Devolver's E3 showcase was again a highlight in an underwhelming year
It's fiction, but they're the only people having real fun
Devolver's E3 showcase was broadcast earlier tonight, at which they announced a few new games but also, more importantly, continued the story of executive Nina Struthers. The indie publisher's strange and violent keynotes have been a highlight of the last three E3s, and so it was again. You can watch the full broadcast below.
At this point I couldn't summarise the Nina Struthers story, so I'm not going to try. For me the Devolver broadcasts walk a real fine line and risk becoming surrealism for its own sake, but they pull it off with some excellent performances, with relative pace, and with writing that's a million times better than literally any other cringe-inducing E3 show. Despite presenting explicit fiction, Devolver are the only people who seem to be having genuine fun.
The 30 minute showcase included new trailers for first-person gorefest Shadow Warrior 3 and horror card game Inscryption, plus release dates for first-person speedrunner Phantom Abyss and crow-based action roguelite Death's Door. Devolver also announced Trek To Mori, Wizard With A Gun, the mobile game Tumble Time, and Demon Throttle, a Switch game only available via a physical release. (They also announced reverse citybuilder Terra Nil a few days ago.)
Around the videogames, the showcase focused on Devolver MaxPass+, a free subscription service offering "monetization as a service." Do I need to explain that this is a joke? They have committed to the bit in a great way at that website but I am sorry, it is my job to spoil it.
E3 2021 may be over but our memories live on - see everything on our E3 hub. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, leading up to Gamescom, so see our summer games stream schedule to stay up to date.