E3 2014: EA Edition

Our E3 2014 coverage continues with EA, not necessarily the most popular of companies, but it can't be denied that their games sell and are highly anticipated, but how did E3 shape up for them this year?


In short, not too well. I wish there were a lot of games to talk about, and while there are a couple, EA spent a lot of time showing alpha/ behind the scenes footage of a bunch of developers and their unannounced games. EA opened their shown with a behind the scenes look at DICE and the work they're doing on Star Wars: Battlefront 3. We didn't see any trailer of the game or demo, but we learned about how they're making the game and that more information will come in Spring of 2015. That general attitude purveyed the entire shown for them, having developers show games with a behind the scenes look, but little to no trailers or demos.

The highly anticipated Mirror's Edge 2 was shown through a behind the scenes look without a trailer, and instead we saw an alpha build of the game in motion. It's interesting what they're doing by getting parkour runners to motion capture the game, but it's something that no one was dying to hear. Rinse and repeat the same procedure for whatever Criterion is working on an for Dawngate, EA's entry into the MOBA arena.

Mirror's Edge 2 was shown, but not really.

They even did a large behind the scenes look at the new Mass Effect and a new IP that Bioware is working on. Stuff like that is huge news and would get people talking if they saw a trailer, but it all amounted to "We're working on this. It's too soon to show you anything, but take our word for it." That's fine for like a few games, but not when the majority of your games shown at E3 are behind the scenes promise videos.

The only games that were shown, besides the annual EA Sports games which look like every other annual EA Sports games were Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Sims 4, and Battlefield: Hardline. Dragon Age looked good with a nice trailer and it was nice to see more of the game, especially with it being shown at both of the press conferences so far. The Sims 4 has a release date of September 2nd and looks like a more updated Sims 3, which is good. If there's one thing about Sims as a series is that each addition does feel like it makes marginal improvements over each previous installment. Then there was Battlefield: Hardline, which was shown in a multiplayer trailer, which looks pretty hectic and fine, but given how badly the multiplayer in Battlefield 4 was, my expectations are very low for it. I need more to get a full opinion on the game.

And that's really their entire press conference in a nut shell; I needed more. Yes it's nice to say that you're working on something, but I can't get worked up about it if there's nothing to show. I can't really say I wasn't expecting it, but this was just boring with nothing good to show.

D+