It was a bit of a quiet E3 for Codemasters and Namco Bandai this year, but the pair’s marquee titles were present at full blast with impressive showings from fantasy-themed offerings such as Dark Souls and Soul Calibur V, and the decidedly more extreme first-person shooter, Bodycount.

Namco Bandai

Over the course of E3 2011, it was formally announced that CD Projekt Red’s epic action RPG The Witcher 2 would be making its way from PC exclusivity to find a home on Xbox 360.

Although PC gamers have already had a chance to treat themselves to Witcher 2 (read El33tonline’s review), Xbox 360 owners will be able to dive into this rich world of action, magic and incredible sights in the last quarter of 2011.

Find out a lot more about Witcher 2 with El33tonline’s previous coverage of the game.

The Soul Edge/Blade/Calibur series started out very strong, but despite commercial success with later entries such as Soul Calibur III and Soul Calibur IV, series fans have begun to grow weary of the franchise as the team at Project Soul has done very little to ‘wow’ us with brand new features and fresh approaches to its weapons combat style of fighting game.

With the release of Soul Calibur V next year, Project Soul hopes to ‘wow’ us again with improvements to its cherished license, and will hopefully be able to put Soul Calibur on the map again in terms of recognised, respected fighters, especially with titles such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat regaining prominence in the scene.

To show us its progress so far, Namco Bandai released a debut set of screenshots and an in-game trailer during E3 2011, which you can see over here.

Ready to dive back into From Software’s latest crushingly difficult and punishingly cruel action RPG, Dark Souls?

If the developer’s last title, Demon’s Souls, is anything to go by, Dark Souls won’t just be about controller-throwing fits of frustration but will bestow upon you boundless feelings of satisfaction and triumph as you put everything on the line to defeat brutal beasts and cunning creatures, while planning out keen strategies to best your foes in this third-person adventure.

E3 2011 brought with it fantastic new looks at Dark Souls with interesting screenshots and a number of amazing pieces of gameplay footage – enjoy them and steel your nerves for October when the game releases on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Codemasters

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: This time last year, Bodycount wasn’t looking very impressive at all. There was immense promise in the destructible environment technology and the developer’s focus on a more arcade approach to first-person combat, but it all looked like it was hanging together by a thread.

This year at E3, however, Bodycount looked immensely impressive, both graphically and gameplay-wise, with unpredictable combat and blockbuster action exploding every which way.

Due for release later this year on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Bodycount is certainly one to look forward to!

El33tonline’s E3 2011 News Round-up:

Did you happen to miss some of the major announcements at E3 2011? Don’t worry, you can look through our coverage of the event to catch up:

• 2K Games and Activision E3 2011 News Round-up

• Bethesda and Konami E3 2011 News Round-up

• Capcom E3 2011 News Round-up

• Microsoft E3 2011 News Round-up

• Nintendo E3 2011 News Round-up

• SEGA and Warner Bros. Interactive E3 2011 News Round-up

• Sony E3 2011 News Round-up

• Square Enix E3 2011 News Round-up

• THQ E3 2011 News Round-up

• Ubisoft E3 2011 News Round-up