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The first footage to show in the lineup comes from Madden NFL 18: Longshot, the latest in a long line of Madden Football games, which appears to focus around a football player’s rise to success with its own story mode.

Instead of focusing on Madden 18 for their first talk, EA instead turn to Battlefield 1, a game which they say currently has 20,000,000 players. We see a series of gamer footage of amazing feats within the game. We then get a look at a new map, which will feature trench fighting, along with a DLC called “In the Name of the Tsar”, which will involve more and customization, along with eight new maps. The look at the DLC shows the player fighting in the snow-covered landscape of what appeared to be Russia.

This picture was taken directly from “In the Name of the Tsar” trailer.

EA announced that in the Fall, there will be the biggest FIFA championship of all time, with the hopes of drawing in a larger crowd of all stripes for this competition. This is followed by a game I’m sure everyone watching was expecting, FIFA 18. The Men in Blazers, a couple of soccer commentators then came out to try out their stale comedy skit to a tough crowd, singing the praises of the latest game in the EA FIFA series. After the awkward moment, they show off the story portion, which follows Alex Hunter.

“Fifa 18” is said to take our football experience to the next level. Then again, isn’t that what EA says every year?

Need For Speed: Payback is next up on the list. In this game you play as three separate characters in an open world. This comes with tons of vehicle customization where you can start with scrap and later rebuild it as a dream car. The gameplay that followed seemed promising enough, as it always does, giving us a taste of fast-paced racing action where the driver of a Mustang GT takes out enemy vehicles in a pursuit of an 18-wheeler holding an important car. Though honestly the focus on the crashes of the enemy cars got boring after the fourth explosion.

“Need For Speed: Payback” is said to offer the most open world environment in the series yet.

Their spokespeople make mention soon after that they announced EA Originals last year, and that this year, they want to announce a new EA Original title. This game, “A Way Out”, created by the creators of “Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons”, appears to be about a prison break by two inmates and the events that follow. The writer said he wanted to create a great story that didn’t compromise on gameplay. The game will only be available to be played in co-op on split screen. You can play the game online with a second player. The gameplay seems fairly interesting, though some people may find the online only play to be limiting. The game is announced for early 2018.

A look at how the split screen looks in “A Way Out”.

EA also introduced a new IP from Bioware called “Anthem” which will have more information announced at E3 this year. The game is supposedly to be released in Spring 2018.

Hopefully, we learn a lot more about “Anthem” before the end of this year’s edition of E3.

Their sports division brought up NBA Live 18. I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen a game announcement say the name of the game as often as this one. The game seems to have really in-depth controls, with being able to control the ball, movements, and the dribble with the control stick.

“NBA Live 18” in-action.

The conference ended with the game everyone seemed to be waiting for, “Star Wars: Battlefront II”. At the beginning of the conference, they said that they’ve listened to the criticisms of the previous game. In the newest Star Wars: Battlefront game, there will be a campaign, something that people were disappointed with in the previous game. The campaign will take place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. According to their Star Wars spokeswoman, there will be more customization, more planets to explore, more vehicles, more of practically everything. Battlefront II now has a class system, which works as one can expect. The Dice developers have said that the weapons have been completely redone so that there is a skill gap to use the weapons. According to their spokeswoman, all DLC and all that would normally come at an additional cost will be free. The game also comes with splitscreen co-op.

From the game everyone wanted to hear about. “Star Wars: Battlefront II”

Once the main console announcements were out-of-the-way, the only news left was an announcement on the mobile game “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes”, which is getting new characters from “Star Wars: Rebels”, starting on June 15^th.

All-in-all, EA showed almost exactly all that I expected, but with that comes a lack of surprises. Beyond the standard sports games that we see every year that are a lot of the same with some tweaks here and there, the “Star Wars” game everyone knew was coming, “Need For Speed”, and promotion of the charities they support, the only new announcements out of the press conference where “A Way Out” and “Anthem”, the latter of which being a work of Bioware, which in itself is something to be expected at EA conferences. “A Way Out” looks the most interesting in my opinion. However, I’d save my judgement for when we see how the co-op works out, as it could possibly backfire. Since this is from the creator of “Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons”, a well-received game, I have high hopes for this game in particular.

Each year when it comes time for announcements like these, I remember what was presented to us last year, and hope that I’m given more the following year that will impress me. I do not feel this way about this conference in particular. “A Way Out” and “Need For Speed” appears to be the most interesting works for this year, but the conference overall is really underwhelming. I hope to see more exciting news from EA to impress me later on down the road.

And with that said, what’s your take on EA’s press conference? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

***Disclosure***
I’m very neutral towards EA, however my cynical nature may make my review of their conference appear more negative than I intended.

Credit:
Robin Ek – Editor