Don’t forget about tablets at E3

Amid the controversy of this year’s E3 conference some interesting new developments in the gaming world have been quietly neglected. We’re not talking about DRM, backwards-compatibility issues, the bulky designs of the Xbox One or PS4 or the TV-centric services from both Microsoft and, to a lesser-extend, Sony. We’re talking about the casual introduction of “the second screen”. In short, tablet compatibility with consoles just got a whole lot more useful and exciting.

SmartGlass and Beyond

The original concept of SmartGlass was that a tablet could extend the overall gaming or viewing experience by providing extra real-time information. The idea was simple; a player would be able to check an area map, manage their inventory or access the system menu from their tablet while the game was running. Not only has this now come to life, but SmartGlass is already beyond its wildest predictions.

Ryse: Son of Rome

Ryse is a third-person melee-combat title coming to Xbox One and probably offers the closest experience to the original simple SmartGlass utility. Players can launch their single player game, set up multiplayer matches and view in real-time how friends are progressing through the campaign. There’s also the ability to watch gameplay footage that both friends and the general public have uploaded.

Watchdogs

Watchdogs is a 3^rd person GTA-style action RPG where the protagonist uses hacking, rather than guns, as his primary weapon in a smart-device driven future. Unlike in Ryse, tablet input can actively affect real-time gameplay. Gamers can input hacking commands in to their tablet with one hand while running about and avoiding enemies with the other. Once the command is ready it is then activated via the console controller. This element perfectly suits the theme of the game with the potential to draw the player in to an immersive experience where they, like the character they control, are operating multiple gadgets at once to get the job done.

Battlefield 4

War simulation Battlefield 4 is destined to be a massive release. 5-player squads make up two teams with up to 32 players each. Players duke it out in an epic modern warfare-style setting among an impressively destructible environment. It already has fans chomping at the bit to get their hands on the game that looks like everything Battlefield 3 should have been, but wasn’t. BF4 uses tablets by making one player ‘the commander’. This player doesn’t directly take part in the fighting as a solider, but instead issues commands on a real-time updated map of the battle. Commanders can give orders, drop supplies and send artillery strikes; all by using the tablet’s touchscreen. BF4 will also introduce a new function whereby commanders play an information war against their counterpart.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

The Division is a third person action RPG shooter set in a stark, post-epidemic New York. The gameplay is group-based, with multiple groups playing simultaneously on the same open-world map of New York and its surrounding areas. Where the Second Screen element comes in is in the form of an aerial support drone. In the gameplay trailer, players in a group were joined by a friend who was controlling a support drone via their tablet. The drone gave vision and marked enemy combatants so that the allied players could more easily target them. This isn’t as key a role as the commander position in BF4, but it’s still a cool way of letting friends join in if they don’t own or aren’t near a next-gen gaming console.

Need for Speed: Rivals

Need for Speed: Rivals is the next instalment in the hugely popular NFS line of racing games. In Rivals, one of the game modes showed one player making a getaway from another who chased in a police vehicle. The thief sported a cooler car, but the police officer was assisted by an eye-in-the-sky player that controlled a helicopter via a tablet. This seems to be a similar concept to The Division’s Second Screen functionality and could make for some pretty fun evenings with a group of friends.

Overlapping tech borders

We’re glad to see that overlapping circles of smart gadgets and gaming consoles hasn’t been overlooked by game developers. The idea of merging tablet and console play probably isn’t going to be revolutionary at first, nor is it bound to catch on quickly. Its success is also going to be heavily dependant on just exactly what range/brands of tablets are supported. Things may start slowly, but look at how far Second Screen support has come since SmartGlass was first suggested. Not only are we beyond theorizing about taking the map, menu and inventory out of the TV screen, but tablet players can actually immerse themselves in multiplayer gameplay in a support role. We’re already incredibly keen to try out some of this stuff, especially the commander role in BF4 and assistant drone in The Division. An important thing to remember is that this is all prior to the next gen of consoles even being released. Looking back at how far the Xbox and PS3 came in their long lifetimes we can only imagine what future games will be able to do in the next 10 years of tablet development.