The second big conference of the day is EA, and they waste no time, getting right into the action with...
- Star Wars: Battlefront shows off some "early in-game footage" inspired by the developers' actual visits to locations where the movies were shot. Very brief little snippet as a teaser.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition looks like it has some impressively large, open environments, leaving a good first impression that was immediately soured when the presenter said "all the feels" out loud like that's something someone should do. Combat looks fairly fun.
- A new Mass Effect was heavily rumored and shows off some "conceptual prototypes" of environments. It looks quite good. "We're building worlds and journeys for the next generation." Fairly content-light, buzzword-heavy preview, but pretty.
- Someone in the audience was SUPER EXCITED about The Sims 4. Looks like emotional states are important to keep track of, as it usually seems to be, especially when that crazy Gladys comes to your party. Apparently these Sims are going to be smarter than what has come before, but yeah, this looks like more Sims.
- EA Sports UFC features...Bruce Lee, which is kinda neat.
- NHL 15 has changed "almost everything."
- A new game from Criterion. Moving on from cars to...helicopters? Plus ATVs, wingsuits, boats, jetskis, planes, etc. Exclusively a first-person experience while driving. Gameplay is very, very early, barely textured, even. No title for the game as far as I could see.
- "Extreme Fantasy Courses" are coming to the next PGA Tour game, which looks entertainingly crazy. Tee off in what looks like a golf course from a Battlefield game.
- The new Madden features the game of football.
- EA wants a slice of that MOBA pie with Dawngate. "Flexible metagame." "The game will change every time you play." I would certainly hope so. "A massive, epic, story arc."
- Our stream went out while they showed Mirror's Edge 2, unfortunately! I am assuming that you run a lot. Got some footage of the end of it and it looks fairly early.
- Fifa 15 also features the game of football. Pretty sure they've used the word "emotion" at least a hundred times so far during this conference.
- Battlefield: Hardline has been the worst-kept secret of this E3. Looks a fair amount like a grittier GTA heist mission. Cops vs. criminals, bank robberies, and so forth. Looks like it could be a lot of fun, although it seems likely that the demo they're showing here was probably scripted fairly heavily for the purposes of this stream. Some impressive action with helicopters, miniguns, ziplines, and collapsing construction cranes - not sure how that'll work mechanically. It looks like beta signups start...today, on PC and PS4 if you have a copy of Battlefield 4. 1080p, 60fps on PS4. Game releases on October 21st.
Not a lot of huge surprises here, and a fairly short conference to boot. Doubtless that they would've preferred to keep Hardline secret until now, but it does look intriguing.