And that’s it for us! E3 proper begins tomorrow, but it feels a lot of the biggest announcements have already been made. Final Fantasy VII Remake, Watch Dogs: Brexit Edition and Marvel’s Avengers. A big day for gaming.

Surprise! It’s a live game, a la Destiny or The Division. Avengers delivers “a narrative over multiple years, with exciting new content released on a regular basis.”

“You’ll assemble into teams of up to four players online, where you can master exciting abilities and muster a roster of exciting heroes. Every new hero, every new region will be delivered at no cost” And there won’t be random lootboxes or pay to win either.

Another trailer reveals the game’s interpretation of Hank Pym, Ant Man, before the release date: Out worldwide on PS4, Xbox One, Stadia and PC, with some platform exclusives for Playstation… on May 15, 2020.

The team emphasises that the game is “Crystal Dynamics own interpretation of Avengers”, explaining why the likes of Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr are missing, but it does make it all the odder that the character design is lifted straight from the movies. The Tomb Raider developer has big shoes to step into.

A bit more detail: the story begins five years after the team was forced to disband following that inciting incident. “It’s about losing what matters to you most, and fighting to get it back.”

“This is a story about self-acceptance in the face of adversity… and learning that together we are mighty.”

Oninaki is a new RPG from the skunkworks team at Square Enix who made retro-styled RPG I Am Setsuna. It’s out August 22 this year.

We’re all waiting for Avengers, but first, an introduction for Outriders, a new postapocalyptic co-op shooter from the makers of Bulletstorm. Coming 2020, the all-FMV trailer doesn’t reveal much about the game, but hopefully Sebastian Wojciechowski, the head of Polish developers People Can Fly, can tell us a bit more.

He introduces a video that describes the game as “a dark modern shooter with traditional values. We are creating an experience with a strong story that you can enjoy with your friends and on your own.” It’s a “one, two or three-player drop-in, drop-out co-op shooter”, more prosaically.

Now, an announcement of a new mobile game to live “alongside” Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has a mouthful of a name, and appears to tell a fairly sweeping Game of Thrones-esque story of a warring nation.

As for actual gameplay, it looks to call back to the much loved Final Fantasy Tactics series – a step up from the fairly basic play of FFBV.

A new trailer next for the postapocalyptic parkour zombie-escape sim Dying Light 2, already announced for Spring 2020, and a surprise announcement of a pair of rereleases of retro JRPGs that never made it to the west: SaGa Scarlett Grace, and Romancing SaGa 3.

This trailer is apparently extremely exciting if you’re a Final Fantasy XIV player but I have almost no idea what is going on. It’s sparkly, though!

Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final Fantasy XIV, the popular MMO, arrives to demo the game’s third expansion pack Shadowbringers, debuting July 2nd. The game now has 16 million registered users, a remarkable turnaround after a launch so disastrous that the entire game was torn down, and the in-game world literally destroyed, before being relaunched as A Realm Reborn in 2013.

The expansion pack includes two new jobs, and two new playable races, and a new story “roughly equal in size to a standalone singleplayer RPG”.

A trailer round-up for Square Enix’s indie label, Collective, introduces us to the titles coming in 2020.

Circuit Superstars, a racing game from Mexico “mixes top down racing with a classic sharp arcade look”. It looks like a loving homage to Micro Machines and the like, and features online multiplayer – of course. Coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch.

Battalion 1944 is a throwback competitive multiplayer shooter, for those who think Counter-Strike is too dumbed-down. It’s also already out, so I’m not entirely clear what’s 2020 about this.

More Dragon Quest! Coming to Switch is the formerly-exclusive-to-PS4 Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. The game, now branded the Definitive Edition S, will feature a new 2D mode, letting players experience the entire adventure as though it was a SNES game from 1993. And it’s out this autumn.

A trailer for Dragon Quest Builders 2 comes next. This Minecraft-like sequel merges, well, (dragon) questing and (mine) crafting, and now farming too. And the game supports four-player online co-op, so you can enlist your friends as willing labourers. Out July 12th, with a demo arriving on the Playstation store in late June.

The remasters keep coming: the 2008 Xbox 360 RPG Last Remnant is coming out on Switch – today. The game was fairly well received back in the day, when it was seen as the last attempt by Microsoft to break the Japanese market.

And then we get a release date for another remake: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, coming to smartphones with online co-op. The original, a Gamecube exclusive, never got the attention it deserved, with a proto-Wii U approach requiring each individual player to use a Gameboy Advance to manage their action.

The immediately after that, the announcement that last year’s throwback Switch exclusive RPG, Octopath Traveller, is coming to PC.

And we’re done with Final Fantasy. Next up, a trailer Life is Strange 2, with the sequel to the award winning 2015 adventure game announced as Playable Today.

Trailer over, Tetsuya Nomura, the game’s director, takes to the stage as well. With the interpreter making four, it’s getting crowded up there.

“It has been a while since we’ve had Nomura work so heavily on a project like this,” Kitase says, “so it’s good to see him work with the same passion he had 22 years ago.”

Nomura adds, alongside Kitase, his gratitude for those who’ve been “supporting us so patiently,” before revealing a bombshell: the game will be playable at the Square Enix booth during E3. It shouldn’t be that surprising, since we already knew the game was coming in just nine months, but still — this is a moment many thought would never come.

And we launch into a new excerpt to finish the first section: the Scorpion Sentinel, the game’s first boss. The fight proceeds as players of the original will remember, but the new battle system really shows its stuff, suggesting that the promises of real tactical action might be justified. That’ll be a relief for those who played Final Fantasy XV’s superficially similar battle system and found themselves mostly button-mashing their way through battles.

Where the original fight with the scorpion had a famously dodgy translation that read as a command to “attack while the tail is up”, rather than the warning it was supposed to be, the new version has a different command: take cover behind debris before it fires off its main attack. Positioning your characters isn’t just for show, as it was in Square Enix’s Dragon Quest XI, then.

Finally, after first destroying one leg of the Scorpion, Cloud and Barrat take out the boss completely. It plunges off the gantry, to deafening cheers from the crowd.

For those who want to avoid menus, “abilities and spells can be bound to shortcuts for immediate action”, but the ATB sticks around regardless.

Square Enix’s Neal Pabon takes the stage to introduce the first ever look at gameplay in the remake.

“Real-time action merged with strategic combat” is the claim. Tapping the square button will let Cloud hit enemies with his normal attacks, but it will also fill up an ATB bar – when that fills up, the game enters Tactical mode, where players can cast spells and use special abilities.

You don’t just play as Cloud: a single button press switches to Barret, Cloud’s gun-handed ally, and Pabon teases that we’ll see Tifa Lockhart “soon”.

“To our long-time fans, we thank you for your support and patience over these years,” Kitase says. I don’t speak Japanese well enough to know whether he emphasised “patience” there.

“Remaking Final Fantasy VII has allowed us to dive much deeper into the world and its titles than ever before.

“We anticipate two blu-ray discs full of gameplay content,” he adds, to cheers from the crowd. One of the discs will go further into the history of the world of Final Fantasy VII, suggesting the game has swelled from a remake to a near sequel.

A suitably dramatic beginning: the curtain rises to reveal the game-over screen of Final Fantasy VII: NEW GAME or Continue? Another option fades into view: Remake?

The crowd laps it up, of course, and we get a brief clip of the same trailer we saw last month, before Yoshinori Kitase, the game’s producer, takes the stage.

But enough of the Indie games. The countdown on stage has hit 10 seconds. Time to go.

Undermine PC, Xbox One, Switch. Release date: Early access in Summer 2019

A pixelated action-adventure roguelike, Undermine’s two-person team has created a game that blends the procedurally-generated rooms of Binding of Isaac with the aesthetics of Spelunky and the hot mining action of Stardew Valley. Each run sees you playing as a new peasant, tasked by a wizard to explore the caverns below your village in order to work out what is causing the dangerous earthquakes that shake your home. Each run will see you die, frequently fairly quickly, but still cart back enough resources to improve your next characters, powering up you pickaxes, boots and armour to endure more challenging tasks.

The game will feel familiar to roguelike fans – perhaps too familiar, if what you’re looking for is a whole new experience. But it has polish, and when it launches in early access on Steam this summer, expect it to pick up a following.

Spiritfarer Xbox One, PS4, Switch, PC. Release date: Early 2020

This indie game, styled as “a cozy management game about dying”, was given a fairly hefty slot at Microsoft’s presser. It sees you playing as Stella, ferrymaster to the deceased, as she sails the sea of the dead, carting spirits to the beyond. That’s the “dying” part – but it’s the “cozy management game” that caught the eye of many.

The management part is the bulk of the gameplay: It tasks Stella with building vertically on her boat, to provide abodes for choosy spirits, land for growing crops on, kitchens for cooking meals in and, presumably, more besides. She can fish, farm and literally bottle lightning in order to gather the needed resources.

And then there’s the cozy. With its animated 2D look, Spiritfarer has charm in bucketloads. And, while the ten minute hands-on didn’t provide much of a look at the depth of the relationships between the cast, it did show the tone and feel, which is, well, cozy. There may be drama later in the plot, but one gets the sense that if Spiritfarer leaves you feeling anything but warm and fuzzy, the developers will be trying to work out what went wrong.

While we wait for Square Enix to start its conference, I’ll run you through a few smaller games on show at the convention that might not have hit headlines, but deserve some attention nonetheless.

Alex Hern here, signing on from Los Angeles and warming up my typing fingers for the Square Enix press conference which starts in just twenty minutes time.

We’ve already had some pretty major news from the company: a release date for the Final Fantasy VII Remake – and one much closer than anyone expected. During a concert of video game music last night, Square Enix announced that the long-awaited recreation of the PlayStation game will be arriving on March 3, 2020.

Until then: here’s all the E3 news so far in one convenient round-up.

That’s it for the announcements. What an impressively broad selection of games that was.

He’s announcing a new project from Quebec. Assassin’s Creed producer Marc-Alexis Cote is here to show it off: “for years our minds have lingered on a different aspect of our history: mythology.”

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is here to close things out, thanking the developers for their hard work. “At Ubisoft it is our intention to create games that make you stronger and happier in your life... we hope you will spend quality time with family and friends and meet new inspiring people, learn more about yourself by doing, and gain new perspective on the world, to help shape it.”

Do you wanna watch some people dancing? Here’s that 10 years of Just Dance video from earlier, if you need a little joy boost.

Looks like it’s time to learn about Ubisoft’s roller derby multiplayer game now. The trailer looks very cool, with Overwatch-style animated art.

Haha, it’s as if someone out there heard me. uPlay Plus will be partnering with Google’s Stadia streaming service from 2020.

See, the thing about this rush to be the Netflix of gaming is that THERE ARE NOT 14 DIFFERENT NETFLIXES, and that’s why Netflix did so well: it got there first and did it properly. There’s going to have to be some consolidation soon, because game companies cannot expect us to have 5 different $15 subscriptions going at any one time.

It’ll be $14.99 a month and will launch in September.

Ah, it looks like Ubisoft has joined the subscription-service bandwagon. uPlay Plus is a PC service that will give you early access to new games and 100+ old ones from Ubi’s catalogue for your money.

Oh good, Ubisoft has been working on a movie! Video game movies always work out. The Division movie will be coming out on Netflix and stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

Ah, it’s just into the surrounding woodlands. And the zoo. And, later this year, the Pentagon. Here’s a trailer.

Time to learn what’s next for The Division 2, the totally-not-political military squad-shooter set in a devastated Washington DC. It’ll be playable for free between June 13th and 16th, if you want to try it out. The first expansion will allow players out of Washington and into the rest of the US, it seems.

The enemy is an unknown and devastating parasite. Here’s a teaser trailer.

“What Siege is to the PvP shooter, Quarantine will be to PvE co-op, testing your tactical skills and survival instincts.”

A supernatural-themed update is coming to Ubisoft’s bone-crunching melee-weapon combat game For Honor. That’s available to play now if big axes and possessed fighters sound appealing.

There will be new Just Dance in November. Until that footage is up, here’s a trailer for the Tom Clancy mobile game.

Hooray for the annual Ubisoft dance-off. The panda is back and everything.

Who cares about that though when we’ve got new Just Dance! It’s been ten years since this world-beating dance game first appeared and it’s one of the most successful game franchises of all time. (This will only come as a surprise if you’ve never busted it out at a kids’ birthday party.)

Ah, but we’re not leaving Tom Clancy behind just yet: here’s a smartphone squad combat game, Tom Clancy’s EliteSquad.

Before we leave Ghost Recon behind, here’s a gameplay trailer.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is out on October 4th, with a beta going live September 5th, spec-ops fans.

Ubisoft will bring back AI companions for solo players in the next Ghost Recon, we’re being told. They’re also launching a new hub for ‘community creators’. I’m still thinking about Watch Dogs Legion. I want to hijack a bus

Ghost Recon Breakpoint involves a lot of jungle fighting, on the evidence of this trailer. Certainly a change of pace from the very urban Division 2

Here’s a trailer for the new Rainbow Six Siege update, available now:

Jon Bernthal has brought a dog onto the stage. Not sure whether people are more excited about the celebrity or the pooch

“The only test of a man’s worth is battle,” says a mean-looking Jon Bernthal in a new trailer for the new Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, one of Ubisoft’s several military-themed shooters.

Now Adventure Time’s Finn and Jake are here to shill Brawlhalla, the Smash Bros-esque arena fighting game. Not quite Keanu Reeves but I’ll take it.

Here’s that Watch Dogs footage for you - definitely the best thing I’ve seen at the show so far.

The trailer for this comedy show (?) is so close to actual promotional videos from video game developers that I’m not 100% sure it’s a joke

That’s it for Watch Dogs - now Rob McElhenney of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is here to talk about his new Apple TV show about game developers, Mythic Quest.

Oooh, a release date! March 6th, 2020.

With the usual caveat that this is E3 footage and who knows how closely it will resemble the final game, this is very encouraging. Watch Dogs Legion is playable on the E3 show floor.

“Every Londoner is fully simulated, with a persistent life and relationships... anyone can be won over to your cause.” They’re all voiced and animated, and every cinematic in the game will change depending on whom you’re playing. Play a squad of old ladies in Bletchley Park or a team of classic British spies. This is unprecedented!

“Where London goes, all of us go together,” says Clint. “The UK has become a surveillance state and freedom replaces fear... deportation squads rip people from their homes and Grandad is using cryptocurrency to buy a new kidney on the black market.” Bloody hell, Clint, we know Brexit is going to be bad, no need to rub it in

We’ve got a name: Watch Dogs Legion. It’s being directed by Clint Hocking, famous for Far Cry 2. Bet we won’t get any “but it’s not political, honest” nonsense from him.

There’s some really impressive open-world action stuff going on here - this could easily challenge Grand Theft Auto (perhaps not that surprising, at GTA V is pretty old now and it’s about time there was a new open-world crime game on the scene).

We now appear to be riding a drone around the backstreets of rainy Camden before infiltrating a weed-and-weapons operation that also appears to be into human trafficking. Look, I know Camden Market has changed over the years, but really

If you want grannies tasing London cops before hopping on a bus to Camden Market, this is absolutely the game for you

Now we’re playing an elderly lady in compression stockings who is also a LEVEL 12 HACKER, and is casing Scotland Yard. Not going to lie, this looks brilliant.

We’re tooling about the place in a black cab now, having started a gun-fight with the armed police. If you lose a character in action, they’re gone forever - you move on to a new London citizen to continue their work.

Well, this is rather sedate and pleasant. I do love a bit of classical music with my video game news.

