'We Happy Few' And 'Scalebound' E3 2016: Happy Pills And Dragons Are All I Need

We got to see a bunch of trailers at this year’s Microsoft E3 event. Dead Rising 4, Halo Wars 2, and even Tekken 7 all had gorgeous graphics and a song or two. The two standout games of the conference, to me at least, were Scalebound and We Happy Few. They both caught me by surprise and honestly looked more enjoyable than the rest of the boring shooters with zombies at the event.

Scalebound

Have you ever wanted a dragon of your own? In Scalebound by Platinum Games, you play as a normal human with a dragon as a pet. You can breathe fire on your enemies, launch yourself at targets and make quips while doing so. At the E3 Microsoft event we got to see some gameplay of the “largest boss fight ever attempted by the studio.”

A giant crab monster made the Shadow of the Colossus look like cockroaches shot out of the water. To fight it, you team up co-op style and try to attack it’s weak points. Your dragon shoots fire while you shoot arrows. While attacking its vitals, the crab shoots bolts of energy and lightning, all while the main character makes quips. The fight ends with the main character putting on some red headphones and sending that crab back to wherever the hell it came from.

Scalebound looks like a cross between Final Fantasy and Sunset Overdrive , which sounds weird until you see it. I don’t get my hopes up when I see E3 footage anymore, but this game does look promising. If the whole thing is just as epic as the trailer, I’m excited to see what the game can do when it launches in 2017.

We Happy Few

Sometimes you just want to take a pill and make everything look wonderful. In the world of We Happy Few , it’s mandatory and when you stop taking your “joy pills” you see the world for what it actually is. In the brief few minutes of gameplay we got to see, the main character sees a news reel about his brother and stops taking his pills.

The world changes almost immediately; the colors are darker, the world is less empty and that pinata you think you're hitting is now a dead rat. You get labeled as a “downer” and have to try get away any way you can. The 1960s decor combined with the fake smiles and masks of everyone in the game lend it an absurd beauty; it’s a world where the norm is to ignore horror and just be happy.

Look for We Happy Few in July, according to the game’s Twitter.