Square Enix E3 conference recap: Avengers, Final Fantasy VII Remake and a whole lot of trailers

Square Enix announced Final Fantasy VII Remake's release date before its E3 2019 press conference on Monday night -- but the company still had plenty up its sleeve for the E3 schedule.

The mic drop game was Avengers, unveiled after about two weeks of social media teases, and you'll be able to play it next May. There was also plenty of Final Fantasy love -- for both VII Remake and XIV -- and a whole suite of trailers.

If you need to play catch-up, we have conveniently put every single trailer so far in this handy post. Next up and lucky last for press conferences is Nintendo Direct, and then CNET will hit the show floor and the real fun begins. 

Marvel's Avengers

Developed by Crystal Dynamics, the team behind the beloved new Tomb Raider games, Avengers is the new comic book-based video game to get hyped about. (Even if these don't look like The Avengers you know and love.) 

Square Enix has been teasing the reveal of the game since late May. We saw Thor, Iron-Man, The Hulk, Captain America and Black Widow try to save New York -- again -- in the trailer shown at the end of Square Enix's press conference.

Shaun Escayg, from Crystal Dynamics, and Marvel Games' Bill Roseman took the stage to walk us through the blockbuster game. It'll be both a single- and multi-player game, Escayg said. Rosemann explained that this is Crystal Dynamics' take on The Avengers, not a spin-off from the Marvel Cinematic Universe .

Scott Amos and Meagan Marie, both from Crystal Dynamics, came out next. They revealed we'll have online four-person multiplayer, and that the roster of superheroes will grow over time. "Every new superhero, and every new region, will be delivered at no additional cost," Amos said. Marie promised no Loot Boxes or pay-to-win scenarios. The crowd loved that.

Avengers will launch May 15, 2020 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and even Google Stadia. PlayStation 4 owners will get early beta access and "unique benefits we'll be revealing in the future," according to Amos.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: A two-part tale

Square Enix announced Final Fantasy VII Remake's release date, March 3 2020, 24 hours before its E3 2019 press conference. So what did the company have left for its big event?

A lot.

Yoshinori Kitase opened Square Enix's show and announced that the game will take part in two parts, one within Midgar and one outside it. The entire Remake will take up two entire Blu-ray discs, similar to how the PlayStation 1 original took up three CDs.

We then got a combat explainer from Neal Pabon, senior manager of product marketing. Remake will use a hybrid combat system, using real-time hacking and slashing plus a bullet-time tactical mode from which you can use magic, items and Limit Break attacks.

You can also add shortcuts that bypass the bullet-time mode, making it more like a Kingdom Hearts battle experience. The demo ended with Cloud and Barrett's boss battle with the Scorpion Sentinel. The Final Fantasy VII Remake portion of the press conference ended with an extended trailer, which gave us our first glimpse of Tifa in the Remake.

Then, we got a slew of trailers for upcoming sequels, remasters and remakes.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix's flagship online game, was the next game to get the big on-stage spotlight. Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final Fantasy XIV online, came out to talk about Shadowbringers, the third expansion pack, which will release on July 2.

Shadowbringers is more than an expansion pack, Yoshida says. Square Enix is looking at it more like a standalone game. It'll brings two new Jobs and two new Races to the game, which first launched in 2010 and then essentially relaunched as A Realm Reborn in 2013.

On top of these games which got on-stage presentations, we also saw a whole lot of trailers. Like, an overwhelming amount. Some are for brand-new games, others are ports or remasters. Either way, there's bound to be one game here for everyone. Here's the lot of Square Enix's trailers.

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition

Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind DLC

Oninaki

The Last Remnant: Remastered

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions

Outriders

Romancing Saga 3 & SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions

All of the E3 press conferences

Saturday, June 8

• Electronic Arts -- The game maker showed off 15 minutes of gameplay for its upcoming adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It also announced new features for its free-to-download Apex Legends last-man-standing battle royale game, offering a new character and weapon to play with. The company also showed off a new paid update for The Sims 4, called Island Living, that brings the series to a tropical beach. Finally, the company did discuss drama over the mixed reviews for its Anthem action adventure game, saying it "learned a lot" and had more updates and features planned soon.
  

Sunday, June 9

• Microsoft / Xbox -- The gaming giant's biggest news was Project Scarlett, its next-generation Xbox, coming in 2020. The new device is up to 4x more powerful, the company said, and like the next-gen PlayStation it'll include a fast non-mechanical SSD hard drive, and it'll be powered by custom innards built with the help of chipmaker AMD.  The company also announced that Halo Infinite will launch alongside Project Scarlett next year. Meantime, Microsoft is starting public tests of its Project xCloud streaming service in October, promising people the ability to play high end games on their mobile devices while away from home. While fans wait, Microsoft announced an update to its Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 as well as a slew of new games. And action star Keanu Reeves, fresh off the success of John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, was on stage to announce his involvement with Cyberpunk 2077, which is coming next year.
  
• Bethesda -- Bethesda kicked off its event with humility over the mixed response to Fallout 76, but quickly went back on the offensive. Fallout 76 got a new Battle Royale mode, Wolfenstein Youngblood received a new trailer and a co-op mode. We got a new game called Deathloop from the clever folks behind Dishonored and Bethesda introduced us to Orion, a piece of tech from ID Software designed to make game streaming better on services like Google Stadia. The lion's share of attention, however, went to Doom Eternal, which looked fantastic in both single player and multiplayer.

Monday, June 10

• PC Gaming Show -- This annual PC Gaming Show is held at a theater a short walk from the Los Angeles Convention Center, but still draws a large crowd, filling the 1,700-person capacity downtown Mayan Theater. Inside, the usual suspects, from Halo to Doom, were nowhere to be found. Instead, the crowd cheered for PC-centric games including Zombie Army 4, Baldur's Gate 3 and Terraria: Journey's End. (No, the game sequel problem isn't any better on PCs.) The highlight was a brief onstage appearance by legendary game designer Yu Suzuki, responsible for classics such as Hang-On and Virtua Fighter. His long-awaited Shenmue 3 is expected in November, 18 years after Shenmue 2. 
• Ubisoft -- The French gaming giant announced its next big dystopian hacking adventure game, Watch Dogs: Legion, launching March 2020. The new game is set in near-future post-Brexit London, where the economy is failing and government is breaking down. The company also announced a new television show, called Mythic Quest, that will launch on Apple TV Plus. And it celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Just Dance party games. 
  
• Square Enix -- Aside from the Final Fantasy 7 remake release date announcement, Square Enix also showed off its new comic book tie-in, Marvel's Avengers: A Day. Though the new game is different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some fans criticized the character's looks. It's coming in 2020.
  

Tuesday, June 11

• Nintendo -- The Mario maker surprised fans with announcement of a new Legend of Zelda game, which appeared to be a direct sequel to the critical darling The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This new title appears to be a sequel to Breath of the Wild, too. It also announced its newest Animal Crossing game is being delayed to 2020, and gave a look at Luigi's Mansion 3, coming later this year.