Doki-Doki Universe, from ToeJam & Earl creator Greg Johnson and HumaNature Studios, is a game about a robot endeavoring to become more human. As Sony executive producer Alex Lee tells us in this E3 demonstration, it's also a game about self-discovery, stealing hugs from widows and sending bizarre text messages featuring adorable, animated sushi. Yeah, you'll really just have to see it for yourself.

Doki-Doki Universe is slated for PS3, PS4 and Vita this year.

Battlefield 4 will feature five-man squads over the series' staple four-man grouping.

"They've been asking for bigger squads," DICE producer Aleksander Grondal told Joystiq at E3, referring to the Battlefield community's insistance on larger squad counts. "We believe five is a good figure. It allows for more team-based gameplay, basically. You have more options and you can spawn in more places."

In previous Battlefield games, DICE made a purposeful design decision to limit the number of players per squad. "It was a design choice back then – forgive me, I don't exactly remember why it was chosen four. You know, it feels like light years ago from previous games," Grondal joked, rubbing the tired from E3's first day out of his eyes. "But five is a little better; it gives a bit more flexibility and more interesting choices."

Battlefield 4 launches on October 29 for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Presiding over an audience of devoted Pokemon fans during an E3 2013 roundtable session, Tsunekazu Ishihara and Junichi Masuda of The Pokemon Company dropped some interesting new facts about the upcoming Pokemon X and Y, releasing October 12 for the 3DS. The games' new online functionality, known as the Player Search System (or P.S.S.), taps into the power of the 3DS by allowing players to switch between local wireless communication and full-fledged Internet connectivity with the push of a button.

During play, the bottom screen of the 3DS will display confirmed friends – fully integrated with the 3DS' Friend List (meaning friends you add before the game's release will appear there) – as well as people in the area who happen to be playing. Battling someone from the latter group will add them to an acquaintances list, and after a few battles, X and Y will establish a friendship between the two players. True to the series' focus on multiplayer from its very first generation, X and Y has made it easier than ever to smash your pocket monsters into friends' far and wide.

One important question, though, left some lingering disappointment in the room: when asked if previous generations' Pokemon can be imported into X and Y, Masuda could only offer "we're working on it," citing the problems in communicating data between the DS and 3DS. Hopefully, you won't have to take your current stable of Pokemon out behind the woodshed come October.

There have likely been more articles devoted to the constant reaffirmation of life in The Last Guardian than to detailed description of its contents. The latest round comes from PlayStation's Scott Rohde, Software Product Development Head for Sony Worldwide Studios America.

"So, we're not talking about when The Last Guardian is coming out, but it is still a game that there's a lot of love for inside PlayStation walls, because everybody sees how emotionally driven that the entire fan base of PlayStation always responds with when we talk about The Last Guardian," Rohde said in an interview on Tuesday. "That's something that's very important to all of us, but we're not announcing any details on it."

The exact status of The Last Guardian has become a mystery, exacerbated by a leadership shakeup and a long, unprompted absence from the public eye. Sony America CEO Jack Tretton was recently quoted as saying the game was on "hiatus," which Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida countered, saying it was "in active development." Meanwhile, Scott Rohde puts it in simpler terms:

"It is alive."

It's E3 2013 Super Joystiq Podcast Special time. A lot has happened, but in the interest of making it through the rest of the week, it's all about the games for now.

Richard, Ludwig, Jordan, and Mike Suszek revolt against their bodies' need for sleep to deliver some impressions of actual next-gen games from the first day of the big show. A trio of driving games is up first: Drive Club, Need for Speed: Rivals, and Forza Motorsport 5, and then it's on to Dying Light, Ryse: Son of Rome, and Crimson Dragon.

Stay tuned for a full recap and commentary on the press conference news bombs later on in the week, along with plenty more impressions of games from the show. See you back here tomorrow!

Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:

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Details about each segment are available after the break.

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Saints Row 4 is being shown at E3 and if there's anything those rascally Saints know how to do it's self promotion. These two thespians of marketing pictured were seen on the show floor promoting Saints Flow, the energy drink available at your local Steelport convenience store and Planet Saints.

