E3 is back once again and of course the press conferences are all going to be chock full of new games and information. To make it easier for you to digest it all we’ve decided to write up a summary of each as they come and so here is the first of them: EA.
Battlefield V
The show opened with Battlefield V as they showed off the new multiplayer trailer and talked about new stuff in the game including improved destruction, player customization, the new towing ability for moving stationary weapons, and letting us know that they are going to continue with the War Stories style of single player campaign missions which were so successful in Battlefield 1. Also we got to take our first drink in the EA press conference drinking game when the DICE developers said “no loot boxes”. Another thing no one expected *eye roll* was the announcement of a Battle Royale mode in the game. We will get to see more about the single player campaign in the Xbox conference tomorrow.
FIFA
Cristiano Ronaldo is the face of FIFA again for FIFA 19 and of course there was a tense and inspirational trailer about how great soccer is and how being a champion is the dream. In all seriousness though FIFA is consistently good (despite Lucas’ low opinion of FIFA 18!) and FIFA 19 brings the UEFA Champions League to the franchise both in The Journey with Alex Hunter, and of course Ultimate Team.
EA Services
The CEO of EA Andrew Wilson came out to talk about how big streaming is these days. The first thing he talked about was a new cloud gaming system which is currently in a tech demo stage which will allow people to stream full EA games in HD to any device (even mobile to be played with an attached controller). This is very cool and something definitely worth looking forward to. Having said that, Australia doesn’t even have PlayStation Now (PlayStation’s cloud gaming service) because of our small customer base and lack of infrastructure so it remains to be seen if this will make it to our shores either. The second thing was Origin Access Premiere which is a subscription service the same as EA Access on Xbox except this one is for PC and you get access to big new EA titles as well as the rest of the EA Origin catalogue.
Star Wars
Titanfall developer Respawn announced a new game called Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. It’s set between Episode 3 and 4 while the Jedis are being hunted down, and you get to play as one of those hunted Jedis. The release window is holiday 2019, but there was no other information to share at this stage.
In other Star Wars news they talked about Battlefront 2. This gave us another chance to drink as they copped to how poorly the game was received when it launched. They then talked about upcoming updates for the game including the Solo movie tie-in content, and several new modes. Later this year we will see a new Clone Wars update for the game as well. Oh, and have another drink as they mentioned the poor start for the game again at the end of the BF2 segment.
Unravel Two
Now an excellent surprise announcement, Unravel Two was both revealed and released so it’s available right now. It includes a new BLUE Yarny and gameplay mechanics based around playing with both characters at the same time. This can be done in single player as well as in a new drop-in, drop-out co-op mode. There’s also a mean bird that wants to eat you. I’m personally really excited about this game and I’m looking forward to giving it a try.
EA Originals
EA are very happy with how the EA Originals brand is working out after the success of A Way Out. The next title in the line-up is Sea Of Solitude from small German indie developer Jo-Mei. The main theme of the game is loneliness and the emotions that come with that. It certainly looks like it has a pretty tense and dark atmosphere as you would expect with the subject matter. It’s coming out in early 2019, and looks really impressive.
More Sports
It’s EA so of course there were more sports games for them to show us. NBA Live 19 was up first as EA continue their attempt to unseat NBA2k as the best NBA game on the market. Nothing to see here. Next up was Madden NFL 19 which looks excellent as well. EA really do dominate in the sports video game genre (apart from NBA obviously).
Command & Conquer Rivals
A new mobile RTS game with really quick 1v1 matches which require players to hold control points to charge a missile to destroy the enemy’s base. It has a decent amount of different units you can create and looks pretty well balanced. Pre-alpha is out on Android right now, and the full game is coming to iOS and Android soon with pre-registration open now.
Andrew Wilson then came out again with a closing statement including a comment about not wanting to give players an unfair advantage based on how they choose to play (Read: pay to win). Drink again. On a positive note he mentioned EA’s work with anti-bullying charities with their Play To Give initiative which is really good to see. EA aren’t actually as bad as the people on the internet think after all.
Anthem
EA closed their press conference with this bloody excellent looking game. Anthem is more impressive with each new trailer they release and today we got a one and a bit of gameplay footage footage as well. They also had a deep dive into the game with some of the key staff from Bioware to share a bit more information about the game. This included another great drinking opportunity as the devs mentioned that Anthem will have no loot boxes or “pay for power”, although it will have in-game purchases of vanity items. Anthem is coming out February 22nd 2019 and as a plus we get to finish off this press conference with a nice buzz from all those drinks. Thanks EA!
We will discuss more of our thoughts about some of these games on the next episode of the DBG podcast but if you’d like to check out the press conference for yourself you can watch it here:
