Today in Los Angeles, Electronic Arts kicked off E3 2018 with a press conference in which they announced a new Star Wars game, an Unravel sequel and took a longer look at BioWare’s upcoming RPG Anthem, which is out next February.
Above: A big baddie turns up in Anthem
It was a straightforward way to begin E3: light on major news, with a focus on games we already knew about. Here’s everything EA showed and announced.
Battlefield V gets more destructible environments and a battle royale mode.
The next Battlefield game will bring back the destructive environments that DICE ran wild with in Battlefield: Bad Company. In the World War II-based Battlefield V, tanks can blast through buildings and destroy cover in real time.
Also, your character can dive-roll through windows? Hell yeah man, I’ve always wanted to do that in a game like this. “No loot boxes. No premium pass,” the developers reiterated on stage.
They also announced “royale reimagined” for Battlefield, meaning that Battlefield V will be getting a battle royale-style gameplay mode. I’m shocked. Shocked, I say! The developers said they will have more to share on that mode later in the year, and we’ll see more of the game at Microsoft’s Xbox conference tomorrow.
Respawn’s Star Wars game is called Jedi: Fallen Order.
Respawn’s Vince Zampella confirmed that means you’ll be playing as a Jedi, lightsabers and all. The game takes place “during the dark times” between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, when the Jedi are being hunted.
Per EA on Twitter, it will be “an original Star Wars story around a surviving Padawan set shortly after the events of Star Wars: Episode III.” It’s coming in holiday 2019.
Battlefront II is taking on the Clone Wars.
Star Wars Battlefront II is getting a bunch of new stuff this year, including a new squad system, a new starfighter mode, a new command-post capture mode, and new heroes and maps taken from the Clone Wars. There will be new heroes including General Grievous, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker.
Unravel Two brings Yarny back for a co-op adventure, out today.
It looks as cute as the first game, but has a co-op focus that has both players using their yarn abilities to swing around and avoid hazards. They were sure to stress that you can play it in single-player, if you want — the other yarn character just wraps itself around Yarny and you can control them both.
The demo also had this weird bird chasing the yarn creatures around, and it was pretty stressful. Go away, bird!
EA also pulled the first Beyoncé of E3, announcing at the end of the presentation that you can buy the game… today!
Sea of Solitude is all about loneliness and depression.
It’s another EA indie, this time from German studio Jo-Mei Games. The game was introduced in a winningly wandering way by writer/creative director Cornelia Geppert, who seems pretty great.
Command & Conquer is returning as a mobile game.
After those announcements, EA hosted a resoundingly unexciting stage demo of a new competitive Command & Conquer mobile game. It’s called Command & Conquer: Rivals and it definitely looks a competitive mobile RTS. I don’t really know what else to say about it.
We learned more about BioWare’s Anthem, coming in February.
During an on-stage interview segment, BioWare manager Casey Hudson, Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah and lead writer Cathleen Rootsaert talked about how they’re approaching their much-hyped action RPG. They seem pretty focused on story, and Rootsaert said they will be adding things to the game “for years to come.”
As we already knew, the sci fi action game is designed about the “Javelin” exo suit you wear. Since your character is a person who wears the suit, you can change your suit whenever you want to fit the mission or your team makeup. So basically, Javelins are changeable character classes.
There’ll be no loot boxes in the game (not a huge surprise), and there’s the expected customisation options for your mech. We saw a gameplay demo that looks like the same third-person, Destiny-ish gameplay we’ve already seen. Slick though, and some pretty big bosses. I’m also happy to report that the soundtrack during the demo was synth-heavy in an appealingly Mass Effect-ish way, especially in quieter moments. Watch that demo here:
The game’ll be out on February 22, 2019. For more on Anthem, read this post compiling everything we’ve learned about the game.
A few other things: We got a dramatic trailer for FIFA 19, which is out on September 28; an enhanced “Origin Access Premiere” subscription service is coming later this year; Madden is coming to PC; We got a trailer for Madden Overdrive; and EA CEO Andrew Wilson talked up their “Play to Give” program supporting various charities.
And that’s it for EA! Feels like last year’s EA press conference was just last week. But no, it was an entire year ago. You are now a year older than when you first found out about A Way Out. I’m not, though. Every year, I stay the same age.
We’ll be here all week covering every E3 press conference and with news, interviews and hands-on impressions from the show floor. Stick around.
Comments
7 responses to “Everything EA Showed At E3 2018”
It was really underwhelming this year. Nothing new to see
None of this is exactly my cup of tea.
I’m down with ‘synth-heavy’ though ????
I didn’t think it’d be possible to have the lowest of expectations for this conference and still be disappointed. Jumping on the battle royale trend? Pissing on a beloved franchise from the greatest of heights by turning it into a mobile game? Gameplay for their new big game that looks stale and uninspiring? Classic EA. Of course, that all means that these games will fly off the shelves and make billions upon billions for EA, Makes sense to me
Yeah, they could have put loot boxes in everything they announced and that’d be easier for me to forgive than them just blatantly shitting all over Command & Conquer.
It’s tough because I remember thinking the same thing about Destiny before it was out. I think that the progression of your character vs. the feedback of the controller in your hand could play into how the minute to minute gameplay might feel. Not that I’m arguing that it won’t suck, it might definitely suck. But we won’t know for sure until we’ve seen more or played it ourselves.
Urgh another Indie game about mental health issues…
I’d rather make an effort to make some friends and see a therapist to talk about my issues then play a game about it, thank you very much
You can opt out, then. Other people will find it an important release valve.
I thought it was the only semi-original thing in the whole show. A game I’d have expected from Ubisoft, not EA.
C&C looks like a massive middle finger to those hoping for a new title.
All up EA seems like it had a pretty boring conference outside of Jedi.
EA needs to fired into the sun for what they did to Command & Conquer
Battlefield seems like the first (with Anthem being the second) of EA’s we messed up please like us again games where they try to re-claim the fans they lost with micro-transactions (the kind what are pay to win), loot boxes and more. Which is nice, but we will see. Obviously it’s so the new Battle Royale mode gets more players, getting that Fortnite player base and money.
Unravel was both a nice reveal and surprisingly fantastic ‘ITS HERE!’ moment. I was literally watching the demo going ‘wow, this seems like a nice co-op game, will pick it up when it launches’ and guess what, now I can.
The other two studio games were good, Sea of Solitude looks good, but there is not much to go on and the team behind A Way out in a new studio is very much announcing a new game without teasing what it is.
And lastly the BFII stuff is a good sign for things to come, they are keeping what would be a dead game alive with these quite big updates, if they can bring in solid new game modes and Clone Wars content, hopefully, they can bring back the players. With enough good press and the fact the game is like 20 bucks nowadays, it’s not impossible (but it will take a bit)
The bad stuff.
That SW reveal was pretty bad. Just a casual name drop and setting/release window for a STAR WARS GAME! and our first game since EA’s purchase besides the BF series was low. They spent money on a fancy CGI trailer for C&C but not to announce SW. Come on :/
And speaking of C&C, I thought the game looked alright, but using a beloved franchise like that, especially one that has been without a new game for years is pretty shitty. Keep it nameless or release it alongside a new C&C game. But nope, this is what that franchise has become, a pretty basic (but ok looking) mobile game.