E3: EA focuses on sports, charities and indie devs
Launches new initiatives at EA Play event
EA Play, Electronic Arts' E3 conference, showcased a mix of AAA hype and new initiatives this year. The event was streamed live from Los Angeles and London, with Peter Moore and Andrew Wilson playing hosts.
First up was Titanfall 2, which had suffered a leak just hours before. Vince Zampella of Respawn Entertainment confirmed single-player mode and announced an "open technical test" for the multiplayer which you can register for here.
Next up Peter Moore, the newly annointed chief competition officer at EA, spoke about the publisher's plans for eSports. EA's " new approach to competitive gaming" will feature three tiers of competition, with community driven Challenger events, Premier events with partners and the EA sponsored majors. We'll be asking Moore more about this strategy in person at E3 this week.
The next big title on show was Mass Effect: Andromeda with a cinematic trailer and promise of more news in the fall.
CEO Wilson then took the stage to launch EA's latest charitable intiative, which will combine in-game challenges with donations to five non-profits.
FIFA 17 was presented with a special visit from new Man Utd manager Jose Mourinho, to the confusion of many soccer apathetic Americans. The latest game will feature the biggest Premier League managers as well as a new story mode called The Journey.
As well as showing off its AAA money makers, EA boosted its indie credentials with the launch of EA Originals, a new scheme to help indie developers that promises all the profits will go to those indies. It's first partner is Zoink with its dreamy looking game Fe. There are no details as yet on the terms and conditions of the scheme such as IP ownership etc, but we'll be chasing those up ASAP.
Jade Raymond of EA's Motive game studio in Montreal took the stage to the Star Wars theme tune next to reveal that EA was currently at work on three Star Wars titles. Amy Hennig's Visceral project, new Battlefront and an action game from Motive.
Finally we got our look at Battlefield 1, the WW1 shooter. It will be released on October 21 and the trailer below showed plenty of action and vehicles on offer, airships, armoured trains, and battleships.