Ubisoft had a few surprises in store during its 2013 E3 press briefing, teasing a bold new direction for its Rabbids series and introducing the post-pandemic online RPG, Tom Clancy's The Division, among other notable announcements.

Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell kicked off the conference with a guitar-shredding demonstration of Rocksmith 2014's Session Mode, in which budding guitarists can customize backing music tracks in real-time using voice commands. A trailer for the online PC RPG The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot followed; afterward, Ubisoft revealed that it is accepting signups for a closed beta.

Ubisoft assured that Obsidian Entertainment's RPG South Park: The Stick of Truth is alive and well, narrowing down its release date to Holiday 2013. Ubisoft previously acquired the project from THQ following the troubled publisher's dissolution late last year. Ubisoft Reflections and Ivory Tower's The Crew was up next, showcasing its unique brand of destructive multiplayer racing across a persistent online world. A release is planned next year for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC platforms.

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The Walking Dead's next episode, 400 Days, stars five different characters in five separate stories of survival during the zombie apocalypse, all tied together by a geographical locale: A truck stop. These newcomers offer a fresh perspective on the events in season one of The Walking Dead, but overall, Telltale's tone hasn't changed much.

"Aw, fuck."

Those are the first words that Vince, one of the five characters highlighted in 400 Days, says. He spits the phrase into a dark alley as he searches for a spot to stash his gun, police sirens blaring from down the street. The player gets to decide where Vince throws the pistol – the garbage, his pants, the roof – but it doesn't appear to affect where he ends up: chained to the floor of a prison bus, with a heartbroken statutory rapist in front of him and a white-collar, former millionaire behind, all latched on the same line.

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It's a mere formality at this point, but Bethesda Softworks has officially confirmed Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Evil Within for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The games were previously announced for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC as well.

Bethesda also released some more screenshots for both games, which we've placed in the galleries below.

Nintendo has released a new developer video detailing the differences between the Wii U and 3DS versions of its recently announced cross-franchise brawler Super Smash Bros.

Director Masahiro Sakurai notes that "the total number of characters [in the Nintendo 3DS version] is the same as the Wii U version, but some of the stages will be completely different."

In addition: "In the Nintendo 3DS version, there will be more stages based on handheld games, while themed stages from home console games will be on Wii U."

Both games also boast a unique graphic style. The Wii U release focuses on primary colors and visual effects, while the 3DS version has cel-shaded characters in order to make them easier to see.

The Super Smash Bros. official website profiles every character announced so far, including newcomers from Animal Crossing and Wii Fit. Super Smash Bros. is set to launch in 2014.

Microsoft's revival of Rare's fighting series, Killer Instinct, will be a launch game for the Xbox One. Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer told me Killer Instinct is "being overseen by people who are really core to that franchise," and suggested the developer, Double Helix Games, was getting a "bad rap" for its recent history of movie-licensed games.

"I think the developer is getting a little bad rap around this game," Spencer said. "We found a developer who really cares about the game. They're building a great game at 60 frames per second."

Though it seems to have coalesced into a real product made purely from recurring internet wishes, Killer Instinct is practically seen as an ambassador for Xbox One's improvements to online matchmaking. "Obviously, multiplayer is pretty core to what the game is right now, but when you think about asynchronous matchmaking, and I don't know if it really came across [during Microsoft's media briefing], but while you're playing your match, your next fight is being set up. So, you're literally just carousel-ing from fight to fight. A fighting game, given its round-based nature and how long the rounds are, is a great opportunity to showcase the asynchronous matchmaking."

Of course, that isn't to say Twitter had no participation in the matter. "And then, yes, my Twitter feed is always lit up with, you know, there are a few games - Crackdown being one, Killer Instinct being another. When are you going to do this game? Everyone thought there was going to be a Kameo 2, or ... I don't get a lot of Brute Force 2."

