It should be noted that while these documents contain several different plots and none of it is 100 percent confirmed, there are potential spoilers ahead. 

Just to make sure you’ve got extra room to back out now before we go too deep, I’m going to put the Prey E3 2016 trailer riiiiight here:

Okay, so what do the leaked design documents tell us? There are four main plot outlines given, but they all share two common themes: aliens and technology run amok.

Plot #1 involves a Groundhog Day-like scenario where our hero is living the same day over and over. He chases a woman named Danielle through an industrial complex built on top of a crashed alien ship. Attempts to reverse engineer the extraterrestrial tech have gone horribly wrong (don’t they always?) and in the end, players have to choose whether the alien ship is repaired and leaves or if they’ll blow it to pieces. Also, Danielle becomes part of the alien ship’s AI at some point.

Plot #2 is inspired by films like Dark City and Brazil. Living in a city that at first appears straight out of the ’50s, our hero pulls out a high-tech device that can hack the city around him. The city, like the industrial complex in Plot #1, is built on top of alien technology. The synopsis ends with “He hacks an alien sentry robot to fend off the [men in black suits] and makes his escape.”

Plot #3 has the player control a man working for the government investigating the existence of aliens. But small visual cues – such as refrigerator doors arranged backwards and slight compression errors – and an AI named Danielle suggest not all is as it seems. The player discovers they are onboard a spaceship, where humans are performing experiments on fellow humans and aliens alike. Everything you’ve done is part of an elaborate test. The docs don’t describe how this situation is resolved.

Lastly, Plot #4 shunts players off to a tropical island, where it is discovered that humans have been attempting to create an AI based off alien technology. That’s it. Of all the potential plot beats, this one is the least developed.

In case you didn’t watch it above, the trailer opens with a robotic female voice telling you what day it is and what’s on your schedule. That could line up with the female AI noted in the plot synopses. There are also visual distortions that can be seen, such as this coffee cup materializing out of nowhere…

And this distortion when Morgan stands in front of a mirror.

We also see some human scientists – or at least their silhouettes – from behind glass, as a male voice interjects, “Looks like we have some tests to run today.”

Lastly, as the trailer comes to a close, we see our hero take a seat after looking out a window into space, with a large structure floating amongst the stars.

All of these line up nicely with the points made in Plot #3, where your fellow humans are using you as a guinea pig (in space) and lying to you about the truth of your situation. That said, the reoccurring day plot point from Plot #1 is also clearly part of the new Prey, or at least its setup, so we could be seeing an amalgamation of Plots #1 and #3.

Regardless of which way the story goes, a section of the leaked documents labeled “High level notes from Raph” (likely referring to Raphael Colantonio, Arkane Studios CEO and co-director of Dishonored) suggests that are some tropes the game will be staying away from.

“Raph” wants the team to avoid visual cliches such as the slimy metallic bodies of the Alien films, as well as the neon-tinted glow of Blade Runner. He also wants the game to avoid M-rated gore, and describes the game as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. Hence, I imagine, all the “alien technology and AI” themes.

Game concepts morph and grow over time, so don’t be too surprised if the final product doesn’t really line up with any of the above plot points. But then, try not to be surprised if the opposite ends up being the case, and you meet a possibly untrustworthy AI named Danielle as you try to escape an alien-infested spaceship when Prey launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2017.

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If you don’t know who Dengar is, he’s one of the bounty hunters that appears in that brief but intensely memorable scene in the middle of Empire, when Darth Vader asks other thugs of fortune to track down the Millennium Falcon. Dengar isn’t one of the sweet-looking robots; those are 4-LOM with his bug eyes and IG-88 with his lava lamp-shaped head. He’s not the hissing lizard man going barefoot; that’s Bossk. Dengar is the tired-looking dude with the toilet paper on his head (opens in new tab).

He’s one of your new heroes in Battlefront’s Bespin, and his rifle is admittedly pretty snappy for sharpshooters with a penchant for blind-fire sniping. Perfect for the wide-open, gleaming plazas in Cloud City’s take on Conquest. Easy as it was to make fun of Dengar, especially when the Empire team voice over tries to make him sound like a badass when he joins the fray, he was effective. Definitely a better addition in terms of strategy than Greedo in the Outer Rim DLC. Lando Calrissian, meanwhile, didn’t feel immediately different than other laser pistol-wielding hero characters like Han or Nien Nunb. It’s more fun to play as Lando just for the novelty of getting to see his jaunty blue cape, but he’s also not going to redefine the way you think about fighting in the game. Same for Bespin’s new ship, the twin-pod cloud car (opens in new tab), which is blue rather than the classic orange from the movies. The patrol ship handles steadily like the X-Wings and TIE Fighters from the initial 2015 version of the game.

