Congrats to @citizencoffeecake on winning the first banner competition of E3 2016! It appears it's true. The moderators can't deny that classic EA logo. Niflhe's shopping cart banner came in 2nd place. And Tovan's animated #Skate4 banner featuring Jeff came in a close 3rd.

The Official E3 2016 Electronic Arts Press Conference Discussion

It's officially E3 time, duders! If you haven't experienced the insanity of E3 before, the show starts off with press conferences from each of the three console makers as well as a few of the largest publishers in the industry. These presentations are prime real estate for game announcements, debut trailers, live gameplay demonstrations, and meme origins.

In an attempt to keep the E3 shenanigans organized, the mods institute these official discussion threads for each conference so that everybody has a go-to place to discuss them before, during, and after the show.

Keep Discussions On Topic

This thread is exclusively for the general discussion of the Electronic Arts press conference. Only discussion of the EA show is allowed. Discussion involving the other company's conferences should be taken to their respective threads (once they're posted). And don't even think about going off-topic or derailing the thread with whether or not Abbie Heppe is hiding amongst cardboard cutouts somewhere in the background.

Specific Announcements

E3 is THE place for announcing never before seen games. It's exciting, fast-paced stuff and we're all enthusiastic to start talking about all the new toys. But, please keep in-depth discussions about specific games in their respective forums. For more information about how to help us keep things organized, go check out the E3 2016 and You! thread.

To help you get where you need to go to talk about anything announced or shown during this press conference, we have created a list of them right here:

• Battlefield 1
• Fe
• FIFA 17
• Madden NFL 17
• Mass Effect Andromeda
• Titanfall 2
• ???

Despite the insanity of E3, keep in mind that the general site rules still apply. So, don't be a jerk. If you need a refresher on how to conduct yourself like an upstanding citizen of the Giant Bomb community, check out the FAQ.

When/Where Can I Watch?

Sunday, June 12 @ 1 PM PDT - Club Nokia @ LA Live (Local Time)

• Giant Bomb Chat
• EA.com
• E3 Insider.com
• TwitchTV

Congrats @citizencoffeecake, Good job! Now Let's get this E3 EA Play started!

I'm ready. Love the banner!

What a wonderful non-animated banner.

Oh thanks mod team! Good work @tovan and @niflhe your banners were awesome too.

I am honestly surprised that shopping cart banner of mine came in second.

Don't worry, there are still plenty of opportunities for glorious animated gif banners to win!

also

#S

1 hour until the Giant Bomb stream (i.e. 90 minutes to the EA press conference) - it's getting exciting (but will all the announcements have been leaked by then anyway)!

also

#K

Oh I totally forgot about Mass Effect :O

Where's the stream?

Edit: Now there's a timer saying 28 minutes. Was the conference delayed an hour? The schedule said 2:30 PM eastern time. It's 3:00 now.

When are we calling for Lock Down...baby?

will this be streamed on youtube like last year

Maybe a DST or timezone issue? It was always on the correct time for me.

Congratulations @citizencoffeecake

also

#A

What's the latest on the EA stream?

Maybe, I think I've seen it happen once or twice before.

Why, Jeff?

Love the whole orangey visual style of EA's...er...thing show.

Aside from Titanfall 2, there was like nothing in that press conference for me. Mass Effect and all that Star Wars stuff was cool, but when they say "here's all this cool stuff that's coming, but we don't know when it's coming," it kinda dampens the effect.

That said, again, Titanfall 2 looks really really reeeeeally good.

And immediately after the conference, stay tuned for an hour of Battlefield 1 gameplay a never ending cavalcade of celebrities and a host asking them all stupid questions, as if anyone could be competitive or employ strategy in a game that no one has ever played yet. Ugh.

But yeah, Titanfall 2 looks like an absolute day one purchase.

Bummer they showed so little ME. BF 1 and Titanfall 2 both look great though.

That Battlefield 1 Stream included:

The Germans: Roosterteeth, Gavin Free, Wiz Khalifa, SnoopDogg, TheGame, TerryCrews

The English: ZacEffron, Jamie Foxx, SeaNanners, MarshawnLynch

I'm sorry to say but Terry Crews came in last place. 0 Kill,s 8 Deaths, Total Score of 195.

