Looking Back at the PlayStation E3 2015 Press Conference

E3 press conferences are always exciting in the moment. After all, gamers never know what might be announced and they can be absolutely thrilling to watch (or boring if you’re watching Pelé talk about the beautiful game). That said, they’re even more interesting to watch a second time, after some time has passed from the initial excitement.

Sure, you may have been insanely excited to see a remake of a certain beloved role-playing game, but was it only announced this early to cover up for Sony not really having anything for the holiday season? These are questions that entered my mind while watching Sony’s PlayStation E3 2015 press conference one year later. In fact, I actually found myself quite underwhelmed at how a lot of what they showed had zero impact on gaming in the year that followed.

Check out my highlights (and lowlights) of the PlayStation E3 2015 press conference below:

We hope you enjoyed my look back at the Sony PlayStation E3 2015 press conference. It was certainly an important one as it fulfilled a lot of gamer’s dreams, even if they won’t be out anytime soon. Still, there were some great games on offer (Roundabout even got E3 time!) so it wasn’t a complete dud upon second viewing.

Let me know in the comments how you feel about the PlayStation E3 2015 press conference one year later, and what your highlights were from the show!

Essential Reading:

E3 2015 Retrospective

PlayStation E3 2015 Highlights
The Last Guardian

Sony started off their press conference with a bang. Sure, it was a bang that probably should've been released 5 years prior, but it was still exciting to see that The Last Guardian was still alive. While its gameplay demo didn't exactly wow, it's hard not to be thrilled that Team Ico will finally get this shipped (and be able to move onto something else).
Horizon: Zero Dawn

The first new game revealed was a big one, Guerrilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn. Not only was it refreshing to see the studio working on something unrelated to Killzone, it also looked impressive in its own right. The gameplay demo looked fantastic, and hopefully gamers will be able to learn more about this title this year.
Hitman

Next up was Square Enix's Hitman reboot. While no gameplay was shown during Sony's conference, the stylish trailer was very impressive. Thankfully, the episodic title has been impressive so far, and it seems to be taking the franchise in a direction it needed to go in.
Street Fighter V

Despite being leaked earlier that day, two playable characters were officially announced for Street Fighter V during the conference. These were Birdie and Cammie, both characters that Street Fighter fans were familiar with. While the gameplay they showed looked great (and it ended up playing excellently in the final game), nothing was really too impressive here. Just a standard reveal.
No Man's Sky

Hello Games' Sean Murray then got on stage to demo his heavily anticipated space exploration game, No Man's Sky. This was the first time the game's space combat was shown off, and Murray showed off a few interesting wrinkles during this three minute segment. While not much came out from this demo, other than the discovery of Planet E3, it still showed that the game looked extremely promising.
Dreams

Media Molecule would then show off their latest bizarre creation, Dreams. The game creation tool (that lets players sculpt figures) looked great as the British developer showed off several distinctly different looking scenes created within Dreams. It's definitely a title to watch out for.
Destiny: The Taken King

The Destiny loving Adam Boyes then got on stage in order to show that you can swear during these pressers. He was also there to introduce Destiny: The Taken King, Activision's first major expansion for their popular first-person shooter. The E3 trailer didn't show off too much, but the promise of more content for a game that was in need of it was more than enough.
Final Fantasy

Two new Final Fantasy games were then introduced. First was World of Final Fantasy, which I don't think a single attendee was excited for. That's because they were all hoping for the next game that was revealed, the Final Fantasy VII Remake. The crowd understandably went nuts for the announcement, although in the past year hype has certainly died down as the news that the game will be released episodically has disappointed some. I'm still hyped to check out Midgar again, though.
Devolver Digital

While it was disappointingly used as a cool-down spot, I was still glad to see that Devolver Digital got a whole sizzle reel to themselves. The leading indie publisher showed off all the titles they are bringing to Sony consoles (and sadly none are out yet). The games were: Ronin, Eitr, Mother Russia Bleeds, and Crossing Souls. All four games look great, and I can't wait to play them.
Shenmue 3

Once the crowd had calmed down from the Final Fantasy VII announcement, Sony took time to announce a Kickstarter. Yeah, that happened. It was for Shenmue 3, a title that apparently 69,000 people wanted (weird how not many people wanted to back a game that never sold well in the first place). Let's hope that crowdfunding announcements don't become the norm.
Batman: Arkham Knight

This press conference was essentially off the rails at this point, and a really poor gameplay demo of Batman: Arkham Knight was shown. I'll never quite understand why Sony thought it'd be fun to show a cop shooting up a diner at their presser. Anyhow, free Scarecrow content exclusive to PS4!
Project Morpheus

It was finally PlayStation VR (or Project Morpheus if you want to be time appropriate) time, and Sony practically ignored what will surely be a huge part of this year's upcoming conference. A quick sizzle reel showed off a few titles in development including EVE: Valkyrie, Sony's own RIGS, Godling, The Deep, and Wayward Sky. That pretty much sums up Project Morpheus' presence on the show, as it was barely there for a minute.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Thankfully since Sony knows what the gamers want, they spent about 10 minutes showing off several different aspects of Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Not only did they show off a multiplayer trailer, they also revealed that the campaign would feature cooperative play. This press conference was clearly front loaded, and it was starting to seriously drag at this point.
PS Vita

There was no reason to fear, though, as the PlayStation Vita would save the press conference. After all, Sony gave it a six second sizzle reel. Yes, that's not a typo. It was six seconds long, and the producer switched from the direct feed to a wide shot so half of the games shown couldn't even be identified on the stream. What was shown was Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Roundabout, and Xeodrifter. Nice to see Sony pushing their handheld hard.
Star Wars

The boisterous John "Tweet Out Your Digits" Vignocchi then came out to talk about Disney Infinity 3.0. The focus was on the game's Star Wars content, mainly its Rise of the Empire play set. The trailer they showed looked great, and it made the game's recent demise even more of a bummer.

EA then showcased Star Wars Battlefront, which everyone already saw at Electronic Arts' presser. The game looked absolutely stunning, but there was really no reason for it to be the penultimate title to be shown off.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Sony's press conference ended with a gameplay demo (after a restart) of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. The game non-shockingly looked gorgeous, and Naughty Dog actually showed off one of the best parts of the finished game. In retrospect, it kind of stunk to already seen a large portion of arguably the best action scene in Uncharted 4, but what can you do? Still a strong way to close off the show, although something new would've been more exciting.