Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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What we want - and expect to see - from E3 this year

Great expotations.

We're just days away from E3, and though an end-of-generation release drought and the lack of Sony gives the impression of an off year, running through the E3 conference schedule suggests there's actually a lot to look forward to.

And that's just based on what we know. Guides editor Matthew Reynolds, features editor Christian Donlan, deputy editor Wesley Yin-Poole and report Emma Kent run through the conference line-up and discuss what they want from this year's show, from A Star is Born moment for Apex Legends to the London-set Watch Dogs going south of the river.

We also have another stab at guessing the new Xbox's name (following our PS5 and next-gen podcast earlier in the year) and how much Microsoft will reveal during its two-hour show. Any guesses?

Subscribers may have noticed we published this a day ahead of our usual every-other-Thursday schedule, and that's because we're doing several E3 podcasts this year, and want to get them live as soon as possible.

Expect a podcast after the conferences have wrapped on Tuesday as we decide who had the best showing, then another with our E3 away team to discuss their favourite games from the show floor.

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