Two cool pieces of Assassin’s Creed news before the show (Odyssey, that is, not the forthcoming viking-themed one): Ubisoft has opened up a story creation tool on PC that lets players mess around with the game’s narrative tools to create their own quests; and Discovery Tour (the interactive-museum-like mode that premiered in Origins’ Ancient Egypt) is coming to Odyssey’s Ancient Greece. You can get quizzed on your Spartan history by King Leonidas. Genuinely cool.

Man, if only Keanu Reeves had come out last night at the Xbox presser and just straight-up told people not to be dicks when playing online

“Don’t be a toxic dick!” advises Ice-T. “There’s an art to dealing with trolls. Mute the dumb f***s. I’m sick of hearing sexist, racist, homophobic bullshit from the assholes out there trying to ruin it for the rest of us.” Uh... right on, Ice-T!

If you happened to be watching the Ubisoft pre-show right now, you’d be seeing Ice-T running down some rules of gamer etiquette. It’s far too early for this.

Also, I know it gets a lot of stick, but I personally love the yearly Just Dance costumed choreography.

Whilst we’re waiting for Ubisoft to kick off, shall we relive some of the best Ubi moments from E3s past? I’m particularly partial to when the creative director at Trials developer RedLynx crashed spectacularly. I’m only 80% sure it was staged.

Quick reminder of what to expect from today’s/tonight’s remaining conferences:

• Ubisoft - 1:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM BST: at least two interesting new games, both of which have sadly already leaked and one of which might be of particular interest to those of us envisioning a grim post-Brexit future
• Square Enix - 6:00 PM PT / 2:00 AM BST: the premiere of a new Avengers game will be the star here, alongside Final Fantasy VII Remake

That was an absolute marathon from the PC Gaming Show! We’ve got about 45 minutes until Ubisoft kicks off - see you then.

Alright old-timers, here comes Baldur’s Gate 3 from Larian Studios, which was announced recently. Larian got the rights to develop the classic D&D role-playing series, which is over 20 years old. All the iconic monsters, characters and places are in there apparently, and there are systems to allow emergent combat, just like a tabletop D&D experience.

There will also be a Baldur’s Gate 3 prequel tabletop game - it’s out in September and it’ll give players an idea of what’s happening in the world, which is set 100 years after Baldur’s Gate 2.

As yet though, Baldur’s Gate 3 has no release date.

Genesis Noir is an existential odyssey from Fellow Traveller, set during the Big Bang. The trailer is quite a thing - a monochrome film noir-esque confection with jazz soundtrack and Saul Bass references. It looks like you wander amongst the birthing planets, um... I don’t know. I’ll dig out the trailer and leave it to you.

Now it’s Telling Lies from Annapurna Interactive and Sam Barlow, the creator of the brilliant CCTV thriller Her Story. Here, you watch video footage to piece together the story in which a woman has stolen an NSA memory stick showing footage of the game’s four characters. Something has gone horribly wrong and you have to work out what and why.

You can pick out certain words and phrases spoken by the characters, looking them up on an in-game database. It looks like footage is taken from fictitious video diaries and video phone messages. There’s a confessional Sex, Lies and Videotape feel to it all.

Players have to pick up on the subtext of each recording, listen out for names and places and start making links. Apparently there’s over ten hours of footage and the story encompasses two years of events.

Telling Lies is out “very soon” according to Barlow.

Yay, it’s time for Maneater, which was a highlight of last year’s PC Gaming Show. It’s an open-world shark RPG - you start as a baby shark (do do do do do doooo) and have to eat to survive. At key life phases you make a big jump in size and power and as that happens you can evolve parts of your body - for example, metal teeth and mutated lungs.

The trailer shows you stalking a boat load of hairy fishermen, causing havoc. Scaly Pete is the villain of the story - he’s the Quint of the game, a shark hunter. The story of the game is revealed through a reality TV show following Pete on his adventures.

‘GTA but you’re a shark’ is the elevator pitch. It’ll be out within a year.

Borderlands 3 is on stage now with questions from the community. The developers are adding lots of different grenades, unique class mods which give new skills, and artefacts which add to movement allowing you to slide faster, or adding explosions to sliding. As for end game content, there’s a Guardian system like the previous Bad Ass Ranks, which provides infinite progression.

