A week at E3 - 2017

Thinking back on my time in primary school, which some of my colleagues will jokingly say wasn’t actually that long ago, I remember our headmaster always telling us kids that time would go a lot faster when we grew older. We found it hilarious, but in hindsight I can’t really say he was too far from the truth. Here we are at the end of June, with E3 2017 done and dusted and the E3 before it a fond yet distant memory. Anecdotes aside, it blows my mind to think that the excitement of E3 2016 was over a year ago.

E3 2016 saw us unleash the first in-depth look at Sea of Thieves’ gameplay to the public following its reveal a year earlier. It was a great show and got everyone here at Rare pumped to deliver a top-quality pirate adventure. Since then, we’ve started several new video series, been to more shows and, as of December last year, started regularly testing the game out in the wild with real players via our Technical Alpha play sessions.

It goes without saying that we’ve been quite busy, and as you’d expect, even more so in the lead up to E3 2017. I was lucky enough to join the rest of the team and attend the show this year which was undoubtedly Sea of Thieves’ biggest E3 so far, and it only feels right to fill you all in on what went down.

For E3 this year we decided to go big. Hard to quantify just how big in text, but we had giveaways, a live panel, Technical Alpha play sessions complete with an ongoing mini-campaign and regular streams on Mixer, all while operating a 16-console booth from the E3 show floor. For an operation of this size, we needed a good-sized team to back it up. And so a large group of us (that I’m sure hit a count of more than 20 people) was flown out to Los Angeles over the Thursday-Saturday before the show was set to start. To quote one show staff member who we passed along the way in the halls of the Xbox Showcase venue and not the UK grime crew, we were “rolling deep”.

After a manic cocktail of last-minute packing, a very long taxi ride to Heathrow that included a stop at the nicest service station I’ve ever set foot in (thought I’d throw that out there) and staying awake for more or less the whole 12-hour flight, my group landed in Los Angeles and met up with the rest of our Rare pirate posse at the hotel. It was a relief to finally be there, and once we’d enjoyed the festive formality of a team meal at the hotel restaurant, it was time to catch up on the sleep that the film selection on the flight had stolen from me.

Sunday came, and a day of rest it was not. As Microsoft had decided to hold their E3 Media Briefing on that day, the team split up with a large group of us heading to the LA Convention Center to get the ball rolling on the show floor setup. Due to the size of our booth compared to others, we wanted to make sure that everything was ready to go well ahead of the Tuesday opening of the show with enough spare time to test everything. And seeing as our show floor experience was reliant on attendees playing in groups for around 20 minutes, our army of engineers spent the day laser-focused on checking the setup was sound.

With the added bonus of the slick 4K television sets that sat above every machine and the power of console media apps, we were able to sit down in the veritable construction site that was the Xbox booth and watch the Media Briefing. The anticipation of watching and waiting for Phil Spencer to utter even a hint of Sea of Thieves being the next game to be shown was agonising, but the payoff was worth it. Despite already having seen the trailer several times in its many iterations, it was a great feeling to be able to finally talk about everything the studio had been working so hard towards for so long. Not to mention seeing people play it on the show floor!

One thing I’d recommend to anyone who’s in downtown Los Angeles any time soon is to also visit an ice cream parlour named Little Damage. Given the heat, it would have been rude not to grab a cone. This place wasn’t what I was expecting, especially not a salted caramel ice cream that is jet black and silver in colour and named “salted covfefe”. It was a strange experience, but I did enjoy the politically charged ice cream cone.

Sunday flew by and ended on a high note at a sports bar with those of us that had been at the Convention Center. A sports bar that I was sure I’d been to the previous year and recommended, but it turns out I hadn’t. Luckily, the food was great so I was able to save at least a little bit of face… It was also a strange experience sitting in a bar in the USA and watching everyone but a large contingent of British game developers cheer violently at a football game that was being shown while we ate.

On Monday it was time for what was almost a dry run of the next few days. Over at the Galen Center, the same location as the Xbox Media Briefing on the previous day, Microsoft had reshuffled the hall to house several booths for the various E3 Xbox games, including ours! This event was more low-key, and over the next 12 hours (yes, 12 hours), we’d play host to a legion of specially invited players who had all been invited to get a sneak peek at what the Xbox show floor would have to offer.

