While this week’s E3 brought a plethora of new games for fans to chew on, this year’s event was also notable for the games that WEREN’T shown this year. Here, we take a look at some of the biggest no-shows in 2019.

Let me say this now…I really enjoyed what we saw at this year’s E3. I mean, we got to see some awesome new Cyberpunk 2077 footage, REALLY impressive sounding gameplay for Watch Dogs: Legion, a new LEGO Star Wars game, first gameplay for Jedi Fallen Order, and a bunch of stellar looking games on just about all platforms (both new and remastered). As a gamer, I’m feeling particularly well fed…

That said, however, there were a number of big titles, that we already know are in production, that were absent at the presentations/show floor:

Bayonetta 3

Platinum Games announced a third game in the Bayonetta series was coming with a trailer reveal during the 2017 Game Awards show. A year and a half later, however, and that’s literally all we’ve seen/heard of the game. While Platinum was at E3 this year, showing off new title Astral Chain among others, the upcoming Nintendo Switch game was strangely absent during the E3 Direct.

Just the other month, Nintendo shifted Bayonetta 3’s original 2019 release timeframe to “TBA.” While the developers were quick to let people know work on the game is, “going quite well,” at E3, it’s hard to look at it that way. After all, we’re coming up on two years since its initial teaser with no updates. Seems like E3 would have been the perfect time to give fans another glimpse of what’s to come.

Gears Tactics

Last year at E3, gamers were given an abundance of Gears of War attention. On top of the Gears 5 announcement we saw Gears Pop! and Gears Tactics. The latter game was a change from the shooting action the franchise is known for and offering up an XCOM style, turn-based strategy game. While Gears 5 appeared during Microsoft’s E3 presentation this year, Gears Tactics was nowhere to be seen.

Never fear, however, as the game is still very much in development. When speaking with Kotaku, Gears producer Rod Fergusson said it was still coming along but, “We’ll talk about Gears Tactics later..” For now, with a September release date looming for Gears 5, it sounds like that’s where the focus is going to be. It’s understandable, but still kind of a bummer to see it teased without an update.

Skull & Bones

Ubisoft brought plenty to E3 this year with Watch Dogs: Legion, a new Rainbow Six, and more, but one of the titles that’s been present at the last TWO E3s was absent: Skull & Bones. The sailing/pirate focused game made waves (heh) when it debuted at E3 2017. It looked to take all of the amazing naval elements from the later Assassin’s Creed games and threw in a pirate centered storyline. At E3 2018 it impressed with more footage and hands-on gameplay and seemed poised to make it’s 2019 release.

And yet, despite also having its own live-action TV series already in the works, and recently being pushed back in 2020, it was a total no-show this year. It seemed an odd omission, especially since it left the remainder of their slate focused on Tom Clancy related titles. In an E3 filled to the brim with shooters, Skull & Bones could have certainly stood out…

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Another Ubisoft absence! Sure, we knew well ahead of time that Beyond Good & Evil 2 wouldn’t be at E3 this year. The devs wanted to focus on hitting their internal “core development milestones” rather than shift focus to something for E3. It’s understandable, but no less a bummer.

The long gestating sequel has been sought after by fans for years and after a very impressive showing at last year’s E3 (including gameplay footage and all), many were hoping for a more substantial update on the game this time around. Ideally, a release date would be nice but even another trailer/gameplay footage would have sated eager fans.

Metroid Prime 4

This is yet another title that’s gone two years after announcement without a solid update. Nintendo is infamous for game delays, but this has also led them to a policy of not revealing a game until they have more of a handle on it’s production and feel confident in showing it off. So yeah, it sucks that we didn’t get a Metroid Prime 4 update this year.

Metroid fans have been “patiently” waiting for a new, core, entry in the franchise for a long time and the Prime 4 reveal was a breath of fresh air. At the beginning of the year, Nintendo offered an unexpected update on the game; development has been shifted over to Retro Studios. It was a nice bit of transparency on the game and its understandable delay, but many were still hoping to get another sort of update on Metroid Prime 4, to assuage any fears, at E3 this year.

Rocksteady’s Next Game

Seriously…what the hell are they working on? It’s been four years since their last game, Batman: Arkham Knight, was released and we know they’ve been working on something all that time. Rumors about their upcoming game have been swirling for years and while some teases may have leaked out, we’re still no closer to knowing what they’re actually working on. That’s a lot of development time (and money), so hopefully that means whenever they finally tell us about it we won’t have to wait long to play it.

The Next Dragon Age

It’s crazy to think it’s been five years since Dragon Age: Inquisition launched. The RPG garnered plenty of acclaim and left gamers wanting more. While the next Dragon Age game was teased during The Game Awards last year, many were expecting EA/Bioware to pull the curtain back at E3 this year…

While EA brought a handful of games to the show this year, aside from Jedi: Fallen Order, they weren’t forthcoming with anything else new. Instead we saw updates to already released games and their normal slate of sports titles. Hell, Anthem didn’t even get a MENTION this year. Considering the wealth of problems the game has had since launch that might not be terribly surprising, but Bioware could have done some damage control with more Dragon Age details.

Some of the other notable no-shows this year include:

Session – An all new skateboarding game was revealed at last year’s Xbox Conference, but didn’t even warrant a mention this time around.

Starfield – Bethesda had plenty to show, but with The Outer Worlds providing space RPG competition, you’d think they would have wanted to show off their own (especially since it was announced last year).

Fable 4 – Sure, technically Fable 4 hasn’t been announced yet, but the developers have hinted at a sequel for a while now and with Sony completely out of the show this year, it could have been another big reveal for Xbox.

Need for Speed – EA has already said a new NFS game was in the works, but they don’t seem to be in any rush to talk about it.

Like I said, all around it was a good E3. Despite the wealth of games/information we were given, however, it’s hard not to notice the titles that didn’t make an appearance. Hopefully we’ll get more official information on these games sooner rather than later.

Which game were you hoping to see at E3 this year but didn’t?