E3 Conference Roundup - Electronic Arts

So you're probably gonna be caught up in the E3 hype now, and we have already had our first conference of the day. You're probably going to be seeing a lot of articles being published by all the news outlets where they've managed to write a whole 3 paragraphs on 10 seconds of footage. Yeah, nice.

I'm gonna keep it simple in my roundups and go over everything that has been shown. Simple. So without further ado, let's get cracking with the EA conference.



Ah EA, what a year you've had. Lootbox shenanigans, game cancellations, delays and the odd great game release. E3 this year for them was a chance for them to tell us that they do love games, and they do love the players, and they want us to have good fun with great games. There was some good stuff there, and here it is:

Battlefield 5
HOLY SHIT BATTLEFIELD 5 HAS A BATTLE ROYALE MODE. I AM SHOCKED. IT'S COMPLETELY WILD. THE MADMEN I CAN NOT BELIEVE THEY'VE DONE IT.

In other news they showed some cool destruction stuff, like driving a tank through a building and diving through a window. Oh, you can also move previously static defence emplacements such as anti-tank guns and turrets. War Stories are back, and there are some cool customisation options for your tank and playable character. Standard stuff. NEXT.

FIFA 19

It's football! To many people this is shocking news, FIFA 19 exists and it is a thing. It's now more footballier than ever as they have managed to get their hands on the UEFA Champions League Cup. It looks big, shiny and impressive, so I'm going to assume it is important. In fairness, FIFA games are a nice little bit of fun, and the UEFA Champions League is something the fans have been wanting for a while. Like it or hate it, it's FIFA and it's a decent game. Good job on pleasing the fans, EA.

They're also adding a World Cup game mode to FIFA 18, so you can make sure England definitely win. Excellent.

Origin Access Premier

It's the current Origin Access deal that you pay £4 a month or £20 a year for and get access to over 100 games. They're creating a new tier that is £15 a month of £90 a year and you'll be able to get all their newest games as they come out. That includes Battlefield V, FIFA 19, Anthem and more. No word if DLC will be included in these (one of the biggest drawbacks of Origin Access at the moment) but it's a pretty sweet deal.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

The wonderful hostess pinned down Vince Zampella from Respawn Entertainment who is working on a new Star Wars game. In what looked a little uncomfortable of an interview with a guy just smiling at the camera in the background the whole time, we can confirm by Christmas 2019 (i doubt it), we'll have a new Star Wars that is set between Episodes 3 and 4 when the Jedi were being hunted. It could be cool, but we'll wait and see.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

OH BOY. Guy had to come on stage and fess up to messing up the launch of Battlefront 2. Understated, but fair. They were discussing how much they have changed the game, and they talked about the new, current season for the Han Solo season. BUT WAIT. There's more. This year they will be adding the motherfreaking Clone Wars. HOT DAMN. That's some good stuff. They're going to be adding their largest level, and some new heroes and villains. GENERAL GRIEVOUS. Don't really need to go further than that, but they've also added Obi-Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker. 

Unravel Two

I like the guy behind the Unravel games. He genuinely seems to love making games and wanting to share his creations with everyone, and it's nice to see that passion on the stage. He was a little nervous when they were showing Unravel, but he's got it together now. Unravel Two is a game in the same vein as Unravel in which you play a little yarn boy and swing around a level made up of various platforms and puzzles. The difference with this one is that you can seperate into a second blue yarn boy and solve some sweet puzzles. I believe this also has co-op too. I don't think I have heard anything bad about Unravel, so I have no reason to believe this will be bad. The good news? You can go buy the game right now. I like these kind of surprises.

Sea of Solitude

A brand new IP straight outta Berlin made by a new indie studio named Jo-Mei. The lady showcasing the game seemed a bit nervous, but she nailed it in the end. The concept is that when humans get lonely, they turn into monsters, making this a game about loneliness and human interaction. It sounds like a deep game with a powerful message. You play as Kay who has turned into a monster due to loneliness, and it is our job to find out why this happened to her and how to turn her back into a human. It sounds very interesting, and has a very cool art style. I'll leave the trailer below. It has my interest piqued.

NBA Live 19

It exists, they're making it, and it's coming out 7th September. That's pretty much all they showed. It's basketball innit.

Madden 19

It exists, it's coming to PC. For some reason their champion of the esports scene has a belt like WWE. Yeah, I mean...sure why not. The rest was a bunch of cringy interactions between the champion (Young Kiv) and the WR of the Pittsburgh Steelers. We got to hear a lot about how hard it was for the guy to win that belt. Then they left the stage with a trailer. Game looks good, but all the EA Sports games look good in fairness. They're pretty good at it.

Command & Conquer: Rivals

Well. I uh..I don't know what to think, but they've made Command and Conquer into a mobile game. During the conference they didn't tell us this until after the show match between an RTS champion (iNControl of Starcraft 2 fame) and a mobile RTS champion (nickatnyte). The game is on a hexagonal grid and you vie for control of a nuclear missile to blow up your opponents base. You do this by spawning units and holding control zones. For the old school Command and Conquer fan, this definitely leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. A fantastic series brought to the cartoony "casual" mobile platform. I'm gonna wait to play it myself before deciding, plus, I can always hold onto hope they're making a proper PC Command and Conquer game. Oh, Kane is in it. So there is that.

From the end of the bit, this game should be available to play soon. I signed up and have seen nothing yet.

 

Anthem

HOLY SHIT IT'S MECH SUITS AND SCI-FI. HOLY BALLS. It looks awesome, I can't deny that, but I'll personally wait for it to get closer to release before deciding. They've told us that there are no lootboxes in this game and there will be customisation, so that's pretty exciting. This section for Anthem take the form of a Q&A between the presenter and the team at Bioware and their journey making Anthem. From what they've said, Anthem is going to be always online, and will allow drop-in drop-out multiplayer. There is also no offline play. The game is absolutely always online, so that could be a deal breaker for some people. There's a lot of talk about the huge, shared world they're making and how the story works alongside it all. It looks gorgeous and I can't really wait to play it. 

It also looks like there will be some character classes for people to play, so it won't be for example a game like The Division, but more like Destiny, but a lot of emphasis on this shared world and story elements. 

So that's it. That's the first conference of E3 this year. There's definitely some ups and there are definitely a couple of downs (Command and Conquer did REALLY not go down well at all) but as usual EA have a nice E3 conference. Their Access service sounds like a great bargain, especially if you always get their new games, and they also released a brand new game (Unravel Two) and showcased a brand new IP in the form of Sea of Solitude. All in all, I think it was a fair effort from EA. Good job.

If you want to catch the full video from the conference, you can watch it here on Youtube.