The Developer Sessions bring you face-to-face with world renowned game creators as they present their latest projects, take part in panel discussions and answer your questions. Most sessions will be live streamed on the EGX Twitch channel and will be available to watch later on the EGX YouTube channel.

Thursday 04th April

12pm: Total War: THREE KINGDOMS

Speaker: Michael Whelan (Author, Creative Assembly)

There you are – a legendary warrior and proven leader, destined to unify Ancient China. Nothing can stand in your way! That is, until your sworn brother defects to your nemesis, frustrated that you’ve named your step-son the next in line to lead. Meanwhile, that very step-son assassinates your Prime Minister, inciting a civil war and escaping with his mother back to the unknown foe who sent them to your ranks as spies years prior. This is Total War: THREE KINGDOMS, Creative Assembly’s upcoming strategy title. Learn more about the new and reimagined systems that make this one of the most complex, and personal, conflicts the studio has ever released.

1pm: Rock, Paper, Shotgun presents: Creating the comic book world of Void Bastards

Speakers: Ben Lee (Creative director, Blue Manchu), Cara Ellison (Narrative designer, Blue Manchu) & Katharine Castle (Hardware editor, RPS)

Void Bastards is a first-person “strategy shooter” about boarding, robbing and escaping from procedurally generated spaceships, inspired by System Shock and created by some of the developers of BioShock. In this talk, art director Ben Lee and writer Cara Ellison sit down with Rock Paper Shotgun to discuss how they’re making the game’s comic book universe, both artistically and narratively.

2pm: Character building from the Wild West to the Modern Dark Ages

Speakers: Konrad Czernik (Senior concept artist, Techland)

Take a peek at the character design process for Call of Juarez and Dying Light 2, with Techland’s Konrad Czernik. From American antiheroes to hideous mutations, see how Techland finds character in unlikely places.

4pm: Anno 1800

Speaker: Bastian Thun (Anno community developer, Blue Byte)

Anno 1800 is the latest addition to the acclaimed Anno franchise and delivers a rich city-building experiences, including a story-based campaign, a highly customisable sandbox mode, and the classic Anno multiplayer experience. This new and exciting PC title is set during the industrial revolution, and combines innovative gameplay with beloved features drawn from 20 years of Anno history.

5pm: Eurogamer’s 20th anniversary: The best games of the last 20 years

This year Eurogamer celebrates 20 years of bad puns and video game coverage! Come and join editor Oli Welsh and and a panel of guests as they state their cases for their favourite games of Eurogamer’s lifetime – and help us decide which is the best of them all.

Friday 05th April

11am: Digital Foundry: How an engineering company attempted a gaming world record

Tech start-up Hadean partnered with CCP Games to deliver a 10,000-player deathmatch experience at GDC, breaking the world record for the most players involved in a single online battle. But how did they do it? Digital Foundry lifts the lid on the project, with a live Q&A panel giving EGX Rezzed audiences the first ever in-depth look at the record-breaking tech.

12pm: Dreams

Media Molecule’s Dreams gives players the opportunity to express their imaginations through games, music, animation and more. Head to the team’s developer session and discover the incredible creative possibilities of their upcoming title.

1pm: Rock, Paper, Shotgun presents: From Ignis to indie – Designing Final Fantasy XV & beyond

Speakers: Wan Hazmer (Co-founder, Metronomik), Daim Dziauddin (Co-founder & creative director, Metronomik) & Katharine Castle (Hardware editor, RPS)

Metronomik co-founders Wan Hazmer and Daim Dziauddin are interviewed live onstage by Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s hardware editor, Katharine Castle. The pair discuss their experience of working on big budget games, Final Fantasy XV and Street Fighter V respectively, and how it’s informed the development of Metronomik’s debut title, No Straight Roads.

2pm: Developing Road to Guangdong – A new road trip game

Speakers: Alex Darby (Game design & programming ) & Yen Ooi (Writing & story design)

Join veteran game developer Alex Darby and insightful storyteller Yen Ooi as they explore the creative processes behind Road to Guangdong’s development. Learn about the game’s driving and management gameplay, and discover more about Sunny and Guu Ma’s emotionally rich road trip across China.

3pm: Character death: More than just a plot device

Speakers: Armand Constantine (Narrative design manager, ArenaNet), Clayton Kisko (Game designer, ArenaNet) & Linsey Murdock (Game designer, ArenaNet)

Creating compelling non-player characters in video games is tricky enough – but killing them can be even harder. Giving characters a meaningful enough relationship to the player that their death has impact, without making people feel like the death was used as a cheap way to escalate drama, is a tricky line to walk. Join members of ArenaNet’s narrative and design teams to talk about lessons learned and strategies used in Guild Wars 2.

