SIAN BRADLEY
EA AT E3
EA haven't been popular with gamers for a while. They've earned their reputation
by releasing incrementally different versions of the same game year after year,
as well as insisting gamers use their own digital distribution service, Origin. But
this year, they did a decent job.
W
10
hile the majority of publishers
presented at the Los
Angeles Convention
Center, EA’s conference, EA Play, could
be found next door
at Club Nokia. CEO
Andrew Wilson split
hosting responsibilities
with Chief Competition
Office Peter Moore,
who was based in The
Mermaid in London.
The
conference
opened with a trailer
across the league as
you play.
Alongside the new
developments in Madden NFL 17 came
the announcement of
three new varieties of
competition, which expands online contests
beyond typically exclusive eSports. There
are now Challenger
Events that anyone can
host and compete in,
Pemier Events hosted
by EA and their part-
THE UPCOMING TITANFALL 2
for Titanfall 2, which
offers six new titans,
more
customisation
and an offline campaign mode. Players
will soon be able to
take part in the multiplayer test prior to its
release on 28 October.
Moore then took the
reins in London and
introduced Madden
NFL 17, replete with
an enhanced Franchise
Mode and an all new
commentary team. The
new addition to the
series will feature practice squads, full-player
editing and constant
updates on scores from
ners and EA Major
Events where the best
players compete for
prizes. The first edition
of the latter took place
that weekend in Los
Angeles with the Madden NFL 16 Championship finals, which
was won by underdog
Frank ‘Stiff’ Sardoni Jr.
EA then took a brief
break from sports to
introduce Mass Effect
Andromeda. Set in a
new world and with
a focus on the female
version of the protagonist, the reveal
showed a game that
has changed a lot since
its inception 10 years
ago. The new addition
is built using the Frostbite engine meaning
that the environment
will be a lot more reactive to events that happen in game and looks
gorgeous.
Although there is a
fair bit of waiting for
each of these new
games, Wilson assured
players that they were
not being forgotten
about now. He promised that EA would
continue to update
their popular games
and also introduced
Play to Give, where
players would complete in-game challenges which, in turn,
donated to five different charities. The five
charities, HeForShe,
CODE2040,
Code.
org, National Centre
for Women and Information Technology
and Special Effect,
focus on marginalised
and
handicapped
groups and will receive
$1 million in total from
EA during the event.
The focus then went
back to sport and the
reveal of FIFA 17, with
the main new features
being the addition of
Premier League managers and new story
mode dubbed “The
Journey”. The mode
will follow Alex Hunter
as he makes his way
through the challenging world of top flight
football, with the player controlling his destiny both on and off the
pitch.
From EA’s most regular staples, the conference then moved in the
opposite direction, introducing EA Originals.
The publisher noted that
indie developers were
paramount to the success of the industry and
that they were dedicated to supporting small
developers, offering
funding and a level of
security, with all profits
made from the scheme
going straight back to
t