Devolver's E3 conference was bloody and weird, as usual

I don't need to explain Devolver's E3 anti-conference shtick, right? This is the third year they've been broadcasting their mock conference as an antidote to loud dudes cheering everything Bethesda say. They're always hosted by Devolver's fictional corporate mouthpiece Nina Struthers, and they always involve a lot of fake blood and references to movies from the '80s. The Devolver Digital cinematic universe has become a welcome sideshow, and last year's conference ended with Struthers being turned into a cyborg in an extended homage to Robocop. It's weird is what I'm saying.

This year's conference was branded "Devolver Direct", and took place entirely in Struthers' mind. Between trailers for actual real games Devolver will be publishing in the next year or two (My Friend Pedro, out June 20) we were treated to skits, like the Youthful Exuberance Supervisor saying "It's a fantastic videogame year for videogames" before Struthers ripped his throat out. Even without an audience to cover in gore, there was still plenty of red.

New game collection and launcher Devolver Bootleg was announced, promoted as their own "gray-market launcher" to compete with Steam, Epic, and GOG (it's real, it's on Steam, and it's on sale for 1% off), as well as a 2D horror game called Carrion in which you're the monster, co-announced by a red worm.

By the end it devolved (get it?) into an overwhelming trailer vomit as "Linda from Marketing" manipulated Struthers from behind the scenes, while not letting her say the actual swears that have been her stock in trade in previous years. We saw a new expansion for The Messenger, and an arcade game based on Enter the Gungeon called House of the Gundead. And then it ended with a Terminator 2 reference. Honestly, it's not that long and maybe you should just watch it on YouTube.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.