Electronic Arts wrapped up its EA Play presentation at E3 2019 with a showcase of what’s next for The Sims 4. The stream announced a new expansion, Island Living, that releases this summer, as well as a handful of new cosmetic and other packs coming throughout the summer and into the fall. You can see a trailer for the expansion above or watch the entire Sims 4 portion of the presentation below.
The big announcement was Island Living, which launches on June 21 to PC and then to PS4 and Xbox One on July 16. The expansion focuses on the island of Sulani, where you can relax on the beach, help clean up the ocean, play with dolphins, become a lifeguard, build sandcastles, and even build their own mer-person to swim around the island.
The presentation also announced a partnership with the It Gets Better Project to release a series of LGBTQ+ themed cosmetics and in-game items. The items range from It Gets Better and Pride clothing to a gender-neutral bathroom door. The items will roll out in The Sims 4 on PC, as well as FreePlay and Mobile first on June 18, and then expand to consoles in July.
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Also new is the Moschino Stuff Pack, which will include items from the real-life capsule collection, as well as the ability to get a job as a fashion photographer. Finally, a Sims 4 Realm of Magic pack is coming later this year, with more details to come on that in the future.
“With Island Living, the development team wanted to give players the chance to escape with their Sims to a peaceful, unique paradise and truly connect with nature,” said senior producer Mike Duke, in an announcement. “This expansion will enable fans and their Sims to find their bliss, whether it is relaxing under a palm tree on the beach, befriending a mermaid along the coral reefs, or protecting the Sulani environment and ensuring that the island becomes more beautiful than ever.”
New features coming to the Madden NFL franchise were shown off during the EA Play conference for E3 2019. With Madden NFL 20, you’ll have a new career campaign called that takes over for Longshot mode. Additionally, there will be some tweaks to gameplay that will make superstar players standout even more, and some new challenge scenarios to unlock new stuff and improve stats. EA is also expanding the accessibility options to make the game playable by a wider group of people.
The brand new career campaign is called Face of the Franchise. You’ll create a college player who begins as a star quarterback for the Texas Longhorns and compete in the college football playoffs–this will lead to an NFL Draft sequence. There’s also the Scenario Engine where you can participate in different challenges, and compete in the Pro Bowl as well.
Along with Ultimate Missions, you’ll take part in dynamic challenges and quests to unlock stuff and improve player stats. Additionally, Madden 20 will feature evolving playbooks that updates as teams incorporate new plays in real life. RPOs, or run-pass option plays, are coming to the game as well.
Arguably, the biggest change is in the Superstar X-Factor feature. This acts as a special hero-like perk for star players. For example, running back Alvin Kamara has “Satellite” which makes him even more effective as a receiver out of the backfield with improved run-after-catch ability. JuJu Smith Schuster has the “Double Me” X-Factor which demands additional attention from the defense.
These are always on/available–designed to extend specific specialties of big-name players. Cover star Pat Mahomes has “Bazooka,” which is exclusive to him.
Madden NFL 20 will have a closed beta taking place June 14-16.
Separately from all this, EA detailed new accessibility options that will be available in Madden 20. Many of the features from previous years carry over here, but among the new ones are new text-to-speech and speech-to-text options. EA has greatly expanded things like how menu narration works for something like the depth chart to make it more usable.
During EA Play 2019, EA announced The Sims 4’s newest expansion: Island Living.
The Sims 4: Island Living will become available on June 21 on PC and Mac, and July 16 on consoles.
The Island Living reveal trailer showed off a dirty beach being cleaned up, a nighttime beach party, a woman turning into a mermaid, and more. It also introduces water play, allowing Sims to walk into the open water, ride on jet skis, float and even swim with the dolphins. The island also includes an active volcano – Sims who are feeling risky can live nearby and will likely encounter eruptions.
If your Sims want to take care of the island, they can become a conservationist to help keep the beaches clean and wildlife safe. Sims can attend nighttime parties, make special native drinks and interact with friendly islanders. Spirits who care about the island interact with Sims, and will be nice to them if you’re good to the island, and bad if you’re abusing it.
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The year’s premier football video game has finally been announced. Madden NFL 20 is set to launch on August 2 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The cover star is Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs. Based on what’s been announced so far, it seems like a fairly typical Madden game. One difference is that Longshot is being replaced with a new career mode called Face of the Franchise: QB1, which lets you create a college player whose career you’ll guide on the way to NFL stardom.
EA surprised Anthem fans by not giving the game an official spot on its EA Play presentation, but it did squeeze some time for the game between its FIFA and Madden NFL spots. Lead producer Ben Irving appeared for a short interview and recognized the game’s weak spots while committing to continuing to work on it.
Irving said that right now the team is working with influencers and getting feedback from players about recent events and the Cataclysm. The idea right now is to gather impressions from the test server and use that to shape content going forward.
“Anthem does have a future. A very bright future, we hope,” Irving said. “We’ve learned a lot these last few months, we really want to make the game better, we believe Anthem can be a really amazing game. We know we have some work to do, we just want to work with the community and build it together and make it the game that everyone wants it to be.”