While the fast paced mobility and action of Titanfall looked neat, there's still so much Call of Duty DNA in those games that I have a hard time telling them apart beyond the superficial so my lacking urge to play more Call of Duty sort of rubs off on Titanfall. Granted, I never played the original Titanfall so it may be a lot more different than the visuals make it out to be. A story mode for it might be interesting though, even it it has an Iron Giant-esque vibe to it. I wish there was more substantial information on Mass Effect, at this point I'm feeling like that game might as well be some form of wishful thinking than actual proper game. The franchise might be one of my all time favorite so I hope they don't turn it into something horrible. Curious how all those Star Wars games will turn out, even if maybe one or two will actually be of interest. I'm also glad to see more Swedish devs getting their artsy games out there.

For me though Battlefield 1 might be the highlight of the show, it just looks like a blast. And I have grown increasingly tired of modern settings and the near future ones are not future enough in some aspects. So it feels strangely novel to play a shooter with an older setting.

Not sure why I keep getting my hopes up for a EA press conference. They hit all the bullet points without making me excited to play any of these games other than Titanfall 2. EA Orginals sounds like a great way to get small developers some support to make a game. As for Fe it seemed like a nice looking exploration game staring a wolf.

Titanfall 2 looks great, but I think it would probably be a little hard on my eyes to try and track all that at once. Really look forward to seeing some footage of people playing it though. Fe looks neat too, but I'd like to see more actual gameplay.

Jamie Foxx needs to fire his agent.

I had my hopes up way too high for the Visceral game, it's a shame they didn't show anything of value. Also, really disappointed about what they showed for ME. Real boring press conference.

There wasn't a whole lot at EA for me...everything they glossed over mega quick was way more interesting than the stuff they spent time on. Biggest headline from today is the timing...Titanfall and Battlefield a week apart? Seriously stepping on each other's toes there. Or are EA so adamant to have a competitor to Call of Duty that they're hedging bets in case one of those games doesn't hit their target date?
Quick plug: We got some discussion of that and first reactions to all the EA stuff on the Sushicast, which is up now in all the normal podcasty places.

Also, that Jose Mourinho stuff...the awkward celeb moments are coming strong and early this year...

Gotta go find Wiz Khalifa

Someone PLEASE put up a clip of Wiz Khalifa straight through to the end of Foxx/Efron.

Did I miss anything important? It sounds like I didn't. Still barely any Mass Effect, huh? Well, I guess that way I can keep the self-deception going that it won't be another Dragon Age Inquisition.

The tone-deafness of EA when they make showings at E3 continues to be a thing that makes me hate video games, but the fact that it is pretty much the first shot out of the gate for E3 is really making it sting this year.

Is there an archive coming? Couldnt watch live

That was one incredibly underwhelming e3 conference. I had completely irrational and illogical hopes they would announce another Dead Space game.. I mean after all they wasted all that money on making a new Mirrors Edge, why not dump it into a series that actually sold well throughout it's run? I knew they wouldn't, but still I held out the tiniest bit of hope.

Apart from that eh.. Titanfall 2 looked really good. Like surprisingly good considering I am not that into multiplayer shooters these days, but the frenetic action and the best looking grappling hook I've seen since Tribes Vengeance definitely had me looking forward to this release! Everything else they showed I either didn't care about, like all the sports titles, or they simply didn't show enough like Mass Effect or the Visceral Star Wars game. In fact their reluctance to show us anything relating to Andromeda after all this time has me wondering what phase is that project actually on? I was thinking they would announce a November release date during this e3 and yet it almost looks like they're still deep in the development trenches?

Best part of the show was that Fe game. Dumbest part of the show was them trying to sell Madden to the London audience.

And yet it somehow ended being the best part of the whole show. Thanks to Giant Bomb of course.

Here's a youtube archive. I think there's one on Twitch too.

Battlefield 1 looks like a Battlefield game and nothing like a WW1 game. Titanfall 2 looks really good but I think Overwatch may be my only online shooter this year. I played a lot of the Titanfall 1 beta though, I could be convinced. FIFA 17 looks like it might be OK to get back in to FIFA after a 3 year gap. Mass Effect didn't show much, seemed more explorey and less story - can't judge that really yet. Meh to everything else. Fe looked neat but also like something I have little interest in playing

how much of a mess is EA right now? Like there was no "and now a new Sims expansion pack which helps finance experimental games." I'm longing for the days when they did movie tie in games because that would make sense. INSTEAD we got was just an entire publisher tied to ONE engine that's it took them over 8 years to figure out. I mean YEAH, I'm hyped for Titanfall 2, but like I do not feel confident they will release more then 2 DLC map packs for that game until start development of Titanfall 3. The whole evil corperation of EA is still there and they are just smaller because they bet wrong over Xbox One and Frostbite engine.

