E3 2016 NewsMonday, 13th June 2016 by Matthew

EA recap: It’s in the Football. Apparently…

So, the first of many E3 streams is out of the way, and we’ve already been “entertained” by the appearance of some football manager or other, a tantalising taste of Mass Effect: Andromeda and a rather less fulfilling “talk” about the future of Star Wars in video gaming.

EA managed to parade the stage last night with the same amount of gusto and general lack of interest they normally do, and if their line-up hadn’t actually been generally interesting, I may have been very bored.

I’m gonna get the boring out of the way now. There is a new football game. It had a really bad actor in it. I will never ever think about it again once I’ve finished this recap.

You can also apply the same set of sentences to the American football game that was announced, that I don’t care enough to even name.

I’ll also mention the Star Wars franchise a little bit before I get onto the two main bits of bread really holding this conference’s weak and pallid salad together. We got a surprisingly long video with some “behind the scenes” footage of three new Star Wars ventures, and a grand total of — wait for it — eight seconds of footage! And no actual information of what was being made other than “a new Battlefront” and “an action-adventure game”. So I suppose we’ll just wait for some actual news then…

Most excitingly for the average gamer, EA have announced EA Originals, which aims to be a platform for indie developers to have a major publisher behind them. In business and gaming terms, it’s a major leap forward for the less-than-public-friendly company, and should lead us to see some very interesting and innovative games coming out, which may well be a first for EA. It’s just a shame that they launched their new platform with Fe, a 3D platformer which seems to have spent a little too much time with purple filters.

And, of course, the most exciting bit: our first glimpse at Mass Effect: Andromeda. We finally got to see the game in some form of action, from the new ship (which totally doesn’t look anything like the Normandy except in every single way) and some of the new characters that will presumably have a big impact on our space-faring adventures. It’s nice to see familiar races return, such as the much beloved Korgan and my personal favourite, the Asari. I also like the idea behind this new generation of Mass Effect: set in an different galaxy, it directly makes humans the aliens. And for a series this story-focused and happy to Challenge Everything™, I have no doubt it’s going to be a highly invigorating concept for the series.

Now for the sauce on what I’ve just realised I’ve labelled a salad sandwich. We also had a lengthy peek of Battlefield 1, and I will happily admit that it looks surprisingly good. I haven’t had a chance to see the hour-long gameplay livestream that followed the conference yet, but will report more when I have the chance to catch up with the World War I dude-shooter. Perhaps most peculiarly, the livestream teams were headed up by none other than Zac Efron and Jamie Foxx, despite EA stating that the livestreams would feature popular gamers. But hey-ho, I’m sure it’s not the only odd marketing stunt we’ll see at this year’s conference.

I’m looking at you, Ubisoft.

So, one down, many more to go! Next up on the recap scene, it’s Bethesda. Has the giant in RPG done anything at all good this year? Well, that’s very much debatable! See you soon!

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