It’s that time of year again, folks. E3 is upon us once more, and it has thus far proven to be chock-full of intriguing announcements from various parties. Considering I’ve done practically all of my gaming on PC for the past several years, I volunteered to cover this year’s PC Gaming Show because I think discussing this particular press conference is more my forte than, say, Microsoft’s conference might be.

With that in mind, it is my pleasure to present to you a roundup of the vast majority of announcements made during this year’s PC Gaming Show. Before we begin, however, I’d like to take a moment to explain how I’ve decided to structure this article. In the interest of both avoiding confusion and keeping this roundup as concise as possible, I’ll consolidate every announcement made by a company which appears more than once throughout the show into a single “section.”

For example, Sniper Elite developer Rebellion made announcements at two different points throughout the show; I’ll discuss them both in the same “section” rather than jumping back and forth based on which company appeared at each point in the conference. With all that out of the way, let’s begin.

The first revealed game during the conference was Rebellion’s Evil Genius 2: World Domination, the long-awaited sequel to 2004’s original Evil Genius. The game is slated for release in 2020, though not much else was said about it outside of its first teaser trailer. Evil Genius 2’s Steam store page describes the game as a “satirical spy-fi lair builder,” a sentiment which was made quite clear in the aforementioned trailer.

Later in the show, another title from Rebellion was shown, namely Zombie Army 4: Dead War. This title constitutes the newest entry in Rebellion’s Zombie Army series, which seems to take quite a bit of inspiration from Rebellion’s own Sniper Elite franchise. No specific release date was mentioned in the trailer or otherwise; the closest to such a date visible in the trailer indicates a release in 2020.

Next up, we were given more information on Paradox Interactive’s highly-anticipated title Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Specifically, we were given more insight about certain gameplay aspects, such as how the player character can manage to hide their status as a vampire from the public. For example, it was mentioned during this part of the show that vampires can “see” the emotional state of their potential victims and use that knowledge to their advantage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WwiMU2l9j8

The second game presented by Paradox during their appearance was what appears to be a 4X-style strategy game in the vein of certain titles within the Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise. The game in question is known as Age of Wonders: Planetfall. This new Age of Wonders title is currently slated for release on August 6th, 2019.

After Paradox said their peace, a well-known indie developer had their time in the limelight. Chucklefish, of Stardew Valley fame, introduced the next title they’re publishing. This game is known as Starmancer, and it appears to essentially be a colony-building simulator set in space, wherein you control a powerful artificial intelligence rather than any of the humans in your space colony. I personally picked up on a bit of possible influence from FTL present in Starmancer’s announcement trailer, but I’ll leave that up for discussion.

Next came an announcement from the newly-partnered studios Tripwire Interactive and Torn Banner. You might be familiar with the latter of those two because they’re responsible for the much-beloved medieval combat simulator known as Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

Indeed, the announcement made by the partnered studios demonstrated that there will soon be a sequel to Chivalry, entitled simply Chivalry 2. Torn Banner’s representative mentioned that the development team has completely revamped the combat system present in the original Chivalry in order to make it “much more accessible.” The game is slated for release in “early 2020,” and will be a (presumably) timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store.

Following that was an appearance by the indie developer Coffee Stain Studios, whom you might know from their well-known games such as Goat Simulator and the Sanctum franchise. Over the course of the show, Coffee Stain presented two games which differ heavily from one another.

The first game Coffee Stain presented is known as Midnight Ghost Hunt. Essentially, it appears to be what you would get if you took certain ideas from a Ghostbusters film and combined them with the popular Garry’s Mod game mode known as Prop Hunt. That description doesn’t entirely do the game justice, but its trailer seems to rectify that to some extent.

The second game presented by Coffee Stain goes by the title Songs of Conquest. The art style shown in the announcement trailer has led to Songs of Conquest being compared to the earlier titles in the Heroes of Might & Magic franchise. That idea seems to hold up based on the aspects of the game that were discussed during its initial presentation. According to the game’s website, the game is considered a “classic adventure strategy” game, during which players are tasked with building a kingdom and raising an army strong enough to conquer the kingdoms of enemy players.

