E3 Trailers: ‘Halo 4′ Multiplayer, ‘The Elder Scrolls Online,’ & ‘Sleeping Dogs’

E3 2012 is in full swing, and so is the fusillade of trailers being fired out as the show goes on.

We’re on the floor with the full hands-on break down of Halo 4′s exciting multiplayer – including its new ‘Spartan Ops’ mode – but in the meantime developer 343 Industries has a new trailer taking us inside walls of the UNSC vessel/player hub, Infinity. Also be sure to check out the latest teaser for The Elder Scrolls Online and the feature trailer for Square Enix’s promising Hong Kong crime thriller, Sleeping Dogs.

Halo 4 Multiplayer

Story-integrating multiplayer might not be the main reason gamers lay down $60 on a title (and, in the case of Xbox Live, another $60 for a 12-month online subscription), but it’s seen a recent renaissance with triple-A names like Assassin’s Creed, Max Payne 3, and now Halo 4. To help demonstrate, the latest trailer from 343 Industries out of E3 2012 takes us aboard the UNSC starship Infinity – the hub of Halo 4′s multiplayer experience that tethers a highly customizable player persona between the dual components of Spartan Ops and War Games.

The Infinity has a campaign-rooted back story behind its crew – the leaders, the deckhands, and a new team of Spartans dubbed “Majestic Squad” – and Spartan Ops is where we’ll see the rest of it unfold. A weekly series of episodic content will be delivered to the mode free of charge, which 343 says will offer new objective-based missions, story insights on the Forerunner world of Requiem, and opportunities for players to rank up their multiplayer character. It’s also playable via solo and four-player co-op formats.

War Games, by contrast, is classic Halo: competitive player-v-player fragfesting across 10 orginal maps, replete with new and old game modes and the addition of Forerunner weapons.  Furthermore, both Spartan Ops and War Games will afford ways to customize armor and gear for enhancements on the battlefield – a move beyond the purely aesthetic tailoring offered in Halo: Reach.

Halo 4 releases on November 6, 2012, exclusively for the Xbox 360

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The Elder Scrolls Online

They’re the many faces of the world of Tamriel. Warring factions of races fighting for the Emperor’s throne. There’s the Aldmeri Dominion, comprised of Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiit; the Daggerfall Covenant, represented by the Bretons, Redguards and Orcs; and the Ebonheart Pact, constituted with the combined might of the Dunmer, Nords and Argonians. Each faction and race is at our disposal in Bethesda’s upcoming MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online, and while the newest trailer released for the game doesn’t provide additional gameplay visuals or details beyond those already released, it certainly stirs the suspense for a 2013 release date. We’re on the lookout at E3 in case anything more on the game shows up, but it should already be on the radar for anyone with a PC or Mac from the last 5 years.

The Elder Scrolls Online releases in 2013 for the PC and Mac.

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Sleeping Dogs

There’s a developer diary for Sleeping Dogs released back in March where Jeff O’Connell, a senior producer at United Front Games, claims to have embedded a writer with the Triads – the real-life Chinese criminal syndicate that serves as a focal point for the open-world third-person shooter RPG. At the time it seemed like a good idea; immersing oneself in the seedy underbelly of a brutal gang sect is a surefire cure for writer’s block. However, after witnessing the latest two-and-a-half minutes of action in the game’s E3 trailer – the nonstop bloody shootouts interwoven with visceral torture scenes of scalpel jabbing, patella power-drilling, and the old pliers-as-dental-floss trick – we’re becoming skeptical that there weren’t any lasting ramifications. In either case, we had the chance to go hands on with the game-formerly-known-as-True Crime: Hong Kong at PAX East, and the elaborately detailed world has us eager to see more of Square Enix’s IP on the E3 show floor.

Sleeping Dogs  releases on August 14, 2012 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

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