how it goes with the hands on.

The show closed out with a pretty awesome surprise in the form of a new Ghost Recon game that looks like it is open world drug cartel action. The trailer looked cool and it looks like it offers a lot of gameplay styles and options but not a lot was really revealed as it was the last thing showed at the conference. Hopefully there will be more at the booth.

Overall Ubisoft had a great line up of games and I am pretty excited for these things to come out. I was kind of surprised that no new Far Cry offering was announced but what we were shown looked awesome and it is probably good not to over do it with Far Cry. I am so very excited about South Park and For Honor looks great. It is pretty awesome walking out of a conference being this excited about things you didn’t know existed prior on top of things that looked cool before hand. I don’t want to oversell it here but I am really excited about Ubisoft’s line up this year. If you need anymore evidence as to why this was a great show I give you this bundle of awesome:

 

And here is some South Park for your ass: