It’s that time of year and E3 2018 is right around the corner. Rumors are flying, hype is building, and gamers are gearing up for either a big announcement or a big disappointment. With all this excitement and anxiety, you might be wondering what to expect. Or perhaps you are looking for information on what to watch, when, and where. Maybe you’re just roaming from page to page looking for discussion to keep you going until the show starts. Regardless of what brought you here, we hope this article will have just what you’re looking for.

E3 2018 Show Schedule

So let’s begin with the basics. E3 is the biggest event in gaming, where all of the major companies come together to show off to gamers and investors alike what they have in store for the (usually) near future. Many developers and publishers stick to the show floor with gameplay demos, but some take to the stage for a full on press conference. This year, we’re getting conferences from Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, and Square Enix, as well as a video presentation from Nintendo.

That’s just the basic rundown for any who are unfamiliar, though. What you really need to know is when and where. Below is a list of conferences with date and time, starting with EA’s conference, tomorrow. To the right of that, we’ve provided links to the official streams from each company.

• EA – Saturday, June 9th, 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )
• Microsoft – Sunday, June 10th, 1PM Pacific/4PM Eastern ( Twitch | Mixer | Youtube )
• Bethesda – Sunday, June 10th, 6:30PM Pacific/9:30PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )
• Square Enix – Monday, June 11th, 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )
• Ubisoft – Monday, June 11th, 1PM Pacific/4PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )
• Sony – Monday, June 11th, 6PM Pacific/9PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )
• Nintendo – Tuesday, June 12th, 9AM Pacific/12PM Eastern ( Twitch | Youtube )

There are a few other shows in the mix like Limited Run, Devolver Digital, and the PC Gaming Sideshow. These haven’t been included primarily because there are rarely any big announcements involved. These shows can still be seen by watching the main E3 Twitch stream, but we won’t highlight them here.

E3 2018 Expectations and Hopes

From this point forward, we can’t be sure of much. Some companies have been straight forward and others are predictable. Still others are being coy or just seem to prove us wrong at every turn. Still, below are our thoughts pre-E3 on what we’ll see at E3 2018.

EA

It’s hard to make EA predictions and not sound pessimistic. Still, we know we can expect Battlefield V, EA Sports, and most likely Anthem. How much we see of that last one will likely determine how concerned we should be, given how EA treated Bioware’s last title. Aside from that, we expect two “surprises” and maybe a racing title. One surprise would be an indie game EA has decided to support. The other could be anything in their library. Dragon Age would be a nice addition to the show.

Microsoft

Microsoft has to be the biggest wild card out of all the major developers. They have plenty under their wings to show us, but there’s no telling what’s ready. We’re only worried this E3 could make or break the Xbox One’s sales for the near future. After all, with Crackdown 3 pushed back to 2019, we aren’t aware of any other major exclusives for this year. Halo, Forza, anything. Microsoft needs to bring their A game.

Bethesda

It’s an odd thing to know what to expect and yet not know what to expect. Fallout 76 will most likely be the centerpiece of their show, but we don’t even know anything about it. There have been rumors and “leaks” but it’s difficult to take those at face value. Aside from that, Rage 2 is very likely and people have speculated everything from Elder Scrolls VI to the oft-rumored Starfield. Bethesda has plenty up their sleeve, to be sure, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Square Enix

Kingdom Hearts III. There’s no question that will be their biggest focus, but that’s not to downplay Shadow of the Tomb Raider. There’s also the Marvel Avengers game they’ve said they were working on, which seems appropriately timed. We also think we could see more of Octopath Traveler here, but we dare not hope for another glimpse of the Final Fantasy VII remake.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft is always a grab bag of interesting stuff and not-as-interesting stuff. We can be sure they’ll have something for just about everyone, but no one will likely leave totally happy with it. On top of that, there’s so many games we could see. We already know about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. We expect more from Skull and Bones, Ubisoft’s Pirate ship battle sim. Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Starlink: Battle for Atlas are itching for more details. There’s also bound to be a new Just Dance, another single player story-based open world adventure, and never count out Rayman or the Rabbids. It’ll be one to watch, for sure.

Sony

Sony’s an odd one in that we already know about what to expect from them. There are four games in particular they will be giving us a “deep dive” into. These games are Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, The Amazing Spiderman, and Last of Us 2. We expect there will be more, but it will be restricted to trailers and probably a few words from the developer. Here’s hoping we finally see what that From Software teaser last year was all about.

Nintendo

Last, but never least, we have Nintendo. They’ve been very open about the presence of Super Smash Bros at this year’s E3 presentation, but we can guess quite a few other games that we might see. It’d be crazy if Fire Emblem, Yoshi, Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion, Travis Strikes Back, and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee Editions didn’t get at least a trailer or some game play.

On top of that, there’s a very believable leak showing a number of 3rd parties that would absolutely require at least a shout out. These include Dragonball Fighter Z, Fortnight, Killer Queen Black, and Monster Hunter Generations. We expect we could see some Metroid Prime 4, Retro’s infamous project, the rumored Nintendo-Konami project, and even–dare we say it?–Animal Crossing. With Nintendo’s conference being potentially 45 minutes long, they could stuff any number of announcements into it, so the sky is really the limit.

So with that, we hope you’re ready for the craziness that is about to ensue. Twitch will be live streaming all of these conferences and more. The show will start very soon, so expect frequent updates over the next week.