EA's E3 Conference Overview

EA took the stage at E3 to either discuss their new games or just to tease them to the audience, depending on who you ask.  While the conference was filled with some very high highs and some very low lows, let’s look through the conference as a whole and see how they did shall we?

Mass Effect: Andromeda

The first several minutes were filled with a teaser trailer to the newest Mass Effect game, Mass Effect Andromeda. The trailer didn’t reveal much, but it was a taste of what was to come. It did give us a killer intro by Johnny Cash which is something we should be thankful for, and it no doubt sets the tone of just what sort of game this will be. The Mako is back and a mysterious figure in the N7 Armor is there as well, but who it is we won’t know until later. There was nothing else about the series stated throughout the conference because EA got a little distracted with their sports, but we’ll get into that later.

Need For Speed

Need For Speed is getting “rebooted” if you can call it that. Probably a more accurate term would be, “We are using everything from the past Need for Speed games in this game.” The main setting is called Ventura Bay, Your choices affect the story, and the car customization is better than ever. From appearances alone the game looks visually stunning, and the story looks interesting as well. It might be a good time to get in the series, since EA claims that it will have the best parts of every  Need For Speed thus far, and compared to the last somewhat mediocre offering, this will hopefully be more impressive. It’s slated to be released on November 3 2015

 

Star Wars Old Republic Expansion: Knights of the Fallen Empire

An Old Republic expansion is coming out and it’s free. Well, to subscribers to anyways.  There will be some big changes to the story, including making the story of The Old Republic more personalized and giving the players a chance to betray old party members.  It looks like they are trying to return more to form with the old SWOTOR games and make things feel more like you’re the one making the changes rather than a more generic group. They claim to be listening to their fans, but only time will tell if this is actually what they’re doing or if they are just using it to earn back some of their fanbase. It will be launching in October of 2015.

 

 

Unravel

By far the smallest (and we mean that literally) entry at the conference, Unravel is a game about a little cat creature named Yarny, who uses its yarn to do physics puzzles and platform.  The character Yarny uses its body to swing from platform to platform, make a path for itself, and make lovely messages like the title screen.  It is by far the most imaginative game that came out of this conference, and it shows that EA is looking to follow in Ubisoft’s footsteps in trying to show that they aren’t a corperate tyrant who doesn’t care about the little guy, because look we have a yarn kitty! Nonetheless, this is an exciting title to look forward The character is bright and colorful, the worlds are larger than life, and we will no doubt be getting some sort of heartwarming moment about not being too small to conquer your dreams or something like that. No launch date has been announced yet.

 

Mirrors’ Edge Catalyst

Not a Sequel but a prequel to the original game. We get to see the origins of Faith in a massive open world parkour experience. There will be no levels and no loading screens, just you in this open world with Faith, exploring everything it has to offer, doing sidequests and story missions, finding out just how Faith became the woman she is today.  Faith doesn’t use guns, but her martial arts and parkour skills get things done. An ambitious project for sure, but a beautiful looking one and possibly surpassing with its original.  This game has been one of the more anticipated titles from EA, and while it was shoved unceremoniously in between two EA sports titles, this still gave us the taste we needed to have to sate our appetites for the newest game in the Mirrors Edge franchise. It will be released in February of 2016

 

Plants VS Zombies : Garden Warfare 2

Sequel to the runaway hit Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, this title will include a zombie co-op mode, single player, a storyline where the plants are actually on the offensive, free content updates, and the ability to transfer all of your characters from Garden Warfare to Garden Warfare 2.  There are also 3 new classes like the Imp, Captian Deadbeard and Super Brainz; a speedster, sniper and melee class respectively. It looks like a step up from the last game, and with the new features it seems that the series is gradually progressing in the right direction. It is guessed to be released in spring of 2016.

 

 

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes

Play as our favorite heroes in this mysterious mobile game in the same vein as Hearthstone. Nothing has been released about what genre it will be, but with plenty of fan service, the fans are bound to buy it.

 

 

Minions Paradise

A mobile game based around the Minions from Despicable Me. You’re Phil, a clumsy minion who ruins everything, including sinking the ship he and his friends were on. He has to earn their admiration by giving them drinks and serving them stuff. The game looks like a strategy-esque time waster sort of game for mobile devices. A fun little title if one really adores the Minions from the film. It will be free and was released on June 15^th so it’s available for all.

 

Star Wars Battlefront:

Now on EA’s own Frostbite engine is Star Wars Battlefront. It recreates the most iconic scenes from the series, and it also helps you make your own story with how the battles go. You can play both the Empire and Republic, giving you different missions and objectives for each. The maps can go from 40 man skirmishes to small 8 man maps, and you’re able to switch between first person and third. Oh, and you can play as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in in an amazing duel sequence. This was DICE bringing out its game to reboot the Battlefront series . It will be released November 17 2015

 

EA Sports

After an agonizing amount of time with EA Sports, we can safely say that we know EVERYTHING about EA’s upcoming sports and how Pele was able to see soccer (football for everyone not in the US) as a “beautiful game”. EA lingered far too long on this as per usual, but we shall go over all of them anyways.  Here is some highlights of each of EA’s promises about these games:

FIFA

Pele was in the trailer and on the stage, being the most talented person on the stage from EA.

FIFA finally included female soccer players in the game

Better defensive abilities

No touch dribbling

Better motion capture than ever before

Graphical improvements
 

NBA

HD face scan app puts your face in the NBA game with all of your features

You can get “swag” (new clothes) and improve your appearance as well as your gestures.

Live motion capture

Thousands of unique movements

Madden 16

Multi round draft

Better movements

Better “pass game”

NHL

EA Sports Hockey League (No explaination given)

More levels

More depth for hockey fans

Better graphics
 

Other than the agonizingly long Sports segment, the upcoming releases from EA look interesting. And while we weren’t given enough information about many of them to make room for explaining every single thing about Sports, we were given something. This looks to be a promising, profitable year for the company and hopefully some of these titles will live up to the hype.