It has to be said up front that my E3 Battlefront demo was not held under ideal circumstances. Local hardware problems and server issues kept me from playing the new hero-fighting mode Sabotage entirely, and getting into basic Conquest matches to check out Bespin was spotty. Playing just three matches is ample time to get a feel for such simple shooter – Battlefront’s simplicity being both its greatest asset and its greatest handicap – but it also isn’t enough to really explore the hidden potential in its new characters.

That said, it was plenty of time to notice that Cloud City is weirdly sterile compared to past Battlefront environments. Tatooine has its Jawas scampering away to their sandcrawler from firefights, and even Hoth’s Echo Base hallways hide away treats like tauntaun bones leftover from old wampa meals. Little Star Wars flourishes like that do a lot to spice up the game. Cloud City, meanwhile, looks like an abandoned shopping mall with a crashed X-Wing in the middle of it, open and beautifully rendered but also deeply sterile. Some ugnaughts (opens in new tab) running around or even an area with Lando’s righthand man Lobot taking a cyborg nap would have added a lot of the Star Wars flavor that is Battlefront’s raison de etre in the first place. 

As with everything Star Wars Battlefront, your mileage may vary with the Bespin expansion. Anyone still playing the game will welcome even these modest additions, but those still yearning for a game as robust as Star Wars Battlefront 2 for the original Xbox will be stuck waiting for next year’s sequel developed by DICE and Motive Studios. 

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David Roberts

If the first Titanfall was all about making you feel like a badass sci-fi action hero, Titanfall 2 is all about making you feel badder-asser (…that’s the proper term, right?). The most obvious addition is the grappling hook, and while it’s as thrilling to use as it looks, it’s a little tricky to figure out at first. You point your reticule at where you want it to go and fire, but doing so will launch you right into a wall, so you need to boost jump to angle yourself up and over while you’re speeding forward. It introduces even more verticality, if you can believe it. But the grappling hook is a specific class skill, so not everyone will have access to it. You can grapple into enemies, like grunts, other pilots, even Titans. It makes rodeoing them much easier – which is good, because it seems like it’s an instant kill on Titans now (once you’re latched on, you rip their battery out or chuck a grenade in and they’re done).

Speaking of Titans, I played in the Ion Titan (the pre-demo video made sure to call the mech out as a ‘she’, compared to the other one which was a ‘he’ (maybe that’s dependent on their AI voice?). It’s a little like the standard Titans from the first game – energy shield, powerful machine gun – but Ion’s damage core ability is a giant energy laser that rips through enemy health and shields like tissue paper if you can properly line up the shot. One thing I noticed during my brief demo is that Titans don’t arrive on a set timer any more. Instead, their arrival is based entirely around your kills – take out grunts and pilots to fill up the meter. Once it’s full, you can summon your mech from the sky. Unlike Killstreaks in Call of Duty, your meter carries over between deaths, so it’s much more newbie friendly while still allowing their presence on the field to be more about skill than inevitability.

Somehow Titanfall 2 is even more over-the-top than the first game, and a lot of the changes Respawn have made seem to be about refinement, as well as giving combat a little more personality and edge. And if its single-player campaign can match this pace, it could be incredible.

Dan Dawkins

I wanted to replay the Titanfall 2 E3 demo immediately, and considered queueing again as EA were nudging us out the door – so, yeah, it’s pretty good. Xbox One owners will recognise the feel: snappy targeting and bristling ballistics – as you’d expect of the developers behind Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – allied to huge agility and verticality. I spent a lot of time juggling weapons (tap triangle), alternating between close range automatic rifle combat, and double-leaping onto raised rooftops to unleash the charged sniper rifle: watch the circular meter spin up to max and unleash for an instant head-shot kill. It seemed easier to earn – and destroy – Titans than I recall, with a shrewd asymmetry between on-foot troops and mech pilots: both sides have pros and cons; subtler than pure mobility versus firepower. PS4 newcomers are in for a treat: with the addition of a true single-player mode, this feels like the real Titanfall, despite the impressive, if restricted, Xbox original.