The next announcement came from developer Ludomotion and publisher Big Sugar. The game in question is Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy. As you might have guessed, this title is a direct sequel to Ludomotion’s 2017 release Unexplored. The game’s website refers to Unexplored 2 as a “roguelite action-RPG,” and touts such features as a “unique legacy system” and “advanced procedural generation technology.”

Next came an appearance from representatives of Samsung, during which they announced the first of their new line of gaming monitors. The specific monitor detailed during Samsung’s presentation goes by the model number C27RG5. The monitor purportedly has a 240-Hz refresh rate, a 3000:1 contrast ratio, and compatibility with NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology.

This monitor, and presumably the others within the same line, are planned to hit the market in mid-July 2019; the specific 27-inch monitor demonstrated during the conference will cost “under $400,” but that’s the closest figure we currently have to an actual MSRP.

After Samsung’s presentation came an appearance from representatives of Funcom. They made three announcements over the course of their time onstage, the first of which was a DLC expansion for their title Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. The expansion goes by the name Mutant Year Zero: Seed of Evil, and it appears to add several new forms of content to the game, such as maps and playable characters. The expansion will set you back $14.99, and it’s slated for release on July 30th, 2019.

The second part of Funcom’s presentation shone a light on a game that’s actually already out,  Conan Unconquered, which hit Steam this past May 30th. From what I’ve seen of it, Conan Unconquered appears to be a combination real-time strategy and tower defense game; its developers, however, claim that it’s “not a traditional RTS.” However you classify it, the game’s reviews on Steam aren’t exactly stellar. One could reasonably theorize based on the fact that the game was mentioned during the PC Gaming Show that its developers have some sort of plan in mind to rectify that.

The final game presented by Funcom is an upcoming first-person “cosmic horror” title by the name of Moons of Madness. According to its announcement trailer, the game takes place on Mars and apparently features a healthy dose of Lovecraftian influence. One might reasonably assume that this “Lovecraftian influence” concept is what allows the game to be designated as a horror title. Moons of Madness is currently scheduled to release on October 31st, 2019.

The next game presented during the PC Gaming Show was the result of collaboration between developer Mighty Kingdom and its publisher, Funcom. The game in question is entitled Conan Chop Chop, which claims to be an “action-adventure game with rogue-like elements,” meant for one to four players. Mighty Kingdom acknowledged while onstage that announcing the game on April Fool’s Day may not have been the best idea, but it appears that the game is indeed real. It’s currently set to release on September 3rd, 2019.

Following that, the next presentation was from indie developer Donkey Crew, who presented their upcoming game entitled Last Oasis. Last Oasis is referred to on its Steam store page as a “nomadic survival MMO.” The gameplay trailer shown during the PC Gaming Show demonstrated certain unique aspects of the game, such as vehicle construction and various aspects of combat. The game is planned to enter Steam Early Access on July 15th, 2019, and will apparently be fully available on September 3rd, 2019, according to the aforementioned gameplay trailer.

The next game announced during the show comes from Gunfire Games, the team responsible for the most recent entry within the Darksiders franchise; and publisher Perfect World Entertainment. The game in question is called Remnant: From the Ashes. The game’s Steam store page claims that within Remnant, “the world has been thrown into chaos by an ancient evil from another dimension.” You must presumably thwart this evil considering you’re one of the last remnants of humanity. Remnant: From the Ashes is slated to release on August 20th, 2019.

Following Perfect World’s presentation was the announcement of the next game from Klei Entertainment, the venerable developers of such games as Mark of the Ninja and Don’t Starve. Klei’s new offering goes by the title Griftlands, and it claims to be a “deck-building rogue-like where you fight and negotiate” your way through the game world. The game’s alpha, which will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for one year’s time, will launch on July 11th, 2019. Griftlands will then enter Steam Early Access in approximately June of 2020 after its timed Epic Games Store exclusivity expires.

