EA Play: Everything That Happened | E3 2018

[Video version of this post: https://bit.ly/2HBM7Ss]

Welcome to what I plan and hope to be the first in a number of posts summarising the major game conferences of E3 2018. 

Yes, E3 has arrived once again and in turn so have all the publishers out of the shadows, looking to excite you into giving them your money. It is my intent with these posts to show you everything that went down at these conferences, including all the game trailers, demos, and all of the…other stuff, but in a bit more of a quick and timely fashion, in the case that you want to know everything that went down, but watching them in full isn’t your cup of tea. 

Naturally, we’ll be starting with the first conference: EA Play, (yes, not technically part of E3, but as close as you can get).

Battlefield V

EA started their conference with one of their biggest hitters, Battlefield V, and just in case the 30 minutes of talking about it event they held a couple weeks ago wasn’t enough, here they talked about it some more. Some of the multiplayer details they shared include the fact that customisation is now a bigger feature than ever, with soldiers, vehicles and guns all largely customisable. Destruction is also now more detailed than ever, to the extent that you can now destroy windows by hurling yourself through them. Turrets and anti-air guns can also now be attached to vehicles and driven around. A new multiplayer trailer was shown and accompanied all these details.

As previously announced, war stories, the anthological campaign mode from Battlefield 1, will be returning, and a more in-depth look at one of those stories will be shown at the Xbox Conference. One of the biggest tidbits to come out of the Battlefield V segment is that there will be no more loot boxes, or premium pass, of any kind, which is sure to please many. And finally, what comes as a surprise to no-one, is that Battlefield V will have its own version of Battle Royale, though no major details about it are going to be revealed until later this year.

FIFA 19

And now, sports! Following Battlefield, the first trailer for FIFA 19 was shown, and one of the most exciting things about that seems to be that EA now has the rights to use the UEFA Champions League in their games. I say seems to be because I’m not much of a FIFA fan or expert, but I suppose that's good.

Other details about this year’s FIFA include that The Journey, FIFA’s story-oriented career mode, will be returning for a third year, alongside everybody’s favourite ballkicker Alex Hunter. The man himself wasn’t here to introduce it though, so I suppose EA has kept him locked in their dungeons for this year. The FIFA segment wrapped up with the announcement that a full game free trial of FIFA 18 is now available for a limited time. FIFA 19 will be released on September 28th, 2018. 

Cloud Gaming

After this, EA CEO and Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst antagonist Andrew Wilson came out on stage to announce EA’s new cloud gaming service that will allow you to stream EA games onto your laptop and phone, among other devices, which is coming sometime in the future. He also revealed Origin Access Premier, which is basically EA Access for PC, letting PC gamers subscribe to a library of EA games to stream on their PC, for 15 dollars a month. That’s launching later this summer.

Star Wars

Next came the Star Wars segment of the conference, which started with the CEO of Respawn Vince Zampella announcing Respawn’s Star Wars game: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which will come out during the holiday season of 2019. It’ll be set between Episodes III and IV, in the dark times where the Jedi are being hunted. That was pretty much all that was said on that.

On to Battlefront II, currently in a season of content focusing on Solo, the latest Star Wars epic. DICE announced during their segment that Clone Wars era content is coming to Battlefront, with heroes and villains including General Greivous, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dooku, and Anakin Skywalker. Other new features including a new command post mode are also on their way.

Unravel Two

Following the success of A Way Out, which was announced as an EA Original, or indie game published by EA, at E3 last year, more indie games were announced at EA Play this year. The first of which is Unravel Two, the sequel to last year’s Unravel, developed by Swedish devs Coldwood Interactive. The big thing about the sequel is co-op! This time, Yarnie is joined by his friend, presumably named Blue Yarnie (Barnie?), and the two Yarn creatures work together to solve puzzles using their eternally connected thread. The game is co-op, but can be played fully in solo too, with one player controlling both Yarnies, being able to get rid of one whenever they want by having the other absorb it, which is a little disconcerting. Looks fun though! Oh, and also, it’s available right now, so get on it.

Sea of Solitude 

Next up, Sea of Solitude! Developed by Jo-Mei, Sea of Solitude is a game all about loneliness, and the effects this can have on a person. You play as a young woman suffering from loneliness and depression, and aim to bring her emotions, both sad and happy, into balance over the course of the game, in a struggle against herself. They’re really tugging on the strings with these games, huh? Sea of Solitude will release early next year.

NBA Live and Madden NFL

Next, more sports! Oh joyest of joys. A trailer for NBA Live 19 was shown next, and nothing more was said about that. That's out September 7th.

Now we’re getting into the agonising part of the conference, so if you weren’t there to watch it in full, be thankful. After NBA, two guys who care more about Madden than I do came out to talk about how much one of them loves playing Madden, and how he started playing it after he broke his arm playing baseball, or something, to be honest I wasn’t really paying attention. Then there was a trailer. It's out August 10th. Next!

Command and Conquer: Rivals

Are you an RTS fan? Did you love Command and Conquer? Well, lucky you, saints be praised, because it’s back! And it’s a mobile game...

Yep that’s right, Command and Conquer: Rivals is the latest instalment in the hit RTS series, and nobody is pleased. To rub the salt in the wound two guys came out and commentated a live match of it for like ten agonising minutes. The pre-alpha for that is available now on Android. Next.

Anthem

After that display, EA ended the show with another big hitter, Anthem, developed by Bioware (as if you don’t know). Starting off, they showed a new cinematic trailer for the game, which teased story, action, and had sick Mus(e)ic playing in the background. It was dope.

After this, some people from Bioware came out to talk all about Anthem, and shared some juicy details. Namely, they’re aiming to mix a shared world with a traditional Bioware narrative. You can go out and do missions co-op with your friends and people you pretend are your friends, but after that, you can go back to a singleplayer hub, turn in missions, and experience the consequences of your choices and actions, as you would in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Additionally, Anthem can be played largely in co-op, or it can be played completely in solo, though they warned this may be a little more difficult. They also talked about the classes, or 'Javelins' you can choose from in Anthem, which are Ranger, Colossus, Interceptor, and Storm, all of which comes with their own ways of playing the game, and all of which can be personally customised. They wrapped up the talk with a big gameplay demo and a release date: February 22, 2019.

And that wraps up EA Play for 2018. It was a mix of some pretty cool stuff in Anthem, Battlefield V, and the indie game unveilings, and some very not cool stuff, in traditional EA fashion. 

Did you enjoy the conference? What were your favourite parts, what EA games are you most excited for? Were you barely staying awake throughout? Distract in the comments below.

Next up on the E3 schedule is Microsoft and Bethesda's conferences. If you’d like to hear my recount of those too, then keep an eye out for posts on them in the near future.