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One of the first things I hear on EA's pre-show is their pride in having not just games, but trivia and a ball pit. ... Okay. Sure.

I glance back up at the pre-show over my breakfast (yeah, at 1:30 PM don't you judge me) and it's a couple guys playing Madden Mobile on big-ass artist tablets. The final score... I may be misreading, but it looks like 850/125 which does not seem like a "football" score?

Oh who cares.

I put stuff away, come back, and they're talking to a brand manager. Wow this is why I don't watch the pre-shows, I remember now.

"It's a life simulation game, so it simulates ... life." -- Sims 4: Seasons developer.

I still kind of wonder if Simlish is an actual conlang or what. They've rewritten songs in it, they're playing "Steal My Sunshine" in simlish, a song doubtless older than most of the people watching this stream.

EA starts off with a big social media shoutout to make a big deal of how many people are streaming and commenting on their stuff, making me instantly feel self-conscious as fuck.

Battlefield Something, now with the INCREDIBLY UNIQUE setting of WW2. Don't care much. I -do- care about the building destruction system because I love destroying things with physics, but I ain't playing Fieldbattles.

"Moments of Human Hair-oism" the presenter accents, as they show off someone with a lovingly rendered head of hair. That haircut is the highlight of E3 so far for me.

"No lootboxes" gets the biggest yellcheer of the entire presentation. They follow it instantly with "ROYALE" and half the crowd goes "oooh" and half go "NOOOO".

anyway it's fuckin' battlefield. woosh vwoosh bang oh no

Battlefield thing ends with a threat that we'll be seeing it on the Microsoft presentation tomorrow too. Fucking crossovers, man.

FIFA. Men have never kicked balls so dramatically.

A slow zoom on a trophy for europeens. I try really hard not to laugh myself sick because I am ages six and up.

"FIFA 18 is a free trial right now." *dead silence* "Yeah! You can download and play the entire game for FREE." *reluctant claps?*

A CEO comes out and makes CEO noises. STREAMING DISRUPTION TECH DEMO CLOUD DEVICES CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME SUBSCRIPTIOOOOOON

"YOU'RE ALL SUPER EXCITED RIGHT YEAAH" *dude behind presenter gives befuddled "WTF" grin at camera*

Vague teasing at Star Wars: Maybe Single Player next year. Right now more Battlefieldfrontfriedfucking whatever.

Oh the little yarn dude is back. Remember the yarny guy? Very emotional dude a few E3s ago? Unravel. There's an Unravel 2 now. I feel like I really should've played the first, it gave me Ori feelings. This is the first thing I'm actually kind of interested in.

"It's all made to be played with two characters." oh. "You can play it alone, or with a friend, but there will always be two characters." Oh okay.

"We wanted to have more thrill and danger and y'know, wow moments because it's co-op." Ah, sequel escalation.

So Unravel 2 is about rebound relationships. That's interesting but a little sad. Still, it looks good. ...also it's out right now. Well, okay. I STILL HAVEN'T PLAYED THE FIRST ONE so whatever.

"A personal and powerful" game story, Sea of Solitude. The developer is visibly so nervous to be on stage she looks like she's about to pass out. I have faith in her instantly. Ganbatte, ma'am.

"When humans get too lonely, they turn into monsters." Yeah this game is Indie Platformer As Hell but looks artsy and cool. It is Boats and Goths and Slow Motion.

And we go straight from the Emotional House of Sadness to more sportsbroing and my engagement clonks out with a physical CLICK sensation. Power off.

"I'm a professional shoutcaster and we're going to play a mobile game live on stage!" holy fucking hell who summoned this demon and can you perform the counterritual?

Why are we playing a mobile phone RTS— WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS COMMAND AND CONQUER

I know at least six people who are going to be furious about this. I think it may be the lowest point I've seen EA reach during an E3. TEN MINUTES on a mobile phone Command and Conquer match.

CEO noises are back. BLESSED ENTERTAINMENT TEAMS STRIVE EXPERIENCES GAMES PLAYERS DEVICES CHOICE PLAYERS GAMES INVESTMENT

He actually looks into the camera and says "We want to be better." I mean, you had it, and then TEN MINUTES OF COMMAND AND CONQUER MOBILE.

Takes a brave stand that bullying is bad and inclusion is good. I guess it's something.

Anthem CONTINUES to be Destiny with Jetpacks. A bunch of Bioware people come on stage to chat about it.

"Not an MMO, not a multiplayer game with story on the side, a game where every time you play it's different." -- Their goal. Worth a try, but I mean you described Diablo there.

Multiplayer shared world outside bases, single player inside bases. So it's Guild Wars.

"So we want to be able to create new story for years to come." "Well, I'm not gonna complain about more story, and I doubt anybody out there is gonna complain either?!" *pause for applause, dead silence* ... *continue*

"Tell me about what it's like to worldbuild."
"Like the Anthem world building?"
"no just go off on worldbuilding as a concept for like eight minutes, we need to pad some time"

"Tell us about the main character!"
"Well, you're a freelancer with the ability to pilot mecha suits." BOY THEY'RE REALLY GOING HARD ON THAT STORY.

The four classes of mech suit are Big Armor With Large Weapons, Zippy Light Armored Suit, Generic Soldier and Wizard.

Pay cosmetics, no lootboxes.

"We want to make sure playing with other people feels like a choice. It'll be harder to play alone. I hope everyone gives co-op a try."

They show some gameplay. I'm sorry, this is mainstream gaming as hell but it also is Extremely My Shit because mechasuits and vwoomy future crap and grimy moss-covered ruins of technology which means I'm going to end up buying and playing Bioware's Destiny Knockoff.

Release Date: Feb 22, 2019. I guess I should look into a PC upgrade by then.

"KEEP YOUR STREAMS GOING because in just a few minutes the FIFA tournament will" *tab closed*

SO!

Hopes: Anthem yes. Dragon Age 4, no. Nox? No. Ditching lootboxes? SURPRISINGLY YES. Nothing I saw except maybe the sport games had lootboxen.

Expectations: sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports but I did get EUROPEEN and some eSports. I would have sent back the eSports.

Hype level: Still a 4/10 because Anthem is still far off, but I'm reminded that yarn game exists and I'm still very excited about that German lady's panic attack. I mean, Goth Boats.

Thank you for tolerating this bullshit, see you tomorrow.