E3 2013 – EA Press Conference Summary

Across the road from Microsoft’s morning briefing, EA set up shop in the Shrine auditorium. COO Peter Moore introduced the show’s focus on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with 11 games on show.

PvZ Garden Warfare:
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare opened the show. PopCap’s Justin Wiebe and Brian Lindley introduced the game. a third person action version of the iconic tower defence game. The demo showcased the peashooter, cactus and sunflower classes, working together to fend of waves of zombies. All the typically insane humour of PvZ is there with the funky first boss followed by the Gargtanuar and his impish companion.

Titanfall:
Titanfall will be coming in Spring 2014. We already saw gameplay in the Microsoft conference, so EA showed a behind-the-scenes docu trailer that will undoubtedly make its way online soon. The titans are “THE ULTIMATE EVOLUTION OF THE BATTLE TANK”. Quite.

Star Wars: Battlefront:
Peter Gibeau talked about EA Sports Ignite and Frostbite 3. Then they casually dropped that DICE are using Frostbite 3 to create Star Wars: Battlefront.

STAR. WARS. BATTLEFRONT.

Okay, all we saw was an AT-AT’s foot clomping into the snow and a logo, but it got a massive cheer in the theatre.

Need for Speed Rivals:
Marcus Nilsson from Ghost Games announced Need for Speed Rivals and wheeled out Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad and the Need for Speed movie. Not to be outdone by Forza, there was also a car on the stage. NfS Rivals will have races taht start as a single-player campaign and finish as multiplayer paint-trading against your cop friends.

Dragon Age III: Inquisition:
Introduced by General Manager Aaryn Flynn, the game trailer showed off a fiery world in which the alliances between races have collapsed.The world will be more responsive than ever, with crucial decisions shaping everything around you. Let’s hope that’s more than just unlocking a new area of the city. It will be out in autumn of 2014.

NBA LIVE 14:
Some guy rapped about releasing and returning, to the backdrop of a guy bouncing a basketball. EA brought out Kyrie Irving to tell us that dribbling is important to basketball. Apparently NBA LIVE 14 is redefining the dribble with bounceTek.

The ball will now separate from the player’s hand at every dribble, which will allow for unprecendented control. Stats on NBA Live World will be updated every hour for your friends to gaze at in awe and wonder.

Madden 25:
Greater realism, more control, more fun. Player Sense will allow you to see and do basically everything ever, as far as I can tell. Lots of video footage about things like “pocket awareness” and a gameplay footage trailer that we’ll include in this post when it goes live.

FIFA 2014:
After yet another FIFA trailer of footballers talking about how great football is, a footballer named “Drake” came onstage to tell us that FIFA is great and that he loves FIFA. Matt Bilbey, EA Sports Group GM told us how great the stadiums are and how sitting in your living room will feel just like being in a stadium. Players will be smarter, movement will be more fluid and words like “elite technique” and “magical moves” were thrown around.

Football. Woo.

UFC:
The UFC President, and champions Jon Jones and Benson Henderson popped out to talk about how happy they are that UFC is with EA now. Jon Jones gave us some insight into specialist tactics required to win at UFC. “He tried to take me down but I took him down first.” UFC will be out in Spring 2014.

Battlefield 4:
Karl Magnus Troedsson, general manager of DICE introduced “Levelution”, which… I don’t even.
They’re adding Commander Mode, which integrates with BattleLog and allows you to command the teams across the battlefield from mobiles, tablets and more. 64 Battlefield players competed in a live (scripted) demo onstage to show off the scale of the multiplayer and they’ll be streaming live all the way through E3 on Battlefield.com. Destructible environments will collapse buildings, completely changing the map.

Mirror’s Edge 2:
It’s confirmed. After years and years of waiting, Faith is back with brutal neck-breaking combat in her iconic red-on-white city. Not excited? Get on YouTube and watch some high-level playthroughs. You were probably doing it wrong.