E3 2017: EA Play Breakdown

E3 is upon us once again, and I’m sure most of you are far too busy to sit down and watch the big press events of the week live. Luckily for you, I’m here. The first press conference was EA’s E3 adjacent EA Play event. So let’s get right into all the big reveals.

Madden 18

The first thing briefly discussed was Madden 18. Madden, for the most part, seems par for the course, although EA appears to be leaning hard into the story in sports games idea. Maybe picking up Madden every four years won’t be my routine anymore. I’ll just let the trailer speak for itself.

Battlefield One

Battlefield One is getting eight new maps focusing on the eastern front of the war in its In the name of the Tsar expansion. In addition to the maps, new vehicles, weapons, and large scale battles for operations mode are included in the expansion. The Lupkow Pass map will be playable on the floor at EA Play.

FIFA 18

If you remember last year, EA made the smart decision to simulcast the FIFA portion of the conference from Europe. That seemed like the smarter move, getting an LA audience excited about Soccer is not easy. They brought out the Men in Blazers, these two fellows are well known for soccer coverage overseas, or so I’m told. The whole thing was rather strange for an American audience.

Alex Hunter, the protagonist of the last FIFA game, will return in FIFA 18. Check out the trailer below.

Need For Speed: Payback

I can’t remember the last Need For Speed game I played, but this looks alright. EA promises a vast open world, deep customization, and a system based around fixing up scrap cars. The level of customization seems to be taking a not from Ubisoft’s The Crew, and those slow motion crashes are reminiscent of the old Burnout takedown camera. The trailer is very action heavy and it looks like Need For Speed might be the closest we get to a Fast and The Furious game. It needs more The Rock, but I’ll take it.

A Way Out

From Josef Fares, the creator of Brothers a Tale of Two Sons, EA and Hazelight studios announced A Way Out. A narrative based co-op game set around a prison break. If you wanted a playable version of Shawshank Redemption, this seems up your alley. While online play will be present, the focus is couch co-op. You’ll have multiple ways to tackle a scenario as either character. This one stole the show for me, can’t wait to see more.

ANTHEM

We knew Bioware had been working on a new IP and we got a brief glimpse of the futuristic title. We’ll here more at the Microsoft conference tomorrow but for now, enjoy the teaser.

NBA Live 18

Next up a peak at the next NBA Live. NBA Live 18 adds a street ball mode complete with historic courts like Venice Beach. They also showed off some changeable gear, is this a basketball RPG?

Star Wars Battlefront II

So, this is the big one. With a full half hour of the conference dedicated to Battlefront, we have a whole lot of ground to cover. John Boyega’s famous Star Wars Battlefront needs a story Tweet was brought up on screen; EA seemed to be really driving the fact that they have a story mode home, despite the trailer not revealing much.

We did, however, get a sizable look at the games multiplayer. New large scale, multiphase battles similar to Battlefield One’s Operations mode are present. Local Co-op will be included, and a new class system overhauls the way you customize loadouts.

• more heroes
• more vehicles
• more planets

Content across the entire Star Wars timeline will be present. If you ever wanted to see Rey fight Darth Maul, you’re in luck. All expansions will be free to anyone who owns the base game. The first expansion based around the last Jedi will launch in December and add Finn and Captain Phasma as heroes. In the video below you can watch the Assault on Theed multiphase battle in action.

EA Access

In addition to all the big reveals, EA Access, and Origin Access will be free this week. Some free trials for EA titles will also be available on PS4 all week long. Thanks for reading and enjoy the E3 week!