Saturday 06th April

12pm: Developing Daniel: How a new type of choice & consequence system affects your experience in Life is Strange 2

Speakers: Jean-Luc Cano (Lead Writer & Co-Creator) & Luc Baghadoust (Lead Producer)

Join Lead Writer and Co-Creator Jean-Luc Cano & Lead Producer Luc Baghadoust as they delve into the story so far, and how the intricate new choice & consequence system in Life is Strange 2 changes the way players have to think about their actions.

1pm: Nutshots & Nazis: The Sniper Elite story

Around 20 million players, and loved by fans across the world – but how did Sniper Elite get here? Rebellion devs look back at the series’ prodigious evolution in this retrospective panel, and look to what the future may hold for the sharpshooting series.

2pm: Sea of Thieves – The story continues

Join key Sea of Thieves representatives discussing the rich lore of the game and how that background detail is having an increasing impact on gameplay. Whilst the Expanded Universe grows through extrinsic media such as books and comics, the in-game world of Sea of Thieves continues to develop a life of its own.

3pm: Rock, Paper, Shotgun presents: The story of Hytale – Growing a game from a modding community

Speakers: Sean McCafferty (Content manager, Hypixel) & Chris Thursten (Publishing, Hypixel)

Sean McCafferty and Chris Thursten from Hypixel Studios explain how a modding community grew into a game development studio – and how Hypixel Studios’ first game, Hytale, came to be. See the game’s growth from early concepts to where it is now, and learn about the challenge of breaking new ground in the blockgame genre.

Please post below what sessions you want to cover, remember, you NEED to be able to use Facebook for this live coverage and if you can’t, then be able to write up summaries of other things going on.

Conference Schedule
Conference & Conference Time
Bethesda  June 14 – 7pm PT / 10pm ET
Microsoft  June 15 – 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET
EA  June 15 – 1pm PT / 4pm ET
Ubisoft June 15 – 3pm PT / 6pm ET
Sony  June 15 – 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Nintendo June 16 – 9am PT/ 12pm ET
Square Enix  June 16 – 10am PT/ 1pm ET
PC Gaming Show  June 16 – 5pm PT/8pm ET

Bethesda – Sunday, June 14

Bethesda’s announced its first ever E3 conference on Feburary 10, 2015. While there is still little information about the conference, there are rumors that Bethesda will announce the next Fallout game. For those not at E3 2015, Bethesda is live streaming its conference on Twitch and Youtube on Sunday, June 14.

 
Microsoft – Monday, June 15

Microsoft’s E3 2015 conference will be aired on Spike TV and streamed on Xbox’s website and on Xbox consoles. Microsoft will present their conference on Monday, June 15 at 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET. Along with their conference, Microsoft announced Xbox FanFest: E3 2015.

 
Nintendo – Tuesday, June 16

In addition to the Nintendo Digital event that starts at 9am PT, Nintendo is revivng its World Championships. Nintendo will also have it’s Nintendo Treehouse live stream and another Nintendo Access event at Best Buy where a trail version of Mario Maker will be available. As far as games go, Nintendo has confirmed that the new Legend of Zelda game will not be at the conference, but they will have a playable version of the upcoming Star Fox for Wii U.

 
Square Enix – Tuesday, June 16

On April 23, 2015, Square Enix announced their first ever E3 press conference. Square Enix didn’t give many details on what we should expect from their conference on Tuesday, June 16, but they said they will discuss an “exciting slate of games coming out in 2015 and beyond. The conference will be streamed on Twitch and YouTube.

The Square Enix conference originally overlapped with the Nintendo 9am PT conference, so Square Enix rescheduled its conference for 10am PT.

PC Gaming Show  June 16 – 5pm PT/8pm ET

AMD and PC Gamer are putting on the first-ever PC conference at E3, PC Gaming Show. Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott will host the show and will be joined by other speakers throughout the show, such as Blizzard Entertainment and Humble Bundle, to make announcements. The PC Gaming Show be streamed on Twitch from 5PM – 8PM PTD on June 16.

So yeah…  I’m doing this…

Help me to change the face of men’s health this #Movember by making a donation to my moustache: http://mobro.co/lonesamurai

Thursday, 25th September 2014

12pm – Dead Island 2 (18+)

YAGER’s Senior Gameplay Programmer Isaac Durham Ashdown talks about zombies in the Hollywood Hills with Dead Island 2.

1pm – Dragon Age: Inquisition (18+)

Neil Thompson, Director of Art & Animation at BioWare, invites visitors to discover the vast open world of Dragon Age: Inquisition through a gameplay demo and more.

2pm – Death, Stealth, Money & Power in Elite: Dangerous

Combat, Piracy, Bounty Hunting, Trading & exploring – David Braben explains how you can do it all in Elite: Dangerous.

3pm – Roll7 Exclusive Announcement

The team behind OlliOlli and Not a Hero take to the stage to announce something brand new.

4pm – The Next Total War

Creative Assembly reveals the next title in the award-winning Total War strategy series.

