EA's conference room at Gamescom was absolutely enormous; a gesture no doubt designed to visually echo the size and financial influence this titan of a publisher has on the gaming industry. There's huge screens everywhere, flashing lights rolling about, TV screens and monitors line the stage - it looks more like a full on stadium concert rather than a gaming conference. Andrew Wilson, the EA CEO, bounds onstage, welcomes the crowds both in person and online, and the rock concert...I mean, conference gets underway.
Developer Bioware are first off the bench, and Dragon Age Inquisition is shown in a guided stage demo. The latest in the Dragon Age action/fantasy RPG (role playing game) series, Bioware say that this is the RPG that they've always wanted to make. It's also apparently the biggest and most ambitious game the studio has made yet - and that says a lot when you consider that this is the same developer that created the Mass Effect series. Lots of figures were thrown around; there's over a million words of dialogue, and to fully complete the game to 100% takes a whopping 150 hours. In other words, it must be pretty big then.
The demo showed a mission where the player character, the eponymous inquisitor of the title, is battling into a rain-drenched castle with a bunch of companion characters. You can have nine in total accompanying you at once, and what's more, you can freely switch between them in gameplay. These switches are smooth and instant, letting you quickly nip back and forth between the members of your party.
The game has a clever tactical camera system, which looks like it operates in a similar straightforward way to the control system in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. When using the tactical camera, time pauses, allowing you to issue commands to party members, giving you time to assess and strategically take down enemies. This is demonstrated onscreen when the party has to take down a mini boss of sorts, and it looks very useful. You can also switch back and forth between real time action and the tactical camera instantly, which will undoubtedly keep the combat feeling fast and snappy even when plotting out a considered tactical manoeuvre.
Following the on stage demo, a story trailer was shown, which featured plenty of swords, dragons, wizards, and all sorts of other ugly beasties that will undoubtedly put a smile on the face of fantasy RPG gamers and tick all the right boxes. Dragon Age Inquisition is due to launch on November 20th in Europe.
One shall stand, one shall fall...Titanfall that is, of course. Respawn Entertainment followed Bioware, and announced that the third and final multiplayer map pack DLC for the Titanfall would be called IMC Rising. In a similar fashion to the previous two Titanfall map packs, IMC Rising contains three new maps, although there were no further details on these maps or what they are called - we'll have to wait and see. IMC Rising is slated to release sometime this Autumn. Other game updates and modes were hinted to be hurtling down the DLC pipeline at an unannounced date as well.
A clip from a cinematic live action Titanfall short film was then shown. Called Free the Frontier, the film was made by Respawn in conjunction with Playfight, a visual FX studio, and it looked like an interesting breath of fresh air for the series, suggesting narrative elements that the game was somewhat lacking in its all multiplayer campaign.
NHL 15 skated onto the big screen next. The latest instalment of EA's hockey series, developed by EA Canada, is coming to both PS4 and Xbox One, boasting advanced physics on all twelve players and the hockey puck, minutely detailed hockey arenas, and dynamic emotive audiences - there are apparently over nine thousand different crowd models in the game, which all have their own personalities and actions. How much of them you'll see is going to be another matter, as you're probably going to be spending most of your time looking at the twelve players in the rink I presume. Most excitingly, a trailer was shown (apparently all captured using in-game footage) which briefly showed players engaging in some brutal fisticuffs. Now if only those fighting sections could have their own separate game. Oh well, until we get our hands on Mortal Ice Rink Combat Instinct, NHL 15 gets a demo on August 26th, and the full game releases on the 12th September in Europe.
Next up was The Sims 4, which took the EA stage to demonstrate a live in-game demo of various aspects of the upcoming release. The demo was hosted by the chirpy and charismatic duo of EA's Peter Moore and Rachael Franklin, as well as a team of developers playing the game on various screens behind them, which lent the demo a playful and daftly amusing charm. Starting at the beginning with the Create A Sim mode, the team walked the audience through the basics of making your first Sim. Here you can pick and customise your Sim's clothes, hair, face and even personality using the selectable aspiration trees. These determine what sort of personality your Sim has, and how they will interact with other Sims in the game. It was also announced that the Create A Sim demo was available to use online now at www.thesims.com. What's more is that the Sims that you make in the demo can be brought into the full version of the game and you can carry on with them without having to make new ones. Good stuff EA.
Build mode was shown next, which looks similar to the build mode seen in previous versions of the Sims (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), but with a couple of useful new features such as the ability to drag and drop rooms, push and pull walls, and even pick up the entire house and move it to a new location. Handy when faced with a pesky flash flood or your favourite natural disaster of choice, if only it was that easy in real life.
There's an all new gallery mode where you can upload and display your own creations to friends, and view other players masterpieces and download them instantly into your own game, which is another cool touch. One such creation of the EA team was 'The Hungry Games', which players will be able to download into their own games and play for themselves. Just don't ask me what the thing is though, as it looked incredibly bizarre; the map/level was essentially a giant maze in which three starving Sims were moaning and clutching their stomachs, before one of them theatrically died, causing the friendly neighbourhood Grim Reaper to turn up and collect the body. The Sim death caused the team to promptly move on, and although it was a bit confusing (not to mention amusing), it came off well as it was a live demo, and it gave the demonstration a relaxed unscripted vibe that a lot of these events don't have.
After the onscreen starvation, the team showed off some aspects of the new neighbourhoods in the game. Players will be able to take their Sims outside and and explore the local area, whether that's just going outside to do a bit of gardening (with the strange bizarre looking Venus-Cowtrap plants...again, I have no idea), going fishing or just visiting your neighbours' houses. The demo took us to one such house, the home of the delightfully named Pancake family, where the team tried to cheer up the morbidly depressed Bob Pancake. Thankfully, the in-game Peter Moore Sim had a specific optimistic personality conversation option that soon got Mr. Pancake smiling and dancing like a delightful loon. All in all, a genuinely entertaining presentation - The Sims 4 is due for release on the 2nd September.
The conference moved back into sports territory next, with FIFA World making a brief appearance to list some changes coming to the free to play online PC game. The main piece of news was that a new game engine is in the works, and will be rolling out in an update sometime before the end of the year, along with some enhanced controls and smarter AI. All players footballers and items will be saved when the new engine launches, so fret not, and special rewards were teased for current players when the switchover happens.
Speaking of FIFA, EA smoothly segued into some juicy details on this year's instalment of the popular football franchise, FIFA 15. After a solid few minutes of flinging around exciting PR verbs, we finally got some details as to what we can expect to see in this year's FIFA instalment. The fan requested Turkish Süper Lig is returning with all 18 teams, and all 20 stadiums from the Premier League will be there in-game and there's now goal detection systems in play. Most significantly, the goalkeepers have been improved from the sound of things; with major tweaks to their movement and AI. Players can also track the stats and information on their favourite real world teams using the Match Day Live system. On the multiplayer side of things, you can now also play friendly seasons against your friends. As mentioned in the Microsoft Conference, the FIFA Ultimate Team Legends is returning and will be exclusive (or should that be xclusive) for Xbox, and will feature 50 unique legendary players. FIFA 15 is out on the 23rd of September in Europe, and an upcoming demo will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC sometime ahead of launch - there's no date for that as of yet however.
Matt Bromberg, Group General Manager at EA, strolled onstage to give a brief update on what Star Wars: The Old republic players can look forward to in the near future. The popular free to play MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, for short), set in George Lucas' sci-fi universe, is set to give players early access to the Galactic Strongholds Digital Expansion next week (August 19th) in - essentially fully customisable home bases for you to design and display your hard-won items from your various intergalactic conquests. Guild Flagships are due to come to the game at an undisclosed date too; these are essentially giant multiplayer spacecraft that you and your guild mates can use to zip around the galaxy in and conquer planets and get up to all sorts of other escapades, no doubt. Exciting stuff.
Dawngate, a new MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) was announced, which is being made by Waystone Games, one of the newer studios that EA has acquired. It's "a team comprised of hardcore MOBA players, on a mission to challenge the fundamentals of the genre by building a brand new MOBA". The game promises to be "built on a foundation of player choice". The playable Alpha version of Dawngate is available to play now on the game's European servers, and players can also currently sign up for the Beta at www.dawngate.com.
