As you may know, there’s a particularly big gaming show by the name of E3 coming soon…

Bloggers, journalists and fans everywhere feel it is their democratic right to make predictions and dream big. For the latter, it’s for the love of it. For the former, it’s because it makes good clickbait. For me? It’s a mixture of the two.

The show is going to be a little smaller this year, as Sony is not going to be there in any capacity. That gives us an interesting question to ask… How will they be the biggest thing at a show they’re not even at? Snapchat did that at CES 2017 with the spectacles and Sony could do the same with one thing - hype. They have incredible exclusives and I have no doubt you will find out more about them during the show.

But enough of just one company, it’s time for predictions. I did this last year and, well, none of them came true. However, I’ve applied a bit more common sense this time and hopefully I get at least one right.

Here are nine big and bold predictions for E3 2019.

1. The next generation Xbox gets a release date - March 2020

So let’s go in hard and start big. The rumours are leading to Microsoft announcing their next generation console, basically doing a “Xbox 360” and getting in there first and early with new hardware, to hopefully beat the PlayStation brand.

But while all the questions of hardware specs and so on are being answered by far more intelligent people than myself, one remains…when? When will this new Xbox come out? I believe that with continuity between game libraries built into the architecture and a couple of new games that I think may be closer than you think, they will do something similar to Nintendo here - launching in March next year.

The reasons are clear, it’s a purchasing season clear of the Christmas rush, people will be able to prepare for it and you have less noise in the market where you can truly bellow your arrival.

2. EA brings back two important extreme sports franchises - Skate and (I hope) SSX

The first one of these two is a given. Everybody keeps asking for Skate 4 and given the popularity of remastering Burnout Paradise, I can’t see any reason why at the very least, they couldn’t upgrade the original Skate.

But that’s not all I want… It’s been over seven years since the last SSX game (and well over a decade since the last good one), and I’d love nothing more than to see a HD remaster of SSX Tricky. For a company that really needs to get the fans back on their side, this would be a slam dunk.

3. Death Stranding gets a playable teaser

It worked well for Silent Hills, this vague kind of teaser that delivered shocks and surprised people with secret announcements if played correctly.

I can only imagine what kind of twisted stuff Kojima will do for this one, but to make a splash at a show you aren’t even going to be part of, Sony needs to get creative, and playable Death Stranding is certainly an eye-catching method.

4. Titanfall 3 gets announced

Apex Legends did more than become one of the fastest growing games in modern history, it also increased the popularity of that other Respawn games title - Titanfall.

The second in the series is an incredibly creative shooter romp that was done an injustice by being released with pretty much zero fanfare. Now that EA can see the benefit of this series, it makes sense to get right back on it and drop a cinematic trailer for a third iteration.

5. Final Fantasy VII remake finally gets a release date

Enough playing around, Square Enix. It’s time for a Final Fantasy VIII release date. What will that be? I have no Earthly idea. Episode one by Christmas I guess! But the hype is slowly starting to subside as we get closer to a new generation, and this game could suffer.

6. A new Splinter Cell game gets announced

Ubisoft have done their best to keep this under wraps, but from the teasers to the actual use of Sam Fisher in Ghost Recon, the destination is clear. Ubisoft will announce a new Splinter Cell game, and I believe it will happen at this year’s E3.

Provided we get both a brilliant single player side, a nice co-op multiplayer story again, and some good competitive elements, I’m happy!

7. Ken Levine’s new project gets announced

Bioshock creator Ken Levine’s been a bit quiet hasn’t he! To catch you up, he’s been busy at a new studio called Ghost Story Games - just a bunch of people that have worked together on some of the best single player story games over the year, carrying on making more.

I think the time is now that a new game is announced, and it’s announced on stage at Microsoft’s show for the next gen console. Is it a new Bioshock? I think that’s too easy to do… I believe it will be a new entry into that series, further breaking down this vast universe of different dimensions and giving us a twisting and turning tale, but that title won’t be used specifically.

8. Rocksteady’s new project gets announced

I brought this up last year and failed miserably, so I’m going to repeat myself here. Rocksteady’s new game will be coming up sooner rather than later. What will it be?

My bet is still firmly on a new IP that is not in the DC Universe. Maybe they bring back Urban Chaos? Maybe it’s something completely new? But they’re working on something, and I want it to be new.

9. The Last of Us Part 2 gets a release date - January 2020

And we end with one of the big ones, with some bad news to anyone looking to plan the next game in Naughty Dog’s saga this side of Christmas. Given the success seen by dropping games in that early 2020 window (*cough* God of war *cough*), Sony could cause a huge cloud of uncertainty over the fall line-up of games if they were to pull this move.

Just imagine the equivalent of the Independence Day alien ship, just that that’s The Last of Us Part 2 just breaking over the horizon, ready to be a surefire blockbuster title. We will get more gameplay, a trailer and a release month of January next year. If you want to get yourself excited, I had a go at writing the plot for the game.