LOS ANGELES — Another E3 is officially on the books, and we at Ars are still forming opinions and dissecting the real substance of the hype and illusions. While we work on writing impressions and picking conference favorites, enjoy our gallery of photos from the event’s weirdest and biggest stations. Click through to see selections from all three major publishers, along with a mix of indie fare, weird costumes and, er, sex toys as game controllers.
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Don’t worry, the giant NES controller was back this year.
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A relaxing, rural respite from the loud violence that dominated the trading floor.
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To promote Mafia III2K Games had a jazz band play a mock New Orleans-style funeral procession through the E3 halls and sidewalks.
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2K converted the entire facade of the booth into a New Orleans street for advertising Mafia III.
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There was even a fortune teller at the 2K booth who gave free palm readings to attendees.
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On the other side of 2K mode, a chance for uncoordinated gamers to miss free throw after free throw.
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Hidden in the hallways of Bethesda’s booth, this is where E3 attendees were instructed to go in case of a nuclear strike (no, not really).
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The Bethesda booth didn’t have much for fans to play, other than the new one Older roles card game and a small two-room station for its Vive VR demos.
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More than 20 years after the debut of the home console, Street Fighter II was still present on the E3 show floor thanks to SupaBoy maker Hyperkin.
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Harvest moon wins the award for “quietest booth at E3.”
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VR meditation experience Inner Activity, on the Indiecade booth, was the only game on the show floor that required players to take off their shoes before entering a “sacred space.”
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Twitter had a little cubicle that for some unfathomable reason seemed to be made from reclaimed wood.
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One of the smaller projection domes on the show floor was from Fulldome Pro.
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A look inside one of the larger domes.
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We couldn’t get a good video in the dome, but flip back and forth between this shot and the last to see a hint of the odd 3D effect.
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#GamingIn2016 (at Samsung Gear VR mode)
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I had to be quick to get this shot of a cosplay warrior leading a giant carrot in a frenzied sprint through E3’s South Hall. Just another day in the video game industry!
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Heihachi still manages to impress the ladies.
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I like looking at this picture and imagining the guy in the vest is about 2 inches tall.
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Fat Chocobo wins the “cutest means of transportation” award at this year’s show.
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Nintendo’s booth was like a theme park dedicated to a single game.
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This animatronic plastic food at the Nintendo booth bounced up and down as if it were being cooked in a pan.
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No ticket? no Zelda demonstration for you!
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After playing for two hours Zelda stalls, you could exchange your ticket for a shirt and a commemorative coin.
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Nintendo also displayed a variety of newly announced games at its booth, but those games were not available for public testing.
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Some Zelda art on the line.
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More giant Linkage the size of a mural.
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The character “walker” from Horizon: new dawn roamed the trading floor like a giant puppet controlled by one person.
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Huge God of war poster at the Sony booth.
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If you have a sample version of Gran Turismo Sportsyou could do this by sitting in one of Sony’s bespoke steering wheel installations.
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Get sporty.
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Horizon: new dawn mural.
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Lots of PlayStation VR demo installs.
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“…I’m Batman.”
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The Xbox One S seen here was initially hidden under the original Xbox One shell underneath.
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The back of the Xbox One S. The only real change is that the Kinect specific port has been replaced with a standard USB port (old Kinects work with an adapter)
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Sea of thieves brought the sea shanties to the trading floor.
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Sea of thieves apparently has an ESRB rating of “Arrrrrrrrr.”
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The Microsoft booth featured some impressive computer case modifications. The other side of this…
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…looks like Winston van Overexpected.
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Another Winston case angle.
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Want to spend way too much money on it Weapons of war 4? Then there’s a collector’s edition with your name on it, complete with an oversized figurine of the main hero.
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The upcoming game from Microsoft To repeat contains a few robot pets, so they made sure to have one on the show floor as a giant model; unfortunately it didn’t move or anything.
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Final Fantasy smorgasbord from Square Enix.
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The middle.
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Final Fantasy XV‘s band of bros, now in the form of a giant figurine.
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Bros for GI Joes.
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A life-sized replica of the house from the new Resident evil 7 demo.
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In other extensive Capcom setups, we had this Monster Hunterhot air balloon with theme; his basket was full of playable game stations.
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Capcom didn’t falter in the expensive figurines department.
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How much Ryu do you want? The full Ryu? Just the head?
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Okami.
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Oooookami.
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Now you can finish that Proto Man Halloween costume you’ve been working on for so long.
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Ubisoft’s booth was large, but mostly devoted to pedestrian demo kiosks for its unreleased games.
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The cutest Sith.
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A scale model of one Lego worlds world attracted a lot of lookie-loos.
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More Lego worlds diorama angles.
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Indie-minded publisher Devolver hosted an outdoor pavilion across the street from E3 with free beer, free food, and a game much like Push me, pull you…only it used dildos as controllers.
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We especially liked the little sombrero on the unused one here.
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One of the longest lines at this year’s E3 was for Naughty America, the first porn company to have an E3 booth in as long as we can remember. If you wanted to watch VR porn with a bunch of people staring at you, Naughty America was ready to cater to your weird needs.
Sam Machkovech
These galleries are missing a few photos, including photos from EA’s off-site event, as well as photos and videos we’ve already included in other E3 pieces, such as our hands-on look at the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildwill be released in 2017 for Wii U and Nintendo NX.
We’ve added an additional gallery for anyone who wants to take a closer look at Microsoft’s new Xbox Design Lab, which allows fans to pick and choose colors and accents for every element of an Xbox One controller. It’s one thing to see the product’s website, but it’s quite another to handle the controllers and see how the colors pop. Full disclosure: Sam Machkovech of Ars placed an order after going hands-on with these suckers.
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Ars got to hold the new custom-design controllers during a press event.
Sam Machkovech
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Microsoft put on a pretty big promotional blitz for its Design Lab custom controller initiative.
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Orange are you glad I didn’t choose this color?
Sam Machkovech
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This is a pretty ugly color combination here, but it does show how far players can push the controller choices on offer.
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Different angle, different lighting.
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We know that Ars’ Peter Bright is impatient to go full purple with his custom controller. Here’s one way that might turn out.
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Fuschia and white. Not bad.
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Another angle.
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The dark gray body option makes bright joystick colors pop pretty hard.
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Another angle.
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Change the backside color as well as you like.