EA @ E3 2013: Mirror's Edge 2, Star Wars: Battlefront
EA's pre-E3 2013 conference delivered Mirror's Edge 2, Dragon Age 3, Star Wars: Battlefront, NFS: Rivals, Battlefield 4 multiplayer and much more. Get it all here.
Peter Moore kicked off the show and announced 11 games for PS4 and Xbox One. Wii U wasn't mentioned at all.
Plants Vz Zombies: Garden Warfare
We just saw it at Microsoft's conference, but Moore opened with what appeared to be another Battlefield 4 clip, but it was instead a new third-person 3D shooter called Plants Vs Zombies. It saw a bunch of zombies running around a garden shooting guns at a variety of plantlife.
It's powered by Frostbite 3 and has a four-player co-op survival mode. Pan-headed nut-job Dave is back to guide players across the world. It showed a player controlling a Peashooter plant, who can roam around and plant baby plants to help him fight waves of incoming zombies.
The player also laid down some Chomper Venus Flytraps, and you can even lay down Sunflowers, which are healing classes. Together all four players can combine their plants' skills to overcome the horde.
Zombie boss waves look pretty insane. The example shown saw a dancing troupe of disco zombies burst from the ground and raise hell across the map, all to some funky beats. Then, a Gargantaur Zombie appeared and started smashing up the place with a telegraph pole.
The team called in an Onion Strike to beat the beast and win the day, only to be trampled by an even bigger undead monster. It all looked rather comedic and insane. Popcap is bringing it to Microsoft's consoles this year. To close, the studio announced Peggle 2 for release in 2013.
Titanfall
Respawn Entertainment then showed off a dev diary for its Xbox One shooter Titanfall. The team stated that they wanted to redefine what mechs meant in a game by making them fast, and making both mech and on-foot combat balanced in the same arena. The game's maps were built with both troop types in mind, with verticality and space for big scale battles.
Despite being an online game, Titanfall has a narrative, which sounds similar to Bungie's Destiny. The game is out on Xbox One in Spring 2014. We've got two trailers from Microsoft's Titanfall reveal here.
Star Wars: Battlefront
DICE showed off an all-new Star Wars: Battlefront game. The clip showed a fleeting glimpse of Hoth, as ship debris lined the vast snow fields as laser blasts burned across the sky. No further details were revealed.
Need for Speed: Rivals
The latest Need for Speed game was announced, and it promises to redefine the series. The new 'All Drive' mechanic will deliver a new online experience that blends both single and multiplayer experience. across cop and racer play. It's all asynchronous and connected.
The example shown saw three people player in single player - one as a cop, one as a racer and another as a police chopper flying above the open world map. The racer pulled up to an event that started instantly when trigger with no loading. When the chopper came close to the race, it could be seen swooping overhead, and the same goes for the cop player, as the experiences of all three people blended together.
Need for Speed Movie
Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul took to the stage to present a peek at the flick, and said it would give viewers an insight into the speed and excitement behind the series. The clip showed the film being shot, along with a slew of insanely expensive-looking vehicles. The director said it would be authentic to car culture.
Dragon Age 3: Inquisition
BioWare's RPG follow-up will launch fall 2014, and will cast players as an adventurer sworn to lead an Inquisition across an open world. It will feature returning characters and new warriors. Fragile alliances are crumbling across the realm. A trailer showed a giant rift torn into the sky, as dragons poured through. Series mainstay Morrigan was shown asking if players would lead the world to safety or its bitter end.
EA Sports
NBA Live 14 will feature a new dribbling engine called bounceTek, as well as NBA updates as soon as they happen in the real sport, changing up elements of the game to reflect real life. EA then showed off a new trailer showing off some fluid animation and next-gen visuals at play.
Madden NFL 25 was up next - so called as it's a 25th anniversary edition - and EA called it the smoothest rendition of the series to date. True Step technology will allow for precise foot work and more control. Player Sense gives the game 50-times more control and awareness on the field than ever before, giving players more options when rushed.
War in the Trenches is a new Madden tool suite that makes for more aggressive encounters on the pitch. The game's cover star was unveiled as Adrian Peterson, and some gameplay footage followed.
Rapper Drake then took to the stage to big up FIFA 14 and tell us how much he loved it, then EA spooled off a list of new additions, including hundreds of skills, emotional gameplay and it's coming this fall on Xbox One and PS4.
UFC
EA then ushered a ton of hard-looking bastards to the stage to announce UFC. One of the fighters called the game amazing and bigged it up as a big release for fighting fans everywhere.
The MMAi engine lets players organically alter their strategies throughout a fight to react to what you do in the Octagon cage. It promises to emulate the instinctive strategies of the real sport. The game has full-body deformation that shows fighters getting utterly battered during fights. EA Sports confirmed the game is out in Spring 2014.
Battlefield 4
DICE was up next to talk some more about its marquee shooter. Patrick Bach said the game was no longer about the graphics, but about how the battlefield reacts to your presence and gunfire. 64-player multiplayer matches will return, as well as Commander Mode.
The game will play across 'multiple devices', and to demonstrate, the team played a multiplayer match on a new map called 'Sea of Shanghai' with 64 live players in the theatre. The footage followed one player and his five-player squad.
Their match started with players spawning onto the map inside choppers, blazing across the streets of Shanghai. HUD-wise it was near identical to Battlefield 3, but there was a lot more going on, with more dust, particles and insanity spewing all around players as they ventured through a skyscraper and back on to the streets.
Players then got into an attack boat and a pack of jet-skis as they fended off a low-flying chopper. The team then got into a lift and ascended a skyscraper, only to be set upon again by the chopper. Bach - as the Commander - then called in surface to air missile strike from his tablet to rain down on a squad of enemies on street level.
Bombarded to within an inch of its life, the skyscraper then collapse and spilled out over the street in a shower of destruction, kicking up dust and chaos as it fell. It backs up what DICE has been saying about dynamic cataclysms on multiplayer maps.
Mirror's Edge 2
DICE promised a surprise and it didn't disappoint with the reveal of Mirror's Edge 2. The game was shown running in typical first-person, free-running style. The clip showed more free-running from Faith, as well as the hero getting some of her trademark tattoos, suggesting that the game is a sequel. It's coming from DICE internally.