Electronic Arts, as per, has a veritable plethora of games to show at this year’s E3 – so much, in fact, that they have a whole damn press conference to themselves. Here’s a round-up of everything from everyone’s favourite – or least favourite – franchises to the bundle of surprises that came along for the ride.
The conference opened with an oddity in the form of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, a third-person shooter in the PvZ universe. There’s not really much that can be said in order to make this easy to understand. Popcap even took time to let us know that Peggle 2 exists before sodding off to go make fun games. Titanfall, debuted during Microsoft’s press event, turned up some more with developers talking about how much fun they wanted their fun-looking fun game to be. Fun fun fun.
After EA’s Frank Gibeau turned up to sing the praises of Frostbite 3 and EA Sports’ new Ignite engine, we were teased to five seconds of a rebooted Star Wars: Battlefront. This was followed by the unveiling of Need For Speed: Rivals, a cops-and-robber flavoured, multiplayer-focused edition of the long-running racing franchise. A second player that hates themselves enough can join in with a tablet, dropping helicopters in the way of getaway cars. Aaron Paul – he of Breaking Bad – turned up, muttered “cars, bitch” and ran a clip of the upcoming NFS movie. Moving on.
Dragon Age: Inquisition brings open-world fantasy role-playing to the next generation, complete with some familiar faces. The trailer showed all manner of apocalypse unfolding and a hint at the karma-influenced gameplay the series is already renowned for.
The highlight. Don’t even lie.
All sense gave way to the obligatory EA Sports section in which burly men talked about game engines in a way they possibly couldn’t understand – some even in spoken word form. There’s new physics systems for bulky American football players, lithe soccer players and even subtle movements in how a basketball bounces. These, along with the amazing 3D crowds being drawn in their thousands, make each game from NBA Live to Madden to FIFA 14, look absolutely breathtaking. EA Sports MMA was introduced by Bruce Buffer, who brought very angry men onto the stage and they shouted about fighting for a while. Drake turned up to talk about FIFA and I haven’t the faintest idea why.
Battlefield 4 had new features introduced by DICE’s best and brightest. First new feature is Commander Mode, a second-screen mode in which a particularly bossy player can issue commands to on-the-ground soldiers regarding positions of enemy troops and other useful info. Probably best tagging in and out of this if you and a buddy are sitting playing the expanded 64-player multiplayer together. Live gameplay of a new map in Shanghai showed the Commander dishing out orders to other players; DICE’s self-penned “Levelution” showed Frostbite 3’s brand new destruction tech. Support pillars for buildings collapsed, helicopter gunfire ripped windows and structures to pieces – and then an enormous skyscraper came down completely, seconds after players bailed out.
DICE had one more surprise up their sleeves (aside from female soldiers in Battlefield, at long last): after years of demand, Mirror’s Edge 2 surfaced, running on next-gen hardware. The trailer teased what could be an origin story, showing lead character Faith getting the tattoos that are now so familiar to so many.
All in all, there wasn’t much to fault with EA’s press conference. They’re delivering on IPs that people have been seeking for so, so long and in remarkable style. For the undeniably huge legions of sports fans and Need For Speed/Battlefield die-hards there isn’t much to fault either. EA might have been voted the Worst Company To Work For In America, but they are absolutely the company most comfortably on solid ground for the next generation.
