One of the biggest names in game publishing holds their biggest show of the year.
Electronic Arts is holding their EA Play event in advance of E3 and showed off a bunch of games at their annual press conference. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from the show.
EA owns the licence to make Star Wars games and the industry giant showed two games from the iconic franchise one of which is actually new, Star Wars: Battlefront II and Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes.
Star Wars Battlefront was a massive hit so the sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II is not really much of a surprise. In fact, EA announced the sequel before the final DLC of the first game was out and most of the information given at the conference was already known from previous announcements. The showing for the new game included a new story trailer as well as a segment of essentially focus testing with YouTubers that EA refers to as ‘Game Changers’. But enough background, here’s what EA had to say about Star Wars Battlefront II:
- The game will include a full single player campaign.
- The game will include content from all eras of Star Wars
- Battlefront II will include more maps than the first game.
- There will be more playable hero characters than the previous game.
- The new game will include more customization options.
- John Boyega made an appearance to announce Finn will be added to the game as DLC
In addition to Battlefront II EA showed off new content for Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes including Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character from the now non-canon expanded universe. EA had nothing to show from the other two Star Wars games currently in development.
In keeping with the sci fi trend from EA, the conference teased a new game from Bioware, Anthem. The new game appears to have a post apocalyptic setting, Kaijus, a giant wall and exo-suits. EA promised a full reveal at XBOX event tomorrow.
Moving away from the future and back to the here and now EA announced Need for Speed Payback. The video for the game showed off a mission straight out of a Fast and Furious movie which would be a step up considering the last Need for Speed lacked in single player content. EA also revealed improved customization options for the new game along with lots of dramatic crashes.
EA also included news about their indie program, EA Originals.The publisher vaguely stated ‘several’ titles are in development and shared specific news on one project A Way Out. The new Game is from Hazelight Studios which is led by Joseph Farez, creator of Brothers. The game continues the co-op lineage of brothers while shifting to a prison break drama storyline. EA revealed two trailers for A Way Out.
The Conference also featured EAs suite of sports titles. Notably, Madden 18 will add a story mode, EA is planning the biggest FIFA tournament ever, and NBA Live 18 is adding more street ball flavor to singleplayer.
At the conference EA also announced Seed, the company’s new technology initiative developing improved AI, Frostbite upgrades and optimization for Scorpio.
Finally, and of course, EA talked about Battlefield 1. Again EA highlighted the Twitch Streamer and YouTube community for their game as well as the previously announced DLC for the game, In the name of the Czar.
The new DLC includes:
- 8new maps
- New cavalry special unit
- New female units
- Trailers
Overall the conference was a solid showing of games fairly close to release but not much news on games early on in development. Hopefully EA is saving their big reveals for the bigger stages of the Microsoft and Sony Conferences.