Above: A big baddie turns up in Anthem This morning in Los Angeles, Electronic Arts kicked off E3 2018 with a press conference in which they announced a new Star Wars game, an Unravel sequel, and took a longer look at BioWare’s upcoming RPG Anthem, which is out next February. It was a straightforward way to begin E3: light on major news, with a focus on games we already knew about. Here’s everything EA showed and announced. Advertisement Battlefield V gets more destructible environments and a battle royale mode. The next Battlefield game will bring back the destructive environments that DICE ran wild with in Battlefield: Bad Company. In the World War II-based Battlefield V, tanks can blast through buildings and destroy cover in real time. Also, your character can dive-roll through windows? Hell yeah man, I’ve always wanted to do that in a game like this. “No loot boxes. No premium pass,” the developers reiterated on stage. They also announced “royale reimagined” for Battlefield, meaning that Battlefield V will be getting a battle royale-style gameplay mode. I’m shocked. Shocked, I say! The developers said they’ll have more to share on that mode later in the year, and we’ll see more of the game at Microsoft’s Xbox conference tomorrow. Respawn’s Star Wars game is called Jedi: Fallen Order. Respawn’s Vince Zampella confirmed that means you’ll be playing as a Jedi, lightsabers and all. The game takes place “during the dark times” between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, when the Jedi are being hunted. Per EA on Twitter, it’ll be “an original Star Wars story around a surviving Padawan set shortly after the events of Star Wars: Episode III.” It’s coming in holiday 2019. Advertisement Advertisement Battlefront II is taking on the Clone Wars. Star Wars Battlefront II is getting a bunch of new stuff this year, including a new squad system, a new starfighter mode, a new command-post capture mode, and new heroes and maps taken from the Clone Wars. There will be new heroes including General Grievous, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker. Advertisement Unravel Two brings Yarny back for a co-op adventure, out today. It looks as cute as the first game, but has a co-op focus that has both players using their yarn abilities to swing around and avoid hazards. They were sure to stress that you can play it in single-player, if you want—the other yarn character just wraps itself around Yarny and you can control them both. The demo also had this weird bird chasing the yarn creatures around, and it was pretty stressful. Go away, bird! Advertisement EA also pulled the first Beyoncé of E3, announcing at the end of the presentation that you can buy the game... today! It’s on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Sea of Solitude is all about loneliness and depression. It’s another EA indie, this time from German studio Jo-Mei Games. The game was introduced in a winningly wandering way by writer/creative director Cornelia Geppert, who seems pretty great. It’ll be out in early 2019. Advertisement Command & Conquer is returning as a mobile game. After those announcements, EA hosted a resoundingly unexciting stage demo of a new competitive Command & Conquer mobile game. It’s called Command & Conquer: Rivals and it definitely looks a competitive mobile RTS. I don’t really know what else to say about it. You can watch a gameplay overview here. Advertisement We learned more about BioWare’s Anthem, coming in February. During an on-stage interview segment, BioWare manager Casey Hudson, Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah and lead writer Cathleen Rootsaert talked about how they’re approaching their much-hyped action RPG. They seem pretty focused on story, and Rootsaert said they’ll be adding things to the game “for years to come.” Advertisement As we already knew, the sci fi action game is designed about the “Javelin” exo suit you wear. Since your character is a person who wears the suit, you can change your suit whenever you want to fit the mission or your team makeup. So basically, Javelins are changeable character classes. There’ll be no loot boxes in the game (not a huge surprise), and there’s the expected customization options for your mech. We saw a gameplay demo that looks like the same third-person, Destiny-ish gameplay we’ve already seen. Slick though, and some pretty big bosses. I’m also happy to report that the soundtrack during the demo was synth-heavy in an appealingly Mass Effect-ish way, especially in quieter moments. Watch that demo here: The game’ll be out on February 22, 2019. For more on Anthem, read this post compiling everything we’ve learned about the game. Advertisement A few other things: We got a dramatic trailer for FIFA 19, which is out on September 28; an enhanced “Origin Access Premiere” subscription service is coming later this year that’ll give full access to EA’s big PC games; Madden is coming to PC; We got a trailer for Madden Overdrive; and EA CEO Andrew Wilson talked up their “Play to Give” program supporting various charities. And that’s it for EA! Feels like last year’s EA press conference was just last week. But no, it was an entire year ago. You are now a year older than when you first found out about A Way Out. I’m not, though. Every year, I stay the same age. Advertisement We’ll be here all week covering every E3 press conference and with news, interviews, and hands-on impressions from the show floor. Stick around.<doc-sep>Good afternoon, downtown L.A.! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the giant banners with gun toting cyborgs have been unveiled. That can only mean one thing: it’s time for E3! Electronic Arts kicked the show off this morning with the first official press conference, and the big news was, as anticipated, Battlefield V. Battlefield V The World War II title will likely get a little more love at the Xbox press conference tomorrow morning, but we did get a look at some compelling gameplay. Notably, the title is getting a Fortnite-style multiplayer, battle royale mode. Anthem Bioware’s next title isn’t due out until next February, but Anthem still managed to get a lot of love today at E3. The multiplayer shooter finds players assuming the role of mech suit wearing “Freelancers.” FIFA 19 Due out September 28, EA’s big soccer (or football or whatever) title is adding UEFA Champions League gameplay, after picking up the license from Konami. That’s big news for European soccer fans, bringing the annual tournament to the title. The company also announced a free trial for Xbox, Playstation and PC players. Madden NFL 19 The popular football title (the other football) is destined for the PC for the first time in more than 10 years. It will bring with it new, more lifelike player animation when it debuts August 10. Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order It wouldn’t be an EA E3 event without some Star Wars love. Due out during the 2019 holiday season, the title will offer a dark take on the familiar universe, allowing users to play as a Jedi. That’s all we know so far, and sadly, there’s no trailer yet to speak of. Unravel 2 No waiting on this one, however. The yarn of a puzzle platformer sequel just dropped today for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.<doc-sep>Electronic Arts will kick off E3 2018 with EA Play on Saturday, June 9th. The event begins in LA at 11AM PT, where the developer is expected to stream announcements, gameplay, and more. EA announced its latest game in the Battlefield series, Battlefield V, last month, but there’s still a lot to learn before its release this October. It will be on hand and playable for the first time during the event, where EA is also expected to show off more gameplay. Anthem, the next game from the creators of Mass Effect, is also expected to take the stage. BioWare’s open-world, multiplayer action-RPG was originally expected to launch this fall, but the game has since been pushed to 2019. EA Play will also feature a slew of EA Sports games. Here’s how to watch: Date: Saturday, June 9th Starting time: San Francisco: 11AM / New York: 2PM / London: 7PM / Berlin: 8PM / Moscow: 9PM / Beijing: 2AM (June 10th) / Tokyo: 3AM (June 10th) / Sydney: 4AM (June 10th). Keynote live stream: Watch on YouTube. EA’s Facebook and Twitter are also worth keeping an eye on for quick news updates.<doc-sep>
EA had already announced its biggest titles, like Battlefield V, before its E3 keynote. But it showed up with a number of smaller announcements, including a new indie game that’s launching today, as well as some gameplay footage for the highly anticipated BioWare game Anthem. And the show was shot through with promises that EA isn’t going to repeat last year’s Battlefront II loot crate debacle. It was a low-key way to start a week of big reveals, but not a disappointing one. Here’s the most exciting stuff from the show. After being announced last year, Mass Effect studio BioWare’s new game Anthem was due for a bigger reveal in 2018. It’s a shared-world role-playing game set in a hostile future, where players don powered armor suits known as “javelins” to play cooperative missions. EA didn’t disappoint with its reveal: it offered a release date, some more details, and a few minutes of gameplay. The footage so far makes it look like a combination of mech warfare, Destiny-style massively multiplayer gameplay, and the epic science fiction that BioWare is known for. Anthem will be released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 22nd, 2019. This isn’t a big surprise, since it feels like every game is getting a competitive multiplayer mode inspired by the massively popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. But now we know that Battlefield V will let you fight to be the last player standing in a World War II battlefield. You know, just like in real life. In any case, we got a new trailer with a little bit of multiplayer gameplay and some detail about the game’s single-player “War Stories.” The first Unravel stole our hearts with its adorable yarn protagonist Yarny, although it sometimes frustrated us with its challenging puzzle platformer gameplay. Now, it’s getting a sequel called Unravel 2, which is supposed to be “friendlier,” “more challenging,” and “more playful” than its predecessor. Among other changes, Unravel 2 will feature two Yarny characters, which means that either one player can control both, or two people can play cooperatively. Unravel 2 is not only being announced today, it’s being released immediately on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. EA picked up indie game Sea of Solitude some time ago, and it’s got a new trailer out at E3. One of the game’s core themes is that “when humans get too lonely, they turn into monsters” — and in this case, that’s literally the plight of protagonist Kay, who must explore a nearly deserted city finding others like herself. Sea of Solitude is shaping up to be a haunting little game when it comes out in early 2019 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Titanfall developer Respawn hinted at a new Star Wars game before the show, and now we know it’s called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. We don’t know much more than that, unfortunately. The single-player story game is slated for release during the holiday season in 2019; it’s set after Revenge of the Sith, when the Jedi are being hunted; and it’s got a dark and gritty feel. Oh, and you can use a lightsaber. Meanwhile, Battlefront II is getting expanded with material from the Clone Wars, including playable versions of Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, General Grievous, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. We don’t know when that’s coming out, but there’s a Solo-themed expansion arriving on June 12th, featuring new environments on Kessel and a new starfighter mode, among other things.