James Jarvis

Despite getting our first look at Battlefield 1 multiplayer during the EA press conference, Titanfall 2 was the game everyone was talking about after the show, and with good reason. All those, what looked to be ‘staged plays’ from the trailer are actually possible, and damn do you feel good when you pull one off. I was playing as ‘grappling hook guy’ and at one point called in my Titan, attached my grapple to it’s head and fired myself across the map landing on an enemy Titan who’s vent was introduced to a grenade. I don’t care if it wasn’t totally intentional because that’s what so good about Titanfall 2. It makes you feel like you’re a tactical genius even if you’re just making it up on the fly. The original always had that ‘one more round’ appeal and this is no different, as soon as it was over and we were ushered out of the makeshift tent I wanted to go again. The main takeaway though was that it’s a multiplayer shooter that’s a hell of a lot of fun. There’s no hiding in corners and taking pot shots here, you’re on the move all the time and moving fast. So even if you didn’t play the original and you’re just shooting grunts to learn the ropes for a few rounds you’ll be able to pull off some cool moves with a giant grin on your face. Now where’s the end of the queue… 

Susan Arendt

I was really worried when I heard that Titans are no longer an automatic gimme in Titanfall 2, because I figured unless you were the best of the best, you’d never rack up enough kills to earn one. But Titanfall 2 isn’t about kill streaks and headshots, it’s about being smart, moving fast and any kill kill, be it an AI grunt or player-controlled Titan, counts towards preparing you for Titanfall. We played the new mode Bounty, in which a beefed-up Titan is marked for elimination. Once it’s been suitably softened up – which will take some doing, because these things are tough – either a pilot’s rodeo or a Titan’s melee attack will finish it off and earn points for their team. It was an energized spin on the typical multiplayer kill fests, where taking out enemies isn’t the objective, but a means to an end – namely calling down your own mech from above. If Titanfall was the outline of a great game, Titanfall 2 is all the filled-in details. Now, about that single player campaign…

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A brief trailer showed off some of the new moves you can expect to pull off with Oculus Touch, including using your fists to realistically punch out red mooks, hold two pistols akimbo, or even throw your gun and then snatch the enemy’s weapon out of the air. It looks slick as hell, and if you’ve played the original game, you’ll notice that the part at the end of the trailer when your character pulls his helmet off is all new.

It appears that Superhot VR is an all new title, built from the ground up to take advantage of the unique interactivity that virtual reality affords. It’ll launch alongside the Oculus Touch controllers later this year.

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Now, anyone can make predictions both wild and mundane about the kinds of surprises that await us at E3 2016 (opens in new tab). Spoilers: There will be games, sequel announcements, a sprinkling of reboots, and some corporate executives reading off of teleprompters. But the real question is: Hype, or Not Hype? Read on to find out what we hope beyond hope will come true next week, the dreaded prophecies we fear will come to pass, and everything in between.  

Kojima Productions at Sony  

HYPE – With Uncharted out of the way, Sony needs another big, first-party game on the horizon. Kojima’s new game (opens in new tab) is likely years away, but E3 is about paving the path to the future. Now that Sony has signed the newly independent Metal Gear creator’s next game (though the nature of the exclusivity is yet to be revealed), and Kojima himself has finished his ‘global tech tour’ to secure a third party graphics engine partner, it’s entirely possible that he’ll make a show-stopping cameo at the end of the Sony press conference, to drop a title, logo, and possibly a short, CG concept animation of Norman Reedus in a robot skeleton suit.  

Battlefield 1 gameplay footage 

HYPE – Nine out of 10 internet users agree: the Battlefield 1 (opens in new tab) reveal instantly solidified it as the most anticipated FPS headed our way later this year. Now that we’ve gotten a taste of what the combat will look like by way of gussied-up CGI snippets, it’s time to see how the game actually plays (which should hopefully be just as invigorating). But please, EA: don’t roll the trailer three times again. That’s excessive. 

Destiny 2 on the Sony stage 

HYPE – We know there will be some Destiny at E3. Rise of Iron (opens in new tab), the latest expansion, has already leaked so that’s the bare minimum. As Activision isn’t actually attending E3, it’s going to be at either the Sony or Microsoft conference, and Destiny already has an exclusivity agreement in place with PS4 so… yeah. But will we get a glimpse of Destiny 2 (opens in new tab)? Come on – it’s bound to be there in some form, even if it’s just a teaser. 

The Last Of Us 2

HYPE – Oh God yes. The Last Of Us (opens in new tab) is still pretty much the benchmark for mainstream gaming narrative and the merest mention of it whips up a fanboy froth (don’t worry, it wipes right off). It’s still unclear just how far along a sequel might be because while Neil Druckmann has said he and co-creator Bruce Straley have been working on a TLOU 2, he’s also made it clear that Uncharted 4 (opens in new tab)’s single player DLC comes first. With that game in mind though it’s worth mentioning that an Uncharted 4 easter egg shows a poster for ‘The Last Of Us: American Daughters’ featuring a pregnant woman (possible Ellie?) in a gas mask.  

New Star Wars Battlefront stuff 

HYPE – EA have managed to significantly muddy the info enough that we’re still not sure if the next big Battlefront thing (opens in new tab) will be new DLC or a whole new game. There’s supposedly a ‘significant expansion’ due in 2017 but also chatter of a full sequel. Whatever it turns out being the key thing is NEW MOVIE CONTENT. Playing as Kylo Ren or Rey? Maps based on The Force Awakens? In. So, so in.  

Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim HD remaster  

HYPE – An ultra pretty HD version of Skyrim (opens in new tab), complete with all DLC, improved visuals and mod support? Yes, please. If there was only to be one HD remaster at E3 – we should be so lucky – this is the one to rule them all. The mention of mod support actually makes this far more likely sounding now that Fallout 4 has launched console mods (opens in new tab) to great success. If this happens, we promise never to make any more arrow to the knee jokes ever again. Except, y’know, that one.  

MS or Sony will co-opt the Psychonauts 2 presentation 

HYPE – Purist nerd kudos wins E3, regardless of the eventual commercial impact of the games you’re showing, or in fact, how involved or not you might actually be with said games. Sony proved that last year. Shenmue 3 (opens in new tab) and the Final Fantasy 7 remake (opens in new tab) had seemed like impossible fan dreams for the best part of forever until Sony wheeled them out. Psychonauts 2 (opens in new tab) was the same deal, until Tim Schafer got it funded late last year. It’s about due for some sort of reveal, and you can bet than one platform-holder or the other will want to be standing on stage, smiling away when that happens. Sony has a history with Schafer’s Double-Fine Productions, having helped make the Grim Fandango remake (opens in new tab) happen, but Microsoft is more starved of indie cred. Place bets now.  

Resident Evil 7 and VR potential  

HYPE – One word: Kitchen (opens in new tab). Last year’s five minute terrifying E3 demo from Capcom wasn’t just for scaring the life out of games journalists. It was an exercise in fear that proved the developer can still do horror. Now that we know Resi 7 is going back to its terrifying roots (opens in new tab), it might not be too big a leap to imagine that world in VR. Add in the fact that we’ve got the lead designer from PT working on the project and we should probably be afraid. Very afraid.  

Another parade of EA Sports games 

NOT HYPE – Sports games are a huge moneymaker for EA, so it’s reasonable that they’re given star treatment during every press conference. But once you’ve heard about one Madden / NBA Live / FIFA / PGA Tour / UFC game, you’ve heard it all. And let us not forget the excruciating awkwardness of all the Pele worship that transpired last year. 

Yakuza 0 is hot, but PS4 exclusive Yakuza 6 will stay in Japan for now 

NOT HYPE – Sega’s fitful pattern of bringing Yakuza games to the West is rough for big fans of the series. When new entries are localized, like Yakuza 5 (opens in new tab) for PS3 was this past winter, they’re arriving years late and after multiple new games have hit Japan. Sega’s showing off a playable English Yakuza 0 at E3 which is exciting, but this is an old, cross-generation PlayStation 3 game. The newer, custom built for PlayStation 4 Yakuza 6 will likely be a verboten subject until 0 has already proven to be a sales success. Give us the game where we can seamlessly trash a minimart, Sega! 

Microsoft is going VR 

HYPE – As predicted by us (opens in new tab), Microsoft will almost certainly reveal its VR strategy at E3… and it’ll be support for Oculus Rift. Forget Hololens – Xbox is getting a quick firmware patch, and it’ll work with the Rift. The new, more powerful Xbox that has been rumoured will be required to run VR games. 

A progress report on Sea of Thieves 

HYPE – Rare might’ve stumbled here and there in years past, but the glimpse we got at this pirate-themed multiplayer adventure (opens in new tab) at E3 2015 looked like the swashbuckling game of our dreams. We haven’t heard a peep about it since, so Microsoft’s press conference is the perfect opportunity to get us excited for starting a seafaring crew all over again.

Persona 5 is a real game that exists 

HYPE – Persona 5 (opens in new tab) was first announced in 2013 with a single image teasing a winter 2014 release date. It’s now 2016, and we’ve finally gotten an official release date for the slick, stylish sequel to the highly-regarded Persona series: Valentine’s Day, 2017. The extra wait after the Japanese release does sting a bit – but considering many of us here at GamesRadar+ are huge Persona fans, we’re hoping this year’s E3 will sate our ravenous appetites for all things P5 with an in-depth look at the game’s English iteration. 

Updated PlayStation and Xbox Consoles 

MAYBE HYPE – Two high-profile leaks have potentially outed Microsoft and Sony’s plans to bring updated Xbox (opens in new tab) and PlayStation (opens in new tab) consoles within the next year or so, and right now there’s a gigantic question mark hovering over them. Will we need to upgrade our console if we want to experience VR without our eyes melting? Will our games look and run like crap if we don’t upgrade? What does this mean for the respective console ecosystems going forward? If there’s a case for making the console upgrade path more closely resemble mobile phones and PCs, both publishers have a hell of a lot of persuading to do to convince us this is the right path forward.  

Gravity Rush 2 joins the party 

HYPE – Of all the new Sony IP to emerge in the past decade, Gravity Rush is the last game I thought we’d ever see a sequel to. I thought we’d get The Order: 1887 before a follow up to the PS Vita-exclusive adventures of anti-gravity anime gal. Not only is Gravity Rush 2 (opens in new tab) real, but Sony’s already been showing off a playable build of the gorgeous open world game ahead of the convention. While all eyes are on Horizon: Zero Dawn (opens in new tab) and The Last Guardian (opens in new tab), this is another PS4 exclusive that looks spectacular. 

Scalebound 

MAYBE HYPE – Platinum Games has been having a rough year. Between the frustrating fiasco that is Star Fox Zero (opens in new tab)’s controls to the unplayable disaster that is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (opens in new tab), the studio’s record has gone from almost unblemished to in bad need of a hit. This Xbox One exclusive was actually revealed two years ago at E3 and it’s apparently gone under significant changes since then. It’s also Platinum star director Hideki Kamiya’s first game since 2013’s The Wonderful 101 (opens in new tab) and the studio’s first RPG. With the studio’s reputation on the line, Scalebound (opens in new tab) has to have a huge showing this year but its pedigree is strong. Bring on the dragons and Beats headphones, Scalebound. 

Nintendo’s 2016 

NOT HYPE – Nintendo’s new Legend of Zelda (opens in new tab) game will be shown at E3, and that’s certainly exciting – but it won’t be hitting Wii U until next year, and even then, it’ll likely be launching on the NX alongside it. What’s worse, Zelda is likely all Nintendo has on the E3 showfloor this year. The publisher will be demoing some additional games via its daily livestreams, but it’s clear that 2017’s Zelda game is its main focus. That doesn’t exactly bode well for the rest of Nintendo’s 2016. Maybe it’s just playing things close to its chest, and at least 3DS fans have a new Rhythm Heaven game and (hopefully) Picross 3D 2 by the end of the year to look forward to. But with Paper Mario: Color Splash (opens in new tab) as the only confirmed first-party Wii U game for the back half of 2016,  it’s hard not to shake the feeling that we’re currently witnessing the protracted death rattle of the beleaguered console in real-time. 

Knack 2 

NOT HYPE – No. God no. What did we do to deserve this? The first Knack (opens in new tab) is a frustrating, try-hard mess of a launch game; a throwback to the Crash Bandicoot era of platformers which trades challenge and charm for vexation and blandness. Based on an unintended leak (opens in new tab) on an animator’s resume, there’s probably a Knack 2 in development. And Sony’s probably going to trot it out on its conference stage like it’s the best thing in the world. Stop trying to make Knack happen, whether it’s on PS Plus (opens in new tab) or in sequel form, Sony. Knack 2 is the opposite of hype. No, it’s worse. It’s the kind of hype the ruins other hype. It’s the anti-hype. 

