Electronic Arts News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Things are about to get seriously chaotic in the newest season of Apex Legends. Starting May 7 Upheaval lives up to its name with plenty of new content and changes that’ll keep even the most seasoned Legends on their toes. Ready to find out what’s coming soon to the Apex Games? Just keep reading.

Happy May 3rd, Battlestar Galactica fans! Remember what John Dune said about living long and prospering? He said: Oh, look, objectively excellent dogfighter Star Wars: Squadrons is under two quid on Steam. As Edwin pointed out to me, that’s about the price of a third of latte, although he does pay London prices. Also, Edwin, are you going around trying to buy the dregs of people’s lattes? I cannot judge. Were it in short supply, I too would debase myself for caffeine in an instant.

Over a decade after the last installment, a new game is on its way to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. While there’s still no release date, developers have shared multiple updates on the game’s development. Recently, the team discussed rewards, customization, cosmetics, and brand partnerships.

The latest episode of Skate’s The Board Room has premiered, showing the reboot’s character customisation options.

Star Wars: The Old Republic's ongoing development switched last year from creators BioWare to Broadsword, with promise that the 13-year-old MMO would continue to receive new story content and improvements.

I don't tend to do a lot of videogame discount posts because I have a mortal fear of enriching my backlog, but when I see the entire Mass Effect trilogy and all of its expansions for around the price of a slightly more aristocratic sandwich, I am compelled to share. The Legendary Edition of BioWare's ravishing sci-fi RPