Next up, a Battlefield V trailer unrolled and then a developer came on stage to talk about what will be new in the game. Footage was shown of tanks going through buildings, and he mentioned more props such as windows and fences are no longer static, meaning you can go through them. There will also be more customization options as well. It sounds like the single player campaign will be based on an untold story. The game will launch in October. They reiterated that no loot boxes ores premium passes will be in the game, but I'm skeptical. They'll be charging for something. Also, they announced that there will be a battle royale mode, because of course there fucking would be. The Battlefield V portion ends with footage for "Ground Operations". Looks like it's from a single player campaign chapter called Nordyls War Story.
Footage for FIFA 19 begins to play, and I really don't care for FIFA at all, so I skipped it.
CEO Andrew Wilson came out to talk more about boring EA Play. He then began to talk about partnering with an Israel team I believe in order to being streaming services to multiple gaming devices. Lastly he talked about a new version of their Origin subscription program called Origin Access Premier, I believe, with Madden headlining it.
Vince Zampella of Respawn was in the crowed and was interviewed by Ms. Renee. We got to learn the name of their new Star Wars game, which will be called Jedi Fallen Order. It will be set during the Dark Times staged between Episodes III and IV and stated that the plot will focus around the Jedi being hunted. The game is currently scheduled for release in Holiday 2019.
A member of DICE came out to talk about Battlefront II, but not before profusely apologizing for how the developer initially handled the game. He then announced that Han Solo content based on the new movie will be coming next week. There will be a new squad system and a Starfighter mode. Clone Wars content has been announced and will be coming later this year. He revealed such characters as General Grievous, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker, and their largest Battlefront II map ever will be on Geonosis.
Next, there was a trailer showing a yarn doll on a wave-rocked ship. The doll was thrown into ocean, its yarn tether separated from the ship. The game was revealed to be Unravel Two. I never played the first, but the game looks to be so interesting, that I think I might look into the first game. It's designed with co-op in mind, but it looks like you can actually play by yourself by carrying the second character with you. The game is finished and has been released today.
A developer from Berlin studio Jo-Mei Games takes the stage to talk about a game called Sea of Solitude. It's a game about loneliness where humans who experience such profound loneliness turn into monsters. The main character's story is about turning into a monster, finding out why, and ultimately becoming human again. The presentation was very boring but once the game was actually shown, it looked pretty intriguing. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
There was a trailer for NBA Live 19, which I don't really care for, and then a trailer for Madden 19 and something about a struggling pro gamer who year after year couldn't advance past the quarter finals. Like anyone cares about that at all... What a waste of time.
Speaking of wastes of time, they showed off some mobile RTS game with a couple of RTS pro gamers and some hackneyed commentators trying and failing miserably to provide color commentary to get the crowd excited. I think I heard a couple people in the audience snoring.
Their conference ended with Anthem, of course, but not much about it really grabbed me. For starters, they chose to spend the better half of the presentation talking with BioWare staff, and then ended it with gameplay footage of a multiplayer level that wasn't even in real time like how last year's presentation was. You'd think that with another year passing, they'd have a lot more they'd want to show off. The trailer they opened the presentation with strongly hinted that there will be a single player story campaign, and THAT was what I was hoping would be shown more of. Sony has made it evidently clear with God of War and Detroid that single player games still resonate strongly with gamers, and I was hoping EA would have been attuned to that fact. They dropped the ball big time with Anthem as far as I'm concerned.
This is one of the worst EA conferences I can think of recently. It was just flat all around, and I think EA Play is largely to blame for that. It seems like they save all the demos and other tidbits of information to be shared with people in their EA Play areas, leaving holes in their main conference. They only two games that really got my interest happened to be indie games; Unravel 2 and Sea of Solitude. Their biggest mistake was giving an RTS mobile game any amount of stage time. I can't believe anyone would care about a game like this at a time and venue like this. I'll say this, though. I see they learned from their mistakes last year and didn't have any YouTube creators presenting like Jesse Wellens did....
Overall rating: D
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