Bethesda had a solid E3 2016 conference tonight, with no shortage of exciting announcements that fans are bound to be celebrating throughout the expo. Absent however were two reported sequels that were alleged to be leaked for the presentation, but didn’t actually show up, even if the same leak was correct about two other new game announcements. The Evil Within 2 by Tango Gameworks, a subsidiary of Bethesda parent, ZeniMax Media that continues to be silent for now, was never even brought up, let alone confirmed to be real, and a purported sequel to 2014’s hit id Software-developed single-player-only first-person shooter, Wolfenstein: The New Order was also not announced at the keynote.
… Or was it? Eagle-eyed fans are already noticing something very suspicious about a seemingly-benign boot-up sequence that led to the huge surprise announcement of Quake Champions to kick off Bethesda’s conference, the long-awaited revival of id Software’s pioneering competitive arena shooter franchise. If you look closely at the still below, you may be able to see what’s up:
See the rundown of Wolfenstein games on the list, underneath id Software’s debuting retro DOS hit, Commander Keen? There’s the original first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D, the most recent full offering, Wolfenstein: The New Order, said offering’s standalone expansion, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, and below it… What’s this? A mystery project called ‘New_Colossus’ with its release date redacted. How curious.
Obviously, this has thrown Wolfenstein fans into a frenzy, and just might be one of the coolest E3 surprises at a conference that was already pretty full of cool surprises from Bethesda. The information seems to suggest that either a new standalone expansion, or a full-fledged sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order is on the way, and it might be called ‘Wolfenstein: The New Colossus‘, or something to that effect. This could explain why a Wolfenstein sequel was falsely claimed to be announced at Bethesda’s E3 keynote, and it’s possible that the announcement may have been cut from the presentation in favour of Quake Champions, and id Software still wanted to acknowledge this new Wolfenstein game in some way. It’s a reasonable guess then that the mystery game or expansion could be properly revealed at QuakeCon 2016 this August.
Whatever the case, we’ll be keeping an eye on this intriguing development with the Wolfenstein franchise, so keep commanding Eggplante for all major news and updates on Wolfenstein.