E3 Press Conference Coverage: Electronic Arts

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Ben Taylor in Gaming // 0 Comments

Hey there everyone!

The Electronic Arts E3 presser just wrapped up. So I’m sitting here with my old-fashioned spiral bound notebook and hastily scribbled notes, and I’m going to put my thoughts into an article, and talk about all that we saw from EA this year. You can also head back and check out my wants/predictions article to see what I had thought EA might talk about, but here is what they ACTUALLY talked about.

SIDE NOTE: The pre show was god awful, it was way too dark (and it wasn’t the light, even the trailers were way too dark) and the 2 people who were hosting tried REALLY hard to be funny, but it was nothing but cringe worthy so please don’t do that again, EA. Just do your conference, we don’t need a lead-in like that, we like being surprised.

——

Titanfall 2: The first thing they were very sure to mention is that Titanfall 2 will also be on PS4 after that they showed a Multiplayer trailer. Honestly it didn’t really look any different gameplay wise. They mentioned there would be 6 more Titan frames. There will be SINGLE PLAYER! Full offline campaign FINALLY! This is what Titanfall was missing; an engrossing look into the world that made me care about it. The world looks amazing. There was absolutely no sign of the vaunted melee weapons. EA also mentioned an October 28th, 2016 release date.

Madden ‘17: There will be all new ways to play in franchise mode and a new commentary team. EA talked about eSports and how they saw competitive gaming going into the home via three different types of tournaments:

Challenger – player-hosted tournaments
Premier – global tournaments hosted live with EA partners (advertisers) from inside and outside the gaming world
Majors – EA-hosted live global tournaments

From the video, it looks like this format can stretch across multiple games.
The release date will be August 23, 2016

Mass Effect Andromeda: “How far will we go?”is the question of this game, and in the development of the game. Mass Effect:Andromeda will have players going to another galaxy to find humanity a new home. Mass Effect:Andromeda will have an all new galaxy, all new worlds, and all new characters. It’s being developed on EA’s Frostbite engine. There was no actual trailer but a look behind the scenes at the game. Also of course, no mention of a release date. This fall there will be more information regarding the game. On the whole, it was disappointing, honestly.

Play to Give: In game challenges lead to charitable donations. EA support STEM education and diversity charities, and as such they have partnered with HeForShe, National Center for Women and Information and Technology, SpecialEffect, CODE and CODE2040. THIS IS huge. At the end of E3, EA is giving away a million dollars. Click here to see how you as a gamer can be involved.

FIFA 17: The FIFA franchise debuted in 1993 and it has come a long way. EA keeps up its tradition of weird beat poems or performances in the sports sections of their pressers. What’s with that? They focus on “The Journey Mode”; which is a story based campaign. The main character, Alex Hunter is not customizable perhaps it should be, that seems to deepen people’s immersion. Also, new this year, (even after Madden has been doing this for years) FIFA 17 will include actual manager likenesses in the game. What effect this will have is unknown and probably nothing. I think EA spent more time on FIFA 17 than any other single game of this conference. The release date is September, 27, 2016.

EA Originals: This segment started off talking about Unravel and what a heart warming story it was. EA created EA Originals where they will find indie developers to partner with and work with them through every aspect of game creation from development to marketing in which all the profit goes back to the developers.

Fe: The first EA original from Zoink Games which is based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The game looks stunning and is a game without words (this seems to be a bit of a fad right now.) Each creature has its own language and its own song. For each one you learn, it will bring you closer to the center of the forest and reveals the story of who you are. There are things called the “Silent” ones that are hunting you. No release date has been confirmed.

EA Star Wars: There was no real groundbreaking announcements for existing games, but we got the announcement that DICE and Motive are working together on Battlefront 2 which will be released in 2017. Visceral Games is working on a Star Wars game due to come out in 2018 and that Respawn is working on a 3rd person action adventure. Then in another “Behind the scenes” video we saw Battlefront 2 developers messing about with a VR X-wing cockpit, and Respawn doing mo cap for lightsaber fights. Is there a possible KOTOR 3 in the works? Time will only tell. Don’t forget, owners of Battlefront will have the Bespin DLC dropping soon.

Battlefield 1: As always, EA’s Battlefield claims to have the largest FPS battles at 32 players a side, and as always I say Planetside 2 would like a word with you. The Levolution feature is gone, but terrain is more generally destructible, there will also be dynamic weather condition which will affect how you play including your visibility, meaning that no 2 games will ever play exactly the same. Also 2 words. Armored. Trains. The release date is October 21, 2016, a week before Titanfall 2.
—–

Well that wraps up the actual contents of EA’s press conference for this year. If I had to pick a “star” of the show it would be the Single player inclusion for Titanfall 2. This is because it shows that they know we were missing it in the last game, and EA is finally giving us as gamers, a reason to care about this universe. It also looks amazing. Surprises? There were a few. Play to Give was awesome and Fe looked phenomenal. There were a few games I didn’t really gel with. Mainly the annual installments of the sports franchises, as those don’t really interest me as a whole though I understand they make EA a ton of money so they need to be there.

Overall thoughts? EA Play being in 2 locations was cool and definitely showed the differences between the 2 crowds. Outside of Titanfall 2 there was no ‘BIG” announcement, we already knew about Battlefield 1, all the Star Wars stuff and Mass Effect: Andromeda’s ‘Behind the scenes’ video was disappointing overall. There were no huge new IP announcements. Other than Fe and Play to Give, many already knew about everything on the docket.

I’m not going to rate or score the conferences until I have seen them all.

Thanks for reading and check back later for our coverage of the Bethesda Press Conference.

So what did you think of EA’s announcements (or even lack thereof) this year?

If you missed it, you can watch the press conference replay below: