Daily Briefing: Wednesday 2nd June

E3 2021 will end with an awards show for some reason

This year's E3 is already sporting an all-digital new look, but organisers also revealed this week the show will conclude with a new awards event. Any game shown off during E3 will be eligible for one of the new awards - with winners chosen by editors from IGN, GameSpot, PC Gamer, and Games Radar.

• The highest award will go to E3's "most anticipated" game, with other highlights including most anticipated games from specific publishers and developers. Winners (and by that we mean Elden Ring) will be announced on E3's final day on June 15th following four full days of live-streamed goodness.

Battlefield 6 reveal event coming next week

EA confirmed this week that the long-awaited reveal event for Battlefield 6 will air on Wednesday 9th June at 7am PDT/4pm CEST. The event has been a long time coming and was presumably slightly delayed - the reveal has been "coming soon" since the last week of April and fans were getting antsy.

• It's been a few years since we had a new Battlefield game and there is a lot riding on this one for fans and EA alike. The series took some extra time to ensure that Battlefield 6 could effectively leverage next-gen technologies, although EA recently confirmed that the game will also be releasing on last-gen consoles. We'll have to see if there is much disparity between the versions.

Microsoft expand Xbox Series X|S reservation program

Microsoft launched the Console Purchase Pilot back at the start of May to enable Xbox Insiders in the US to, y'know, actually buy one of the new consoles. The scheme has now reopened with another batch of consoles up for grabs - although sadly still only for folks in the States.

• Anyone who previously signed up for the scheme but wasn't chosen is still opted-in and don't have to take any further action, and new sign-ups are open on Microsoft's website. The Console Purchase Pilot follows Phil Spencer's comments last year that pre-order models are outdated and deposit schemes make more sense. Hopefully, Microsoft bring the scheme to more places soon.

Crysis Remastered Trilogy coming later this year

Following on from last year's updated re-release of the original Crysis, a remastered version of the entire trilogy is coming to consoles and PC later this year as part of a development partnership between Crytek and Saber Interactive. There's no word yet on the specific upgrades each game will be getting - though Crysis Remastered supported up to 8K resolution, HDR, and ray tracing.

• Crytek have also confirmed that the remasters of Crysis 2 and 3 will also be available as standalone releases, although we don't know whether that will happen around the same time as the whole trilogy launches. It'll be good to see Crysis brought up to speed with modern technology, though the fact that none of the games will include their multiplayer modes is a major loss.