The Bathesda event really did show just how to handle good will of their fans and promising crazy new stuff.

@humanity: I've yet to pick up Catalyst and even if it doesn't do great, I'm still glad that game got a sequel and still hope it does well, that first game borders pretty close to a generation favorite for me. That said, I'm with you. Even though Dead Space 3 did a lot to burn good will from me however and I think we've had this discussion before but the first part of the third game with the ship flotilla's was solid. The Carver segments if you played in co-op were great, and I actually really did enjoy that Awakening DLC they did despite it's length.

The Issac Clarke story could more or less be done but Dead Space as a whole is more of an open canvas and would love a new game. Space horror is some of my favorite stuff. With Visceral going big on Star Wars, I think our hopes for a fourth game are pretty slim sadly. Maybe they could contract an outside studio to make another one but they really don't seem to interested in the franchise. Weird how it went from this big thing (trans-media even!) to no longer even being a blip on EA's radar. We'll just have to continue our lonely vigil.

I don't have much to add to the thread other then the agreement that the conference was bunk. That celebrity stuff was terrible in amazing ways but it felt like a time capsule from 03 or 04 where game companies were pushing celebrities on their products in some weird showing of "legitimacy" or something. Titanfall 2 was just about the only thing that got me excited at all, but I really dug the first game.

I like me some Battlefield but I only have one friend who enjoys it and we don't get time to play as much together anymore so I end up not playing as much of the games as I'd like. What I saw of BF1 looked like Battlefield with older guns, I'm hoping more trench warfare and such things are more involved in other maps. Otherwise it looked a bit like a re-skin to me. Even then BF1 might not even enter my cross-hairs this year, I still want to pick up Overwatch and with Titanfall 2 I can easily see my multiplayer shooter dance card filled up with those two games.

Fe looks interesting but the whole EA Originals Program is making me think of the discontinued EA Partners program. If I remember right EA wouldn't put much marketing push behind those games and more or less send them out to die. Does anyone know how well Unravel did? Never got around to picking it up myself. I also want to know what happened to that Criterion racing game that was shown off in an early form in E3 2014. Is that thing still even being made?

@lost_remnant: Yah I don't mean to discredit Mirrors Edge in any way but the facts are that the first game didn't sell very well and as much as I'm happy that fans got more of what they (I hope) wanted, I don't really understand why EA would choose to continue that franchise. Dead Space 3 as you said burned a lot of good will with fans after the excellent sequel that quite literally improved upon every facet of the already wonderful original. In some ways it went a little too far, but I was able to overlook the tiny flaws for the overall significantly improved experience. Those games also sold fairly well if memory serves me right. DS3 didn't bring in quite the numbers they were expecting but I don't think it was a financial disaster. That franchise built a great world that can continue to be explored in one way or another. The "every day man" struggling against overwhelming odds with improvised weaponry originating from a futuristic Black and Decker tool belt was such a cool idea. The art direction also went a long way but those games also played well. They were Resident Evil done right. Good puzzles, good combat, good exploration, amazing atmosphere. Dead Space showed us that survival horror doesn't have to be a pain to play in order to be survival horror.

Then again maybe thats just me talking in a bubble because I'm a huge fan. In fact Dead Space is my favorite new IP of the last generation. Maybe the numbers weren't really that good? They must have been better than Mirrors Edge in any case. I too am curious why they decided to so completely shutter the doors on that franchise. I was really, really hoping for a "one more thing" or even a tease where the signature helmet would light up in the shadows and a 4 would appear or something. So far not a whole lot of "cool" reveals this E3. Ubisoft is usually pretty good with that stuff so heres hoping. RIP Dead Space.

@dixavd: I dunno, I really liked the flip side of the GB guys not getting any of the FIFA stuff up to and including them wondering who the hell Mourinho was and why he looked like a Bond bad guy.

@humanity I secretly hoped for another Dead Space and agree with the points you make. I knew it wouldn't happen though, what with them working on a Star Wars title - which now we know isn't coming until 2018 means that Dead Space is totally gone.

The press conference was very dull though. It reminded me of two years ago. Here's a bunch of shots of our development studios and our artists with concept images because we don't actually have anything to show other than our annual installment games of Madden/FIFA, a shoot the men game (two this year), an indie. The previous Mass Effect trailer did more for me than this one and I've a real bad feeling that Mass Effect isn't going to hit until after E3 2017 now.

@jesus_phish:Ha, I'm sure that was great. Good thing they didn't drag on the part with Mourinho too long (like they did with Pele), but I'm sure they were still perplexed. I watch the press conferences with a game I care about (in this case, Mass Effect Andromeda) live without commentary first and then watch Giant Bomb's take afterwards.

I'm have to be a bit more cynical about EA Originals. None of their first party games are original titles so it feels like they are just going to outsource original games to indie devs while they continue to develop existing IP in their own studios. I totally get it, they want the guaranteed successes (even Skate 4 is too risky for EA at the moment). But what I want from E3 is to see something new, EA didn't deliver that (nor did Bethesda for that matter). Shifting the focus for innovation to indies is just saving face, I really don't believe EA will care that much about the Originals program, it is just box ticking.

I was glad Austin was there (and Alex) to speak a little truth to the fact that just because most of the people on enthusiast sites are unenthusiastic about sports games (including the employees of those sites) does not mean the sports game segment is a loss leader for EA's press conference. I always expect it to be a little vacuous but I'm also interested to see what their big pitch is each year and their sizzle reels for those games are always fun to watch.

EA had a lot of stuff but also had nothing at the same time. They were just as guilty this year as any when it came to showing over the shoulder shots of artists doing work to a game that is 3 years away. The three big games that I saw, personally, that I like were Titanfall 2, FIFA 17, and Battlefield 1.

I rarely watch anime but got into a Gundam hole for a few weeks regardless and couldn't stop thinking about how Titanfall is basically Gundam. the Titans have more variety, which that game needed desperately. Also, Pilots have way more abilities now, which was also a must have for a sequel. Titanfall 1 came and went for me in about a month as soon as I had seen the limited loadouts and Titan abilites. It's good to see Respawn making seemingly large strides to what people want. Hopefully there is even more that we have yet to see. The campaign could be incredible, but it also could fall flat. It all depends on far Respawn want to go with the story and well they can craft that experience. I hope they give it the same attention that COD 4 had.

I know FIFA 17 isn't for everyone on this site, but the things they are doing to the game sound genuinely refreshing. I posted to the site about a week ago about the state of story in sports games and wished we could get a fuller experience from them. FIFA 17 is making strides towards that, but I also see where it could fall apart. I can only hope they saw the travesty that was Spike Lee's The Journey and they learned from it accordingly. I really hope we get to see the emotinoal side to this story to really get a sense of what a pro athlete might go through. Based on the trailer, it does seem like they/re going for the ups and downs of a career, which is great place to start. Here's hoping EA follows through. The game also needed AI work which is a welcome change. I always found that going up in difficulty in previous years meant that your players never got smarter or better, but seemed to regress in skill while your opponent AI was playing a total team game while your spinning plates just to hold level, much less score. The last two games have been solid so I hope that the upward trend continues.

Battlefield looked ok, I just hope they can justify the setting and period. That stream after the press conference did little to inspire confidence to that end. Dudes were running around with reckless abandon and quick scoping dudes and the like. It would've been better if they had slowed the game down by about 10% and made the condition of the terrain you're on seem to matter. WWI was characterized by slogging through trenches, not running around in a village. Running around through rubble and mud shouldn't be fast. The weapons they had looked appropriate, I just hope the automatics are balanced with the bolt action rifles in an appropriate way. For me, this game needs modes that revolve heavily around trench based conflict. Rush for BF3 and 4 were great modes that make sense for this kind of game, Dice need to expand on that. I think that scale needs to increase for this game as well. If we really want to have these clashes matter, there should be added AI bots added on to of and into the 64 v 64 multiplayer. that way you get a sense of scale and can have moments that more remenicent of the time period. Hopefully the single player is much more than we saw. If the multiplayer has the modes and the single player is improved upon from the lows of BF3 and 4, then Battlefield 1 may be a great game.