Agents of Mayhem 

NOT HYPE – Volition Games, best known for the endearingly over-the-top Saints Row series, jumped the E3 gun by unveiling its latest franchise earlier this week. The cinematic trailer for Agents of Mayhem doesn’t give us much insight into the actual gameplay, besides plenty of mech-shooting – but it does reveal maybe too much about the ‘edgy’ nature of the heroes and villain. It’s the same kind of ham-fisted ‘tude that plagued ’90s mascots and Borderlands writing, and we’re having a hard time getting excited at the prospect of listening to these characters and their totally meta quips for an entire game. But hey, maybe some actual gameplay shown at E3 could change all that. 

ReCore 

HYPE – Robot dog. That’s really all you need to get onboard with ReCore (opens in new tab), a promising action adventure set in a desert of rusted mechs and the mechanic who has the know-how to get them working again. The development team includes Keiji Inafune (just pretend like Mighty No. 9 doesn’t exist) and veterans from Metroid Prime 3 and Destiny, and we’re stoked to see what they can do with this wholly unique setting in a sea of sequels. We’ve seen nothing of ReCore’s sandy world since E3 2015, so now’s the time to fan the flames of excitement back up with some gameplay trailers.    

Dead Rising 4 

MAYBE HYPE – Ok, so Dead Rising 3 (opens in new tab) wasn’t all that great – not terrible, mind, but it didn’t exactly set the world on fire (it probably didn’t help that it was an Xbox One console exclusive). But recent leaks have hinted at a possible return by Capcom to the zombie-slaying franchise, and you know what? Mowing down huge swaths of the undead with improvised weapons still sounds like a ton of fun. And if Capcom leans away from the grimdark tone of the third game and revisits the tale of Frank “I’ve Covered Wars, You Know” West, Dead Rising 4 (opens in new tab) could be a pleasant surprise. Hopefully PS4 owners will get to join in on the fun, too. 

Sony will co-opt the Yooka-Laylee presentation 

MAYBE HYPE – It’s likely that Microsoft will give a decent chunk of time to Rare this year, if only in an attempt to redress some of the negative PR it recently accrued due to closing down beloved Fable developer Lionhead (opens in new tab). But the thing is, Sony proved last year the massive value of publicly aligning oneself with cultish, neglected, fan-favourites. Yooka-Laylee (opens in new tab) is the successor to Banjo-Kazooie, that most quintessentially old-Rare of old-Rare games. And it’s being made by ex-Rare staff, who left Microsoft so that they could get back to making such things. In terms of both the game itself and its creators, Yooka-Laylee is the definition of ‘neglected fan-favourite’. It’s multi-platform, but that didn’t stop Sony from ‘owning’ Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy 7 last year.  

Phil Spencer will sacrifice Bubsy the Bobcat, live on stage 

HYPE – Given the significant lead that Sony has in console sales, the last option left to Microsoft is to appease the angry gods that have cursed them to linger in second place. Ever since Don Mattrick (opens in new tab) made the grave error of snapping the arm off the ice sculpture of Hideo Kojima, sculpted by Cliffy B, the console gods have looked unfavourably on Xbox One. Only a public display of barbarity will restore Microsoft’s fortunes. When he commits the atrocity, expect Spencer to wear an ironic boilersuit with an indie game logo on it. 

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You can only see his phone, his lower arm, and the back of his pants and shirt, but there are still plenty of details to extract. First off, chances are good that he is indeed the young bespectacled man (opens in new tab) played by actor Cort King; he’s wearing a different shirt and jacket but those look like the same pants as in the picture, and his skin tone is about right.

Second, you can see the DedSec logo in the background of several of the command line scripts on his phone (the programs themselves are too small to read). The new guy may be a member of the hacking group – which saw a major leadership shakeup in Watch Dogs’ Bad Blood DLC – or he may just use their tools. Original protagonist Aiden Pearce had a sometimes cooperative, sometimes adversarial relationship with DedSec, though he’s supposedly in hiding now. 

And third, the word “Empire” shows up in big ASCII letters on the background of his phone. It looks a bit Star Wars-y, as in Empire Strikes Back, though that’s probably just a nod to the geeky pedigree of the software. New York is the Empire State, and if Watch Dogs 2 is moving on from Chicago, New York City would be a likely destination (it was good enough for The Division (opens in new tab)). That’s a lot of speculation to pull from one little piece of ASCII art, admittedly.

Ubisoft has confirmed that Watch Dogs 2 will also appear at its E3 stage show (opens in new tab) on Monday, June 13, so we’ll hear even more about it soon after the debut event. Oh, also the website’s source code has a troll face at the top for folks who go snooping around. I would have been more surprised if a meme wasn’t hidden somewhere in there, honestly.

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