In line with the past few years, EA kicked off the pressers this morning for E3 2018. Here are the highlights from their presentation.
Leading the press conference was an augmented reality look at Anthem.
Andrea Rene opened the show as host.
Oskar Gabrielson and Lars Gustafsson took the stage to discuss Battlefield V. There will be no loot boxes and no premium pass. The game will have a battle royale mode.
A trailer for FIFA 19 was shown.
Aaron McHardy and Lina Ingvarsdottir took the stage to discuss FIFA 19. It will release on September 28th.
FIFA 18 complete, for a limited time, will be available to play for free on various platforms.
Andrew Wilson took the stage to discuss cloud gaming. Origin Access Premier streaming service will offer all of EA’s new PC games. It will launch later this summer.
Andrea Rene returned to introduce Vince Zampella to tease Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. It will take place between episodes 3 and 4. It has a current release window of holiday of 2019.
Dennis Brannvall took the stage to discuss Star Wars: Battlefront II. Han Solo content will be coming next week. A new squad system is coming to the game. This year, Battlefront II will be delving into the Clone Wars, and will include the largest level ever built for Battlefront.
A trailer for Unravel Two was shown and Martin Sahlin took the stage to discuss the game. It can be played solo or in co-op. A look at gameplay was shown. There is a very determined grouse who apparently likes to pursue yarn.
Patrick Soderlund took the stage to announce Unravel two is releasing today!
He also introduced Sea of Solitude.
Cornelia Geppert took the stage to discuss Sea of Solitude. The premise: when humans get too lonely they turn into monsters. (Side note: I find that entirely poetic and am excited to see how this plays.) The game releases early 2019.
A trailer for NBA Live 19 was shown.
Juju Smith-Schuster and Young Kiv took the stage to discuss Madden 19 and to introduce a trailer for the game.
Michael Martinez and Nathanias took the stage to show an RTS mystery game which turned out to be Command and Conquer: Rivals for mobile. It will be coming to iOS and Android devices.
Andrew Wilson returned to the stage to discuss the Play to Give program, then introduced a trailer for Anthem.
Andrea Rene returned to the stage to introduce BioWare’s Casey Hudson, Mark Darrah, and Cathleen Rootsaert to discuss Anthem further.
Anthem will have microtransactions, but will not have loot boxes; you will know what you are buying specifically.
An extended trailer was shown. Anthem will release February 22, 2019.
Andrea Rene closed out the show.
This seemed to be a reserved start to E3 2018. I’m looking forward to both Microsoft and Bethesda’s press conferences tomorrow beginning at 1:00pm PST. I’ll see you back here, then! Happy E3 2018!
Categories: games
Rebekah Lang 
I agree that the EA conference was a slow start to E3. It was nice to see what was on offer in terms of indie development and I thought Sea of Solitude was the best game they showed. As for large releases, I feel that their lineup is well established with the sports titles and probably doesn’t appeal to the larger audience of gamers tuning into the conference.
I still have some reservations about Anthem and what exactly BioWare is going for but at least they said there won’t be loot boxes which I figured would be something no one would dare say after the Battlefront II debacle. I felt bad for Dennis Branvall since he was the one stuck addressing the elephant in the room regarding Battlefront II and hopefully gamers are playing the game more since they’re still providing new content. It was nice to see EA wasn’t completely tone deaf to that with Battlefield V and Anthem and actually took some pro-active steps toward making things better going forward.
Overall it was average at best but I really didn’t go in expecting too much. Nice recap Rebekah! Looking forward to reading and adding my two cents to the other conferences!
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I’m glad they addressed the loot box issue, even if it sometimes felt awkward. I mean, how could it not after the last year? Either way, I’m glad they said something.
And I think you’re right about the sports games’ audience not being the ones tuning in to the streams necessarily.
Oh man, Sea of Solitude looks so good. I can’t wait to play it.
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I have to say, EA really dropped the ball kicking off E3. There was not a lot to be excited about here.
Sea of Solitude looks promising, but the rest of the conference I found to be utterly boring. After the whole Battlefront II debacle they seem to be shying away from lootboxes. I don’t have a lot of high hopes for Anthem being a hit, which is sad considering Bioware made some great games not too long ago.
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Sadly, I agree. I did really like Sea of Solitude, but the rest just wasn’t for me. Hopefully there were people out there who were excited for what they showed.
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