Another year, another EA E3 conference has gone by and I have to say I am not impressed. While yes, Anthem did assuage some of my fear about it being a Destiny clone, it has not given me anything to be excited about until I see more footage. Bioware needs this game to be a hit to fall back into the good graces of gamers after the abysmal launch of Mass Effect: Andromeda last year. But with its founder back, I have confidence the game will reach heights that match Mass Effect 2 or even further. With that said, EA has some work to do keeping innovation going.
While EA’s Original initiative has given us A Way Out, which released to some critical acclaim, they need to build on that momentum. Things look promising with Sea of Solitude, a new IP coming that seems to draw upon metaphorical aspirations but given a more literal form. Perhaps the most interesting of the bunch is the fact that Battlefield V will have a battle royale mode, which the crowd went mildly for. I honestly thought that EA would break away from the Call of Duty trend following, but I was sadly mistaken. I guess we will see if these two modes will hold-up against each other and not fall into obscurity as Fortnite continues its reign over Twitch and YouTube. But it was nice to see that the game still looks gorgeous compared to its rival and focuses more on what makes it more diverse than the easy grab and go style of COD.
Overall the conference was mediocre at best. FIFA was something only those in that niche will ever care about, Madden brought Ju Ju Smith-Schuster (my favorite player on the Steelers by the way) and another guy that only five percent of the crowd even knew, and an EA Origins premium service was discussed. It is obvious that EA did not really have anything new to show off. It makes me wonder why they decided to hold a press conference this year. I understand that they have other games than their sports genres but that is my main issue. If they are trying to show more diversity about their original games, they should have made that the highlight. Anthem was their main event act that should have wowed the crowd, but I still have more questions than answers at this point. In the future EA needs to stop hyping up Madden and FIFA and focus more on their new IPs. The lack of content showed and it will only harm them if they continue to do this every year.
As E3 continues to roll on, I hope Sony and Nintendo bring the goods, because it is obvious the corporate appeal of Microsoft, Ubisoft, and EA will continue their run of promising but ultimately hit-or-miss conferences again this year. Or maybe Bethesda will do something other than show off another updated Skyrim or Fallout hopefully? Do you think that EA did well? Or did they fail miserably? Sound off in the comments below. If you enjoyed this post, consider sharing in on social media or contact me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Medium.