At the risk of sounding a little spoiled (what with all game reveals and trailers we've been showcased over the last week), E3 2019 still felt like a year that had a certain something missing. Well, a whole lot more than something really. It can be tough to pin your hopes on a gaming announcement for months and months, only for E3 to come and go without a sniff of what you were hoping. Sadly, I've just had to come to terms with the fact there'll never be another Wave Race. *Sniff*

So big commiserations to the folks here were looking forward to games that went AWOL at E3 2019. Here are six of the biggest games (sort of) which were glaringly absent from this year's celebrations.

Splinter Cell

Cropping up in a similar article for the second year running, Splinter Cell was notably absent from Ubisoft’s E3 showcase. At this point, it sounds increasingly likely that Splinter Cell isn’t development at all. Don’t hold your breath hoping that we’ll see a new Splinter Cell in the next two or three years, unless Ubisoft is going full Sam Fisher with us on this one and is getting ready to drop a surprise. Splinter Cell is AWOL and it’s probably going to stay that way.

Rocksteady’s DC Comics Title

Oh Rocksteady, wherefore art thou Rocksteady. It’s been four long years since Batman: Arkham Knight and whatever Rocksteady has been cooking up, it’s been stewing a while. They looked nailed-on to appear at E3 2019 until, alas, they confirmed just over a week ago they wouldn’t be there. Whatever Rocksteady’s working on (rumoured to be a Suicide Squad or Justice League game), it’s extremely deep into development. At this point, we’re going to take a guess that Rocksteady is holding fire until the next-gen consoles are properly unveiled.

Skull & Bones

Something’s surely up here. Skull & Bones was front and centre during E3 2017 and 2018, yet didn’t even get acknowledged during a lacklustre Ubisoft conference. Skull & Bones was recently delayed until 2020, having already been delayed to 2019, so we get the impression Ubisoft is run into a few development issues here. Will it be out by this time next year? Who knows.

Anthem

Quite probably BioWare’s most expensive project ever, and the gleaming jewel in EA’s crown at E3 2018. What a difference a year makes. Here we are, three or so months after Anthem’s launch and it didn’t even make the grade to appear during EA’s three-day Play event. We got an extensive look at The Sims 4 DLC and yet heard literally nothing about the future plans for Anthem. Half the challenge of keeping a GaaS title alive is making it appear, well, alive, and neither EA nor BioWare are doing a great job of that with Anthem right now.

Sony

Okay, so Sony isn’t a game but what a gaping hole the Japanese giant left in E3 2019. They say you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone but we sure would’ve liked to see Sony return. Last year’s E3 show received a bit of a mauling but at least we got plenty of proper gameplay walkthroughs, which is more than can be said for this year. Sony’s cooking up something big for the PlayStation 5 though, and we reckon their biggest moment of 2019 is surely still to come.

Fable

The biggest shock of Microsoft's Xbox conference was the complete no-show of Fable. All the excitement of a Cyberpunk 2077 release date announcement helped us forget about it but, after the dust settled, we were left wondering where the heck Fable 4 was. There have been a ton of rumours lately that Forza Horizon developer Playground Games is working on Fable IV, and it seemed there was enough smoke that there had to be a fire somewhere. But no, it just wasn't to be. Perhaps this one game Microsoft is holding back for Project Scarlett. See you next year Fable IV.

Which games were you shocked to see pull and E3 no-show? Let us know below!