5pm – Alien: Isolation (18+)

Al Hope, Alien: Isolation Creative Lead introduces a behind the scenes look into how the team at Creative Assembly created the incredible new ALIEN world. Jon McKellan, UI Design Lead & Byron Bullock, Audio Designer reveal how they created the immersive world of Alien: Isolation including bringing back the original ALIEN cast for the first time.

6pm – Never Alone

Gloria O’Neill of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Alan Gershenfeld of E-Line Media share their approach to inclusive development for Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) as a model for sharing, celebrating and extending World Cultures through compelling, commercial video games.

Friday, 26th September 2014

12pm – Eurogamer Let’s Play LIVE

Gamer Network video heroes Gav Murphy and Ian Higton present a live Let’s Play of something incredible!

1pm – The Division

Brand Art Director Cortes Rodrigo Javier presents the realisation of the world of Tom Clancy’s The Division, and how the team at Massive developed some of the key pillars of the ambitious brand new IP from Ubisoft.

2pm – Heat Signature

Tom Francis will be flying through an infinite galaxy and hijacking randomly generated spaceships in a live, unscripted playthrough of Heat Signature, explaining the game as he goes.

3pm – Until Dawn

Supermassive Games present a live playthrough, with commentary, of Until Dawn. The session will be followed by an audience Q&A.

4pm – Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault

Company of Heroes 2 Director, Quinn Duffy will be joined by Producer Greg Wilson to give CoH2 fans an in-depth look at the all-new standalone content, Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault.

5pm – Nuclear Throne

Nuclear Throne is a game about action and randomness. Vlambeers’ Rami Ismail talks about randomness in games, how Nuclear Throne handles its level generation and how all of that leads to the challenging game that so many people have been playing over the past few months.

6pm – Battlefield Hardline

Steve Papoutsis, General Manager of Visceral Games, details the inspiration behind Battlefield Hardline and how his team at Visceral are putting their own, new stamp on the Battlefield franchise.

Saturday, 27th September 2014

12pm – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – The Art of Inspiration

Glen Schofield of Sledgehammer Games talks Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Creative Development.

1pm – McNeil & Pamphilon Go 8-Bit with The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast

A very special edition of The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast with Stuart Goldsmith, interviewing McNeil and Pamphilon about their career, with a focus on their live videogaming/comedy show “Go 8-Bit!”.

2pm – Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (18+)

Bob Roberts, Lead Designer at Monolith Productions, brings the latest news on this open world RPG.

3pm – The Magic Circle

Jordan Thomas demonstrates the core gameplay and themes of The Magic Circle – a darkly comic story about the hero of a legendarily unfinished game who attempts to complete it from the inside.

4pm – Volume

Mike Bithell will be showing a few unseen mechanics from Volume, his upcoming PS4 and desktop stealth game, and doing a live Q&A.

5pm – Evolve (18+)

The Turtle Rock team present a unique multiplayer run through of Evolve followed by a Q&A session.

6pm – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (18+)

Using the latest video and gameplay stills, CD Projekt will present the various mechanics which combine to create the living and breathing world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Sunday, 28th September 2014

12pm – Dying Light (18+)

Maciej Binkowski, Dying Light’s Lead Game Designer, will unveil some exciting news regarding Techland’s new game.

1pm – Hellblade

Dominic Matthews will discuss Ninja Theory’s new title Hellblade, the studio’s bold independent approach and an update on the game’s development.o far.

2pm – LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

Arthur Parsons, Game Director at Traveller’s Tales, will present the latest on LEGO Batman 3.

3pm – Lords of the Fallen

CI Games’ Executive Producer Tomasz Gop presents an exclusive look at the upcoming action RPG Lords of the Fallen, providing an in-depth discussion of the design process behind the game’s challenging yet rewarding combat. Showcased via all-new gameplay, attendees will also get the opportunity to put their questions to the developer.

4pm – Tearaway Unfolded

Rex Crowle and Michelle Ducker present a playthrough of Tearaway Unfolded for PS4, highlighting the exciting new gameplay mechanics in this expanded retelling of the BAFTA award-winning Tearaway.

5pm – Online Worlds with Dean Hall

DayZ creator Dean Hall argues that multiplayer sandbox gaming is the future.

China officially lifted a 13-year ban on foreign console sales on Friday 27th sept., and made plans to allow for foreign tech companies to establish streaming and entertainment services in the country.

The regulations are vague, giving foreign companies few specifics to estimate how much of an impact the new rules will have. The State Council will release more details in the coming months, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The State Council did outline, however, that any companies interested would need to “ensure information security,” and any violations would need special approval from China’s cabinet.

This follows last week’s news that Microsoft is already making plans to tap into the new market, investing $237 million in a joint venture with streaming company BesTV. The venture would operate out of Shanghai’s free-trade zone. With the new rules, though, companies like Microsoft could potentially operate out of China without first joining with an existing company.

The State Council said that the new rules would be implemented over the next three years, so there is no solid indicator of when consoles could potentially be sold in China.