Dead Rising 3's optional use of the Xbox One's mandatory Kinect gifts its zombies with a level of situational awareness you may not want them to have, truth be told. "They can hear," a Capcom representative told us during a demonstration at E3. "If you want to call a zombie or distract [a zombie], you just yell at your Kinect and they'll respond to you."

Sounds useful in a stealth situation, but what if you're not as good at staying quiet as you'd like, or your roommate comes home at a tense moment, taking the frustration of his lousy day out on your front door? Are the zombies listening that closely?

"That's part of the joke," executive producer Josh Bridge said. We asked whether the zombies would respond to specific words or just sounds in general, and while exact details regarding the mechanic won't be revealed until further into production, "for the most part, zombies don't understand English." Bridge added that the microphone sensitivity will be tuned to a "threshold that makes sense," so that attracting zombies will, by and large, feel like an intentional decision. Of course, the functionality can be disabled entirely.

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Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is being planned for PC, producer Brian Lindley told Joystiq at E3. The third-person action game was announced for Xbox One and Xbox 360 at EA's E3 press conference yesterday. Lindley said the game will launch in spring 2014, and that "at the moment we're not announcing any platforms." You know, outside of PC.

Garden Warfare was announced with a demo of its four-player cooperative multiplayer action. Lindley confirmed that the game will include competitive multiplayer modes in which players can control zombie characters instead of plants.

Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream has released a full-length version of its satirical PlayStation 4 tech demo The Dark Sorcerer, first shown at Sony's E3 press event last night.

The Dark Sorcerer recasts the old man character featured in a previous Quantic Dream tech demo as a struggling actor with a goblinish/trollish co-star. Hijinks ensue. Shenanigans, even.

We snagged some photos of the PlayStation 4 hardware and accessories at E3 2013. Just try to look at that console without thinking of "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Also, try not to look too close – it's pointy.

The Batman: Arkham Origins 'Knightfall' content for the game's PS3 version consists of challenge maps tied to the Knightfall storyline, as well as the Azreal-themed suit and the "early television show skin" revealed in Sony's E3 conference. Origins Senior Producer Ben Mattes told Joystiq the maps are "specific to the Knightfall storyline" and will include "appropriately themed characters and enemies."

The piece of Knightfall content developer Warner Bros. Montreal is "really excited about" is the early television show skin, AKA the 60s Batman skin of the KAPOW! and BLAM! era. So, did Warner Bros. Montreal consider bringing in a certain Adam West to provide vocals tied to the skin? When asked about that possibility, Mattes took a long pause before simply restating, "Early television show skin." Holy skirting the question, Batman!

On the subject of specific versions, Mattes also confirmed to us the Origins will have specific functionality on the Wii U, but he wasn't prepared to go into details.

"We're not talking about specific features but we're encouraging people to imagine," Mattes told us, "We obviously paid to attention to the Wii U platform and what sort of functionality makes sense for that platform."

We also asked him about whether or not the Wii U would receive the same DLC as other versions, given the speculation about the system possibly not receiving the Deathstroke content. Mattes told us WB Montreal is "not yet talking about" DLC and its relationship to the different platforms.

Nintendo's booth showcases the company's friendly atmosphere, featuring whimsical statues and vehicles for photo opportunities. Princess Peach playing cuddly cat woman is adorable, but so are the super-sized Pikmin.

Those looking for a photo memory can hop in a Mario Kart or take a non aquatic ride on the Wind Waker boat. Yes, we asked if the boat was seaworthy. It isn't.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is in development for the PlayStation 4, series director Hideo Kojima confirmed in response to fan questions on Twitter.

Kojima assures that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of The Phantom Pain are still in the works. Metal Gear Solid 5 was announced for the Xbox One during Microsoft's E3 press briefing yesterday.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut will launch on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC/Mac later this year, Square Enix announced in a press release. The version was initially announced for Wii U in March, and Eidos Montreal said the Director's Cut improvements were not planned for other platforms as of April.

The touchscreen features seen in the Director's Cut version developed for the Wii U version will translate to Microsoft's SmartGlass app and the PlayStation Vita.

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