[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o E3 is finally here once again, but it seems something’s amiss. EA must not have been happy with Bethesda getting the drop on them a day before the big pressers. They’ve decided to shoot for the day before that. It’s kinda silly, but yes, we did just get the EA E3 2017 Press Conference.

It should come as no big surprise that they talked about their yearly iterations and Battlefront II. In fact, we won’t likely be going into detail with the EA E3 2017 Press Conference. We will, however, give you a recap of the event so you can go check it out if you missed anything interesting.

EA Sports

So, naturally, EA kicked off their conference with sports. They were a bit more conservative, this time, though. Instead of talking about sports non-stop for almost an hour, they settled for presenting three games separated by other announcements.

Anyways, they chose to kick things off with a trailer for Madden ’18: Long Shot. Right off the bat, this trailer shows us EA’s direction for the rest of the conference, too. It’s shot almost like a movie. However, rather than showing without telling, EA almost seemed to avoid gameplay discussion of any sort, at first.

After taking some time to talk about Battlefield, EA returned to sports by explaining that they wanted to find more e-sports stars. They’ll be putting a focus on competitive FIFA Interactive, it seems. They’ll be holding a major tournament where anyone could potentially get noticed.

We did see more of FIFA in a trailer about what may be the campaign mode, but the gameplay was mostly avoided here, too. It’s probably a fair bet that the gameplay hasn’t changed too much since last year, though.

Towards the end, we got some heavily scripted gameplay for NBA Live ’18. As per usual, they talked a lot about the game and its story campaign but didn’t spend much time on the actual gameplay. There was again, a nice trailer to show us where you create a character and go on tour. They didn’t have much else to talk about, though.

DICE Titles

The first game EA gave any serious attention to today wasn’t Madden, though. It was Battlefield 1, which is getting an expansion titled “In the Name of the Tsar.” This expansion will explore the Eastern front of WWI. It opens up the Russian Cavalry and the women’s brigade of death for play, as well. The expansion will also add eight more maps to the game. EA chose to leave any further details for Gamescom in August.

Just as they started it, DICE also ended the EA E3 2017 Press Conference. They were teasing us with Battlefront II from the start of the show, but took the last half-hour or so to show everything off. They seemed to want to be clear that they took all the feedback into considerations. There’s plenty of gameplay to look into, so on this, we’d rather show than tell. If you watch anything from the conference, you should watch this.

Other EA Games

EA provided another break in their sports talks with Need For Speed: Payback. This was the first strong gameplay we got to see today. EA showed a campaign mission where the team tracks down and steals back a stolen car. The mission itself seemed highly scripted, however. It looked like a lot of fun, but it’s hard to judge on this alone. We’ll want to keep an eye out for this one, this week. This was probably a highlight of the conference, next to Battlefront II.

After that, EA began talking about an indie developed title called A Way Out. The developer was known for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. This prison escape simulator takes the ideas of its predecessor to a logical next step. A Way Out allows two players to play split-screen as if they were each playing a single-player game. Cutscenes for one player won’t affect the other player’s gameplay. This one will also be very interesting.

Before going back to sports, EA teased one more game for us. Anthem didn’t come with any real details, but as it’s made by Bioware, we may already know what to expect. EA said we’d see more at the Xbox conference, tomorrow.

Conclusion

EA needed to try hard to win the crowd, this year. It seems they had a good show but didn’t cover most of the games nearly enough. They showed off eight games:

• Madden NFL ’18: Long Shot
• Battlefield 1: In the Name of the Tsar
• FIFA ’18
• Need For Speed: Payback
• A Way Out
• Anthem
• NBA Live ’18: The One
• Star Wars Battlefront II

They spent plenty of time talking about the Battlefield expansion and A Way Out’s new take on multiplayer. They also showed gameplay for Need For Speed and Battlefront. Unfortunately, the rest of the games got a trailer and got rushed out the door immediately afterward. Overall, this amount of content is underwhelming, but fans of shooters or Star Wars will have something to talk about for sure.

(You can watch the entire conference below, in case you want to see it.)