Boss fights - there will be huge ones. There will be multiple huge vaults with giant bosses, as well as mini-bosses littered about. Multiplayer will allow participants to jump in at any time. Tiny Tina will be fighting alongside the vault raiders. The level limit will be 50. You’ll be able to transfer weapons between characters. I think that’s it.

A world exclusive reveal of CrisTales from Modus Games, a love letter to classic JRPGs. The visuals are beautiful and highly stylised. You can rewrite the past and change the future apparently. Will have to watch this again later as it’s lovely.

Auto Chess from Chinese publisher Dragonest has been a success on mobile and now it’s coming to PC. It’s a chess-themed MOBA title coming to the Epic Store later this year.

Here’s Patrice Désilets, the creator of Assassin’s Creed, talking about his new title, Ancestors, which is about the evolution of the human race – so not particularly ambitious then. You play modern humankind’s predecessors and must guide a clan through dangerous landscapes and lots of predators. There’s no story, there are no mini-maps, you’re just trying to survive and evolve. It’s out 27 August. Here’s what Keza thought of it a few months back:

Okay so after a reveal for Vermin Tide 2, the fantasy co-op game, we move onto Per Aspera where you play as an AI orbiting Mars charged with terraforming the planet so humans can live on it.

Admittedly I missed most of the Songs of Conquest trailer because I was having a little cry, but it’s a fantasy strategy adventure where you gather resources to build up your town, then take part in turn-based battles. The Heroes of Might and Magic series has been a major influence.

He’s here to talk about Shenmue 3, which was recently delayed. He says thank you to the fans for supporting him for over 20 years. You’re welcome Suzuki-san.

Okay, it’s a world exclusive look at the game! We start with a grand master telling Ryo his kung fu isn’t strong enough. They spar in lovely detail. Then we get our hero running through a beautifully intricate small town, fighting local gangsters. The dialogue is classic Shenmue. My heart is bursting. It’s out 19 November!

Thank you, Yu Suzuki!

Oh my god, Yu Suzuki is on stage – the genius behind Outrun, Hang-On and Virtua Fighter. *Sega fanboy faints*

Planet Zoo is a zoo management game from Frontier Developments, the UK studio behind Elite Dangerous and a whole host of Tycoon sims. Here comes the trailer. Run your dream zoo (we all have one), and... oh I’ve just been distracted by a photorealistic hippo doing a giant poo... where was I? It’s a modern zoo so you learn about conservation while you play – the health and welfare of your animals is the most important aspect.

Griftlands is a turn-based card-battling adventure with nice cell-shaded cartoon visuals. Alpha keys become available on 11 July.

Remnant: From the Ashes from Gunfire Games is up – it’s a co-op action shooter set on an apocalyptic Earth and other worlds. Replayability is a big focus with NPCs, missions and areas all newly generated each time. You can play over and over and never see the same monsters and areas twice.

Bosses drop unique loot so you’ll get weapons and armour that your friends might never have found. You can bring pals in to take on the biggest threats. It’s out on 20 August.

Zombie Army Dead War 4 is the next shooter from the makers of Sniper Elite 4. It’s 1946 and Europe has been torn to pieces by an evil zombie-esque army. The trailer shows a variety of fighters battling hordes of the undead, some armed with flame throwers. The game uses the same slow-mo bullet-tracking effect as the Sniper Elite series so you get to see brains flying out and skulls exploding if you’re into that sort of thing. You can set up trip wires to electrify enemies, or just splatter them with mini cannon.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a strategy game where you play as a survivor of a shattered civilisation looking to reboot your society. Each race has different abilities and there are genetic labs to set up to create battling monsters, including dinosaurs with laser beams. That’s dinosaurs with fricking laser beams.

You also get orbital laser cannon, and a science lab where you can build cyber-soldiers and deadly viruses. The game is due on PC and consoles on 6 August, which is the day after my birthday.

