This year’s E3 press conference kicked off EA stepping on stage first; they set a tone for the show which can hopefully be easily beaten by the acts still to follow. There line up of usual suspects was met nicely with more footage of Anthem and then their show stealers were once again the EA original game from their Indie devs.
Though let’s break the show down and get into what exactly they had on show.
After an opening video in which we saw most of the games that would be getting discussed over the next 1 hour show, we moved straight into Battlefield V and what to expect. The WW2 shooter was met with lacklustre from the audience (to be honest it never seemed to pick up at all during the show), though the developers came out to discuss what to expect from Battlefield V.
The games new mechanics include; diving through windows to surprise and flank enemies, moving previously stationary heavy weaponry around the battlefield for tactical advantages and the destruction engines are still in place allowing tanks to plough through buildings and eliminate hiding places.
War stories make a return to Battlefield V, which was arguably one of the highlights of the previous War World 1 shooter, Battlefield 1. This is where the real names and locations of people who fought in these battles are honoured through this medium. The War Stories let players experience the harrowing and horrible situations that real people faces so we would never have to. More on the War Stories will be told at the Xbox conference which is the next to take place, though this was followed with the announcement of no Loot boxes, no premium pass and the inevitable Battle Royale mode. This will bring the Battlefield combat to the recent gaming boom Battle Royale, expect to see the genre shaken up with a Battlefield twist, as the game already has the mechanics and vehicles in place; it is just a case of implementing the mode.
The next game on the cards was Fifa, to be fair they showed off a nice looking trailer. The real question is how much has actually changed, as a jaded person who is not interested in football this looked like nothing special. Though on stage they talked about the World Cup mode release for Fifa 18 and a free trial of the entire Fifa 18 is now free to try on Xbox now.
After the trailer footage finished some developers from the Fifa team were on stage with the Champions League cup, where the audience was very unimpressed. The press conference went on to talk about the most prestigious cup in the football world, the addition to the Champions League to Fifa to expand your awards in game. The game launches September 28th, so get ready for a new adventure in Fifa.
After the sport we took a side step into a more PC focused discussion, as the cloud gaming world is expanding and EA are seeing a potential market. They were talking about be able to stream games ot your home computer, console and Smart Phones. The Subscription discussion led to the Origin Access premier discussion, where their newest games will be playable as well as their back catalogue of over 100 games; to be fair it is not a million miles away from EA access on Xbox already. It is more focused at the PC demographic.
No mention of price point discussed at this point in the conference, so if this sort of thing interests you then you might want to keep an eye out for what is in story for this service.
We took to the audience after the Origin presentation where a member of Respawn Studio was present to talk about their upcoming Star Wars title, though no footage was shown. The whole section of the conference seemed to be more focused on reminding us that 6 Star Wars games were announced a few years ago and not much has come from that announcement.
The Star Wars game is titled, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order; the game will be focused more on the Jedi during the period after Revenge of the Sith where the Jedi are being hunted to extinction. The games release is now being looked at Q4 next year, so expect a release around Christmas next year.
Keeping the Star Wars momentum going, Battlefront 2 came on stage with a developer admitting they did not get the release of the game correct. Which to be fair is an understatement, though for a member of the team to come up on stage and admit that, it was humbling.
The announcement was about more Hero’s, vehicles, locations and game modes coming to the galactic shooter. There is an upcoming drop of characters coming from the recent Solo film, expect to see licensed characters and locations from that piece of cinema.
The largest announcement was the expansion of the Clone Wars where more Jedi, Sith and everything in-between. Expect iconic locations from which was previously the most hated era of the Star Wars timeline, the Clone Wars, though the current films are not being met with the greatest of reviews.
The playable charcaters being added from the Clone Wars timeline are; General Grievous as a playable character, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker. There was no mention of any other Jedi or Sith characters or re-skins of existing characters to be playable during that era, so we wait with baited breath and see.
Next out of stage were the Two EA originals, where Unravelled 2 and Sea of Solitude were announced.
Unravelled 2 takes a new multiplayer look at the charm and excellent gameplay of the original, though the game can be completed purely as a solo experience, the latest addition will see Yarny team up with another character to create new threads and connection, to connect the concepts of love and hope to re-kindle people’s emotions.
The greatest announcement about this title is that it was available to purchase straight away, the game went live after the conference.
The second game was Sea of Solitude, where the developer came out on stage and appeared overwhelmed and simply happy to be able to show off this amazing looking title from a small Berlin based studio.
Sea of solitude takes place in a flooded world where the lack of human contact has driven people to become monsters. The game is based around a female protagonist who has started to turn into a monster and you must redeem her humanity before she falls too far to turn back. With the stunning graphics and the interesting concept I found this to be the stand out game from this show.
Next was the American Handball …. Sorry “football” game Madden, where players were introduced to the world Madden champion Young Kiv, where a video was showed that focused on a brief history of how Kiv got to World Champion status. Shortly after young Kiv came out on stage with Professional American Hand/Football player Juju Smith-Schuster and showing off his championship belt.
Well after hearing the story of Young Kiv, the audience was seriously not interested, the gratification and glory that they were focusing on the Madden Championship Belt were totally wasted on the audience and the viewers at home. It was very strange and section of the show where I felt this was forced upon us all. This was followed by a brief trailer about the upcoming title, with no real announcements about game play.
After this was a brief section where a new Command & Conquer mobile title was announced and played on stage, the audience was not giving the game too much hype. The reactions were a little dead, though as far as mobile games go this didn’t look too bad at all.
To wrap up the show, we finally got a story trailer for Anthem. The game is set up to look like EA’s attempt at Destiny with story driven studio Bioware at the helm. The world exploration, gameplay and story were heavily emphasised with a remixed rendition of the amazing Muse – Knights of Cydonia . After the trailer was shown, it was more a Q&A session on stage rather than a presentation like most games are at EA. One stage were; General Manager – Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mark Darrah and Lead Writer Cathleen Rootsaert.
They came out on stage and answered the questions about what the game truly is, and how it is being set up to be the game that Destiny was promised to be. Only time will tell if they can learn from all the mistakes the Activision has made with their money making giant.
The pretty much wrapped up the show, where EA had some interesting Indie titles they still seemed to rely on the big names to pull them through a lacklustre opening to E3 2018. The conference is the Xbox show, with a large focus of their show to be on games we are interested to see what they can pull out the bag.
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