After the failure of Anthem, its hard to narrow down what to really expect from EA. So far the only home run hit for EA has been Apex Legends. It launched with no fanfare and shortly before Anthem was due out. Anthem struck out so much, EA has said they are going to change their development cycle. This is something that needs to be done as they have two different types of releases based on the region. In Asia, they go with more of a soft launch, but when it comes to the West, they prefer the advertising hype train to build things up and then release the game. As Anthem has show, this is a bad idea. After two betas that had issues, Anthem should have been postponed to get BioWare the time they needed. However, after several articles about the development of Anthem, it was reported that part of the BioWare team was allocated to FIFA. No team, regardless of how good they are, can put out a great product when they are down personnel.
So with that said, what can we expect out of EA at E3 this year? Well for starters they play do their EA Play like they have the last couple of years. This also means they will have no booth on the show floor. Chances are they will have news regarding Apex Legends as it continues to take on Fortnite. We also know Madden 2020 and Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order have already been announced. I would imagine we see something more substantial for Jedi Fallen Order than the teaser trailer we got back in April. We also know that BioWare teased a new Dragon Age during the Game Awards earlier this year. Outside of that, EA really needs to bring something new to the show as they are beginning to fall behind in the non-sports title, 3rd party developer space. EA has not been exciting for the last couple of years as game after game doesn’t make the cut. EA has a habit of closing studios that don’t produce high selling games. I hope for BioWare’s sake they can overcome and right the ship that is Anthem, as well as can get Dragon Age back on track with the new installment. Overall, I anticipate EA’s presence outside of Jedi Fall Order to be lackluster. Chances are the conversation on the floor will more be EA didn’t do than what it actually showed.
