SAN FRANCISCO, June 5 — What else can we expect to see during EA’s June 9 live presentation, aside from action games Battlefield V and Anthem, and sports titles in its Fifa, NFL, NBA and NHL franchises?

October’s Battlefield V is releasing in between two of the year’s biggest titles.

Activision-published action game Call of Duty is, habitually, an annual bestseller, despite releasing after 80per cent of the year has already elapsed; this year’s edition, Black Ops 4, suggests a more experimental and multiplayer-only venture after the very well received WWII in 2017.

On the other side, there’s Red Dead Redemption 2, from the makers of Grand Theft Auto.

It’s a release with so much potential that even Call of Duty moved forward three weeks in order to avoid being in Red Dead Redemption’s shadow.

So as publishers compete to tie up players’ pre-order funds, EA’s Battlefield V presentation could prove crucial to its fortunes.

The game’s reveal trailer shows it tightrope walking between painstakingly realistic ballistics modelling and a joy in the chaos of unpredictable gameplay moments, plus its ambition of reaching as wide and welcoming an audience as possible.

Similarly, March 2019’s Anthem may look to take advantage of Destiny 2’s momentum and the apparent absence of Borderlands 3 to become EA’s big sci-fi action franchise after Mass Effect: Andromeda was so poorly received.

A teaser trailer was revealed on June 1 and invited further comparisons with the Destiny franchise.

The company has also telegraphed its intention to push its sports franchises. Those include Fifa Football, whose Fifa 18 has received a free update to coincide with the (June 14 — July 15) World Cup tournament, while Fifa 19, Madden NFL 19, NBA Live 19 and NHL Live 19 would be expected to launch in August and September.

Meanwhile, with The Sims 4 launching its Seasons expansion on June 22, it may be too soon to talk about The Sims 5 despite enthusiasm for a full sequel.

Mobile has been a strong suit for EA and it has smartphone versions of many of its biggest sports franchises, as well as The Sims — and it’s in mobile that we may see something of racing series Need for Speed, whose Need for Speed: No Limits recently rolled out a collaboration with musician Steve Aoki.

In addition, Titanfall studio Respawn has both a third Titanfall game in development as well as a Star Wars project, as does Canada’s EA Motive.

Electronic Arts (EA)
When: June 9, 11am PDT
International: 2pm EDT, 6pm UTC, 7pm UK, 8pm Central Europe and South Africa, 11.30pm India, then June 10 at 2am in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Beijing, China, 3am Japan and South Korea, and 4am Sydney, Australia.
Watch or follow live: EA.com, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. — AFP-Relaxnews