E3’s twenty-second year has once again shattered attendance records, and raised the bar for Los Angeles’ premier trade show for the video game industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association. This year’s show saw a huge increase in attendance, with more than 70,000 people that participated in the week’s events, including 50,300 video game professionals, analysts, journalists, and enthusiasts attended this week’s trade show, and 20,000 fans attended E3 Live.

As someone who regularly attends anime conventions and other industry events throughout the year, E3 is like no other event I have ever been to. I normally stream E3 on my computer but the difference between watching it on a computer and seeing everything in person is a truly surreal experience. One thing I did noticed is how easy it was to get around the convention center. Compared to a big anime convention that have massive crowds, E3 is on a more intimate level so it’s much easier to get around.

This was my first year going as Media and my expectations were pretty high with all the recent AAA titles that were announced prior to the show. On my first day I lined up to go into the west hall to check out what Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft had to offer. For the first hour I ended up just walking around and exploring. Some of the booths had the most amazing set pieces, from a $2 million Lamborghini Centenario at the Microsoft booth, and a massive amount of VR demo stations from Sony. There was also someone dressed up as the one of the robots from Horizon Zero Dawn. Even the Atlus booth had a really cool stage for live gameplay demos as well as a special guest appearance from the character artist Shigenori Soejima of the Persona series.

Day two I went into the south hall to check out the other companies such as: Square Enix, Bathesda, Ubisoft, and much more. This is where the booths got even crazier. Bathesda had a huge museum like area for the game Dishonored 2 showing many different set pieces from the game including the two costumes of the protagonists. There was even a life size pip boy next to a giant vault door. The Square Enix booth was definitely a sight to behold. There were many demos for some of my most anticipated games and a giant screen that would play trailers of some of the upcoming games. The Square Enix presents stage was also there live streaming and they even had what is known as “Letter from the Producer Live” staring Naoki Yoshida director for the game Final Fantasy XIV.

Overall my favorite booth of E3 2016 was Nintendo. The only playable game they had this year was Zelda Breath of the Wild and they did a great job of presenting it and I feel like they really stole the show this year. Hundreds of people lined up to play Zelda each day but the real star of the show was on the inside of their booth where they had a massive Zelda themed area with massive set pieces. The area would even change from night to day. I would have to say it was just as amazing as going to Disney Land for the first time. Another thing I really enjoyed seeing was the Nintendo Treehouse Live at E3 in person. As I explained earlier the difference between watching it on a stream and seeing it live is truly surreal.

All in all E3 was pretty crazy to me but at the same time it was still pretty relaxing compared to some other trade shows and conventions I have been to. I am definitely excited to see how E3 changes over the coming years.