Link's Awakening shown off at E3 Nintendo Direct, reveals dungeon creator
This game looks absolutely incredible on every level.
Put your nostalgia goggles on full blast: As part of the E3 schedule, Nintendo showed off more footage of the upcoming Link's Awakening at the E3 Nintendo Switch and I'm sorry, but it looks glorious.
As someone who played and adored the original Link's Awakening on the original Nintendo Game Boy, this looks like a faithful rework on every possible level. It retains the charm of the original but the new art style looks to elevate it into something truly special in its own right.
I cannot wait to play this video game all over again.
Perhaps the most newsworthy part: Link's Awakening has some sort of new "dungeon creator" that looks like it allows players to design their own dungeons seamlessly. Looks like it could provide a lot of replay value to those who blast through the main quest quickly.
The game is set for release Sept 20 2019.
E3
press conferences
Saturday, June 8
- Electronic Arts -- The game maker showed off 15 minutes of gameplay for its upcoming adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It also announced new features for its free-to-download Apex Legends last-man-standing battle royale game, offering a new character and weapon to play with. The company also showed off a new paid update for The Sims 4, called Island Living, that brings the series to a tropical beach. Finally, the company did discuss drama over the mixed reviews for its Anthem action adventure game, saying it "learned a lot" and had more updates and features planned soon.
Sunday, June 9
- Microsoft / Xbox -- The gaming giant's biggest news was Project Scarlett, its next-generation Xbox, coming in 2020. The new device is up to 4x more powerful, the company said, and like the next-gen PlayStation it'll include a fast non-mechanical SSD hard drive, and it'll be powered by custom innards built with the help of chipmaker AMD. The company also announced that Halo Infinite will launch alongside Project Scarlett next year. Meantime,
Microsoft
is starting public tests of its Project xCloud streaming service in October, promising people the ability to play high end games on their mobile devices while away from home. While fans wait, Microsoft announced an update to its Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 as well as a slew of new games. And action star Keanu Reeves, fresh off the success of John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, was on stage to announce his involvement with Cyberpunk 2077, which is coming next year.
- Bethesda -- Bethesda kicked off its event with humility over the mixed response to Fallout 76, but quickly went back on the offensive. Fallout 76 got a new Battle Royale mode, Wolfenstein Youngblood received a new trailer and a co-op mode. We got a new game called Deathloop from the clever folks behind Dishonored and Bethesda introduced us to Orion, a piece of tech from ID Software designed to make game streaming better on services like Google Stadia. The lion's share of attention, however, went to Doom Eternal, which looked fantastic in both single player and multiplayer.
Monday, June 10
- PC Gaming Show -- This annual PC Gaming Show is held at a theater a short walk from the Los Angeles Convention Center, but still draws a large crowd, filling the 1,700-person capacity Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Inside, the usual suspects, from Halo to Doom, were nowhere to be found. Instead, the crowd cheered for PC-centric games including Zombie Army 4, Baldur's Gate 3 and Terraria: Journey's End. (No, the game sequel problem isn't any better on PCs.) The highlight was a brief on-stage appearance by legendary game designer Yu Suzuki, responsible for classic such as Hang-On and Virtua Fighter. His long-awaited Shenmue 3 is expected in November, 18 years after Shenmue 2.
- Ubisoft -- The French
gaming
giant announced its next big dystopian hacking adventure game, Watch Dogs: Legion, launching March 2020. The new game is set in near-future post-Brexit London, where the economy is failing and government is breaking down. The company also announced a new television show, called Mythic Quest, that will launch on Apple TV Plus. And it celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Just Dance party games.
- Square Enix -- This was a huge franchise fair. The press conference started out with juicy details on Final Fantasy VII Remake, namely that it'll be a two-part game. The first part, an entire Blu-Ray disc, will be devoted to exploring Midgar. After a flurry of trailers and an in-depth look at Final Fantas XIV: Shadowbringers, we then got the main event unveil: Marvel's Avengers.
Tuesday, June 11
- Nintendo (livestream only) -- 9 a.m. PT (noon ET)
We're there
CNET will be on the ground, covering covering E3 2019 alongside our sister site, Gamespot. We'll update this page throughout the show as more games are announced.