Before heading out there, I was able to finally try out the fabled Chipotle chain of Mexican fast food restaurants that some of my American friends at Rare rave about. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleasantly surprised that the hype was justified to the point that we coined the adage “cheeky chipotle”, something I’m unfortunately not entirely convinced is going to catch on in any way, shape or form on either side of the Atlantic. We’ll do our best though. Now, onto the Xbox Showcase!

This event definitely set the tone for the rest of the week. The day was split into three chunks, with press, content creators and Xbox fans respectively taking turns to fill the hall and play the games. I joined as the session with content creators was set to begin, and throughout that one and the following fan session, we saw consistent laughs and smiles across practically everyone that played. Some crews even took their role as a pirate to the next level by singing shanties, and despite each crew having a member of Rare’s staff to guide them through the demo, many were able to naturally understand how to work their ships and get treasure hunting. By the time we finished at around midnight, we were all excited to see the reactions from attendees when the show started in earnest the following day.

So, for all intents and purposes, E3 really began on Tuesday. From then until Thursday, thousands of people filled the LA Convention Center and this marked the first year that the public were allowed to officially attend the show. The place was packed, to say the least.

Throughout that first day, we kicked off our first Technical Alpha play session of the week alongside a mythical chest mini-campaign, which involved Technical Alpha players racing to solve a riddle posted on the Forums and find a bundle of mythical chests placed somewhere in the world. The winning crew for each day would win a prize and it all went down a lot better than even we expected!

Aside from that, we also had several Sea of Thievesco-streams broadcasting throughout the day on Mixer along with some of the most well-known creators on the platform, such as Magnetron and Galadon Gaming. I couldn’t help but think it created an experience similar to our E3 2016 Gameplay Trailer, which was always our intention when thinking about all of the ways we want people to share their Sea of Thieves experience!

That first official day of the show had us all buzzing with excitement just thinking about how the rest of the week would go, and the next two days went extremely quickly with everything we had going on. More streams, more Technical Alpha giveaways and bundles of swag to hand out. After the rush of Tuesday and settling into our routine of waking up early, gawping at Arnold Schwarzenegger as he strolled into our hotel every morning during breakfast and throwing ourselves into Ubers and taxis to get to the venue, we were able to start meeting many new faces, press and gaming fans alike.

As we watched them all play Sea of Thieves, we could see all kinds of unique stories developing and to then see people laughing and joking about those stories as they walked away into the crowds at the end of a session, it felt like a “mission accomplished” moment. Some players didn’t even end up finding any treasure, and I remember seeing one of them spend nearly the whole session trying to kill a shark with a concertina. As you’d expect, this didn’t go according to plan, but it didn’t stop him from having fun and doing a dance that I don’t think anyone who was there to witness it will forget any time soon.

Angry Joe, What’s Good Games and the IGN crew were just some of the other well-known creators and journalists that swung by our booth. Being able to hear the shouts, screams and laughs from our booth from so many people was uplifting to say the least, and the healthy number of nominations and awards that we received only added to the sense of accomplishment by the time the show wrapped up on Thursday afternoon.

Just like that, E3 2017 had ended. Several weeks’ worth of work had finally been wrapped up and pulled off to what I’d consider a resounding success. We celebrated with a final team meal that evening, chowing down on things I’d never even thought existed. Bacon-wrapped dates? Sure, why not.

As is the custom when you visit the United States, stocking up on snacks and confectionery that is entirely bad for you (yet oh so good) was on the agenda for the final day. A few of us found a local “grocery store” to do just that, as well as take in the city of Santa Monica one last time before returning home to the potentially wind- and rain-swept isles of the UK. It was a great, slow-paced way to round off the otherwise busy trip and a chance to reflect on how it had all gone.

Now that we’re back, there’s a similar sensation to the post-E3 2016 mood felt around the studio. Everyone has thrown themselves back into creating Sea of Thieves with another huge motivation boost from the amount of support shown by gamers who turned up and played the game at E3. We couldn’t have asked for a better show, and now we’ll be working hard to towards whatever comes next!