EA sure do like their online fantasy games - hot on the heels of Dawngate, Jeff Hickman, Studio General Manager of Bioware Austin, took to the stage to announce another new IP, Shadow Realms. The game has been teased by Bioware over the last few weeks using a series of creepy and cryptic videos online; it's an action RPG set in a modern fantasy setting, where four players battle it out with a player controlled Shadow Lord - it sounds a lot like Evolve actually. The game was inspired by the classic pen and paper RPGs of old, such as Dungeons and Dragons, where a dungeon master would carefully control and create the adventures you'd go on. One player controls the Shadow Lord (an evil and nasty spirit basically) who can summon demons into the world, and has the ability to possess others and generally cause mayhem. Meanwhile the other four are tasked with taking down the Shadow Lord and co-operating to overcome all the horrible demons being flung at them.
The narrative was strongly emphasised; new narrative content will be delivered episodically, and will play out over time like an ongoing TV series. The story looks set to be gritty and dark, and will be continuously updated within an ever changing dynamic world. The game will be available on PC late next year, but is currently playable on the show floor at Gamescom. Players can sign up for a chance to get into the closed Alpha at www.shadowrealms.com, which is due to be available next month.
To finish, EA brought out one of its big guns; Battlefield: Hardline. Steve Papoutsis, Executive Producer of Hardline, came bounding on stage (in a Dead Space t-shirt no less...is that a clue for Dead Space 4 EA? Pretty please?) to run through an in-game demo of the singleplayer campaign. Describing it as "the ultimate cops and criminals fantasy", the singleplayer content is said to be influenced and structured by blockbuster TV shows, with a focus on characters, tense pacing and cliffhanger endings. Battlefield: Hardline's singleplayer is also apparently going to break up the traditional linear nature of singleplayer FPS (First Person Shooter) games, and offer a lot of replayability based around player choices.
The tense pacing certainly displays developer Visceral Games' knack for knowing how to build up tension to unbearable levels. The demo starts out with your cop protagonist and his buddy escaping from an abandoned missile silo after being captured by some angry redneck yokels, and there is a strong focus on stealth gameplay and non-lethal takedowns. The dark industrial areas of this section could almost be from a Dead Space game. They're very dark and moody in aesthetic, although unfortunately there are no freaky Necromorphs to be found here. Nevermind, criminals will have to do.
The stealth section quickly jolts into full on gun fights, and it's non-stop stuff. Once shooting out of the silo, we are shown the creatively named Police Scanner, which allows you to pick out enemies, items and high value targets amongst other things, allowing you to approach each area strategically. This looks useful, but it just looks a bit silly and anachronistically futuristic; it clashes with the modern gritty realistic tone the game is trying to go for.
One of the more interesting aspects of gameplay that was shown off was the ability to hold up criminals by flashing your cop badge, and then moving in to make an arrest once they've dropped their guns. You get significant rewards for making arrests rather than killing criminals which is a really good move; it encourages you to play like an actual police officer, trying to make non-lethal arrests rather than just mindlessly shooting your way through when possible. It's quite a tense moment when you get an enemy to freeze, as it looks like you have to keep your gun trained on the criminal as you move in to make the arrest, otherwise they might make a dash for their weapon. This looks even harder when trying to apprehend more than one criminal at once, as you have to swing your gun back and forth between each target to make sure they don't feel lucky...punks.
The demo ends in a high octane shootout, and then it's onto the multiplayer portion. Two new multiplayer modes were announced; Hotwire and Rescue. Hotwire is a vehicle based pursuit mode where cops go after criminals in high speed car chases, with cops and robbers blasting away at each other whilst leaning out of the doors and windows. This looks genuinely quite different and exciting, equal parts daft exuberance and fast-thinking tactics. Rescue is a Counter Strike style mode designed with the esports community in mind. It's five cops versus five criminals, where everybody has one life per round - Counter Strike again anyone?
That's a wrap for EA at Gamescom. A varied lineup I'm sure you'll agree, with a title for everyone... Well, almost everyone. I'm still waiting for a Dead Space 4... you hear me EA?
The Everybody Plays team is at Gamescom all this week for hands on impressions of many of the games on offer from all the conferences, so don't forget to check back for regular news posts, and follow us on Twitter at @everybody_plays for updates from the show floor.
