It's a big year for birds at E3 and I am here for it | PC Gamer - butlertworks1957

Information technology's a big year for birds at E3 and I am Hera for it

When it comes to human beings erosion them I'd read I lean strongly towards anti-round top hat. But when a bird is wearing a exceed hat? Different story. I'm in favour of-birds in top side hats, 100%. I'm actually just for birds, in general, which is making this class's E3 a delight so utmost: there have been trailers for at least three delightful games starring birds.

The most recent is White Shadows, a black and white cinematic platformer from indie developer Monokel in Germany. "B&W medium platformer" is usually where I start to lose interest, but again: in that respect's a bird in a pass hat. In White Shadows' "fucked up" dystopian city in that respect's plain some nasty animal-supported classism going on, and birds take over been infernal and persecuted for dispersive a pandemic. You play as a young raven girl nerve-wracking to right this wrong against birdkind, and it's out this twelvemonth.

Despite the B&W bromide, I truly dig the look of White Shadows—information technology evokes the greebly smel of stop motion animation and meticulously stacked little dioramas, like Phil Tippett's Disturbed God. The developers described it atomic number 3 1984 by path of Tim Burton. And you know, I likely wouldn't be rattling interested if each the characters were human. Just put me in the shoes of a scraggly little bird girl and I'm suddenly curious, you know?

It seems like few developers are on my wavelength, or leastwise have figured out that I, specifically, am more apt to buy their games if they put birds in them. Another example is the unreal-looking Death's Door. What a capital premise: a crow World Health Organization harvests souls with a big-ass sword. You'd think this crow would atomic number 4 some kinda all-round badass who flies around looking for prey, just no—helium rides the bus to work and gets his assignments from other crows sitting at typewriters.

The premise does such to advance what otherwise looks like familiar (but precise good!) top-weak action mindful of Zelda. The developers of Death's Door previously made a boss rush action spirited titled Titan Souls, and that was a good little game, but its protagonist was a forgettable human. Atomic number 102 one's leaving to block Death's Door's crow, and I'm way more interested in the story you said it animals mix with human characters, here. Birds don't get to be swordsmen often, maybe because they don't technically have hands, but Death's Doorway is proof in my mind that that's been a solemn oversight.

Birds do consume feet, withal, so information technology's true more unpleasant that no one thought to put a birdie on a skateboard until Skatebird. I mean, the most famous skateboarder of all fourth dimension is called Tony Hawk. People telephone call him Hawkman. And up to now passim 20 years of Tony Huckster videogames, no one ever thought, well shit, why not let an actual bird do whatever kickflips?

Skatebird was proclaimed a few years ago now, but IT finally got an August release engagement at this E3, on with a new trailer. Skatebird is part with of a new wave of skateboarding games that picture the blissful movement of rocketing down a halfpipe. The thing is, it's intemperate to outdo the trump Tony Hawk games, and we've seen the identical character models—dudes in jeans and beanies and baggy t-shirts—skating a million multiplication. Wouldn't you rather atomic number 4 a cute little bird that flutters its wings while pull off tricks in mid-air? Particularly if that bird was capable to wear a chapeau and sunglasses? Fedoras are also hats that I'm powerfully against in humans, but tell me this bird is not Pulling It Bump off.

I don't want to say something dangerous here, like "If every game at E3 2021 starred a bird it would be bettor." Because we all cognise how the videogame industry works: a with child idea bequeath inevitably be copied, overused, and bled dry until it no more brings joy but merely a vacuous acquaintance.

I don't wish us to do that to birds. They're in a dependable place right now: Bird games are thriving, birds are showing up in unexpected places, simply they're still a come by the ocean of games about humans doing things. I hope we gravel unity, maybe two more bird games at E3 this yr—enough to convince the world that bird games are a real movement, no mere flight of fancy, but non so many that we have to deal with all birds, all the time. Too many birds can definitely get or s problems.

Update: As soon as I published this post, my dreams (only hopefully not nightmares) came true: Another delicious bird game was shown at the Wholesome Direct. Bird Problems is a "situation comedy narrative game" starring birds doing their best '90s TV impression. This is a potent combination, because sitcoms are fair-and-square as underused in games as birds are, and Shuttle Problems seems to be on point, judging by this description:

"Navigate passing simple and straight-forwards conversations with very limited and odd response options. Delightfully bollix greetings and social interactions with other birds patc attempting to shuffling friends over boba-tea leaf in the middle of the afternoon. Enjoy the goofishly squeaky aesthetic of a late twentieth hundred situation comedy."

👏 Year 👏 of 👏 the 👏birds!

Go over everything else coming this twelvemonth on our E3 2021 schedule .

Wes has been covering games and computer hardware for more than 10 days, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team up in 2014. Wes plays a little flake of everything, but he'll forever jump at the hazard to cover emulation and Asian country games. When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a drag in of conveyer belts in Satisfactory (it's really proper a problem), he's likely playing a 20-twelvemonth-old RPG or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a cente writing and redaction features, he seeks out personal stories and in-profoundness histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).