Electronic Arts shows how much Star Wars they can fit into their E3 2017 show

E3, now starting even earlier, kicked off with Electronic Arts’ EA Play press conference on Saturday. There was a lot of Star Wars. It’s EA, so of course there was the sports and bombast of various flavors, but droids, lightsabers, and Darths loomed large over the proceedings.

There was a taste of Madden 18‘s first-ever cinematic and playable story campaign, Longshot, which seems to take cues from the work already being done in other sports titles. We saw a glimpses of NBA Live 18‘s gameplay. EA Sports was keen to let everyone know that Cristiano Ronaldo supplied mo-cap for FIFA 18.

With the obligatory sports titles out of the way, EA demonstrated how much Need for Speed Payback could look like The Crew mashed together with The Fast and Furious movies sprinkled with a dash of Burnout spice. Battlefield 1 piped up to ask everyone not to forget about it. Josef Fares, the writer and director of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, presented a first look at his cooperative story game A Way Out. BioWare teased a snippet of Anthem, their new game. EA was so excited to let everyone know that Anthem was a “new IP” that you could almost see the disappointment of Mass Effect Andromeda peel away and float into space.

Finally, they got to the headliner of the show: Star Wars Battlefront II. With stormtroopers and fanfare EA kicked off a thirty-minute extravaganza of Lucasfilm videogaming. Their preview began with a mea culpa of sorts; by sheepishly acknowledging the criticism of Battlefront’s absent story campaign and map packs that split the community. All corrected this time around. An epic campaign story! All post-launch maps and modes for free! More charcater customization options! Remember that bit in the Star Wars prequel trilogy when there was a running gun battle on Queen Amidala’s home planet? Throw Han Solo, Yoda, Rey, and Boba Fett into it. Eschewing any sense of timeline coherency, EA and DICE have opted to let fans play with their toys like they did as kids. Why can’t Han Solo fight Separatist droids on Theed? This isn’t Star Trek! No one cares if it doesn’t make any sense!