After that presentation came one of the more eagerly-anticipated announcements of the entire show. During this presentation, we were presented with a bit more information about the upcoming Shenmue III, developed by YS Net and published by Deep Silver. The upcoming continuation of the Shenmue franchise is scheduled for release on November 19th, 2019.

After Klei’s presentation came an appearance from Frontier Developments, the team behind the exceptionally-popular theme park design simulator Planet Coaster. During their time onstage, representatives of Frontier Developments announced their next project, Planet Zoo. As you might expect from its name, Planet Zoo aims to be an in-depth simulator within which players can design and operate a zoo as they see fit. The game is slated for release on November 5th, 2019.

Next up on the agenda was an announcement from the team known as Fatshark, who are responsible for the Warhammer: Vermintide titles. Within their presentation, it was revealed that Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is receiving an update which contains a standalone player-versus-player combat mode, simply titled Vermintide 2: Versus. This mode pits two teams of four players against each other, with one team controlling the game’s normal playable characters and the other team controlling four special types of enemies. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the Versus beta here.

The next announced title comes from publisher Raw Fury, and goes by the name Per Aspera. The game’s Steam store page states that Per Aspera is a “narrative-driven strategy game with the goal of overcoming the challenge of terraforming Mars.” Per Aspera‘s trailer suggests that it may have taken some inspiration from Stardock Entertainment’s Offworld Trading Company; if that’s the case, what little is visible in the aforementioned trailer suggests that Per Aspera has put that inspiration to good use. There’s currently no announced release date for Per Aspera, but it will release sometime in 2020 according to its Steam store page.

Following that came a short presentation by publisher Modus Games, which brought attention to their upcoming release known as Cris Tales. The game’s Steam store page classifies Cris Tales as “an indie love letter to classic JRPGs with a new perspective.” By “new perspective,” Modus Games means that your character can see the past, present, and future simultaneously. This allows players to directly observe how their actions affect their present and future. The game’s planned release date is sometime in 2020, but there’s a free demo version currently available on Steam.

Then came another of the highly-anticipated press conferences during the PC Gaming Show, during which representatives from Gearbox addressed a series of questions about the upcoming Borderlands 3. Though a fair few of their answers to such questions were understandably vague, Gearbox’s representatives told us and showed us as much as they reasonably could about Borderlands 3 during their time onstage.

The E3 trailer for the game introduces us to the new playable characters, and demonstrates a small degree of the shenanigans in which players can likely engage as they play. Borderlands 3 is slated for release on the Epic Games Store on September 13th, 2019.

Right after Gearbox’s time in the spotlight came an appearance from developers Re-Logic, who announced the penultimate update for their much-beloved game, Terraria. The rather significant update, known as Journey’s End, will be released sometime this year and will be completely free for those who already own Terraria. You can see a considerable portion of what’s coming to the game in the trailer released by Re-Legion during the PC Gaming Show.

Finally, there came an announcement from publishers Annapurna Interactive. They revealed a new game from Sam Barlow, the creator of Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The game in question is entitled Telling Lies. Though I’m not at all familiar with any of Sam Barlow’s creations, I recall gathering from what was said during the game’s reveal that Telling Lies is very much in the same vein as Her Story. From what I recall of Annapurna’s time onstage, Telling Lies tasks players with meticulously searching through secretly-recorded video conversations to slowly piece together the truth behind a murder. The game’s Steam store page reports that Telling Lies will be released sometime this year, but no concrete date has been announced as of yet.

There you have it, folks! There was certainly quite a lot to take in during this year’s PC Gaming Show, but I hope this article serves to make everything announced during the conference easier for you to digest. I’m sure there’s at least one game on this significantly-long list that has at least piqued your interest, or perhaps one or two that disappointed you. With that said, I’m curious as to what you thought of everything that was presented during the show. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

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