The Last Oasis is an open-world adventure in which the Earth has stopped rotating and now humanity must keep moving through the endless deserts to survive. Looks like you’ll be piloting wind-powered land ships and besieging wooden castles. It’s out in September.

After a brief look at a new Samsung monitor, we’re on to Funcom’s upcoming titles including Mutant Year Zero: Seed of Evil, fantasy battle game Conan Unconquered (29 May) and Cthulu-esque sci-fi horror title Moons of Madness (Halloween 2019).

Now the founder of Australian studio Mighty Kingdom is showing off Conan Chop Chop, a cute-looking roguelike action adventure – sort of Zelda meets Castle Crashers. It’s out in September and looks fun.

I’m adding trailers as I go along by the way, so keep refreshing!

The permadeath adventure sequel Unexplored 2 from Big Sugar is up next. The lovely bright visuals are a contrast to all the gothic darkness we’ve had so far.

A quick trailer from dark dystopian adventure game Mosaic:

This is followed by a look at spooky multiplayer game Midnight Ghost Hunt. The ghost hunters in rubber suits have to track down spooks who are able to hide in inanimate objects like lamps and chairs. Players take part in teams, hunters vs spooks, and the latter have to stay hidden and safe until the clock strikes midnight. When that time comes, the roles switch and the ghosts hunt the humans. There will be an alpha event in the summer.

And now it’s Starmancer from Chucklefish, an isometric-view space craft simulator, which looks cute and in-depth simultaneously.

After that it’s Chivalry 2 from Tripwire Interactive and Torn Banner, a medieval-themed sword-fighting game. The trailer shows an attack on a castle with lots of siege equipment and splashing blood noises. We’re promised more fluid animation and a core focus on fighting multiple opponents at the same time.

“We know half of people play the game drunk,” says someone on stage. The teaser ends with a horseman performing a hilarious surprise beheading on a fleeing enemy, which doesn’t seem particularly chivalrous. It’s multiplayer with up to 64 players and it’s coming next year.

Here comes Evil Genius 2: World Domination from UK studio Rebellion, the sequel to the company’s 1960s supervillain simulator. A fun trailer shows the Austin Powers-style vibe.

Oh no, apparently, they’re going to be pulling comments from the Twitch and YouTube chat streams. This isn’t going to end well.

While we’re waiting, you can check out the rest of out E3 coverage so far!

The Xbox conference live-blog – all the news from Microsoft’s big night, as it happened.

Project Scarlett: what we know so far about the next Xbox – we don’t know much, but here it all is!

Bethesda at E3 2019 – Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo enliven a muted show.

E3 2019: all the video game news so far – Keza rounds everything up into one convenient news burst.

Hello! Games correspondent Keith Stuart here. I’ll be live-blogging the PC Gaming Show. We’re just waiting for the kick off, but the organisers have promised at least 30 new games including some world exclusive reveals.

We can expect more information on Borderlands 3, the shark action game Maneater and maybe a peek at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, the sequel to the cult 2004 title. There should also be news from indie-centric publishers Annapurna Interactive and Chucklefish.

But the best thing about this event is the surprise element – without major publishers dominating, there’s more room for unexpected delights.

We’ll be bringing you news, trailers and commentary throughout the day’s events (and photos from E3, if technology editor Alex Hern can find good wifi).

Here’s a quick schedule for the day (or the evening, if you’re joining us from the UK), along with what to expect:

• The PC Gaming Show - 10:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM BST: organised by long-running games media giant PC Gamer, this showcase usually spotlights some highly entertaining games that might otherwise fly under the radar
• Ubisoft - 1:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM BST: at least two interesting new games, both of which have sadly already leaked and one of which might be of particular interest to those of us envisioning a grim post-Brexit future
• Square-Enix - 6:00 PM PT / 2:00 AM BST: the premiere of a new Avengers game will be the star here, alongside Final Fantasy VII Remake

Welcome back to the Guardian’s E3 2019 liveblog! Today’s updates are brought to you by video games editor Keza MacDonald and correspondent Keith Stuart, as we take you through the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft’s press conference, and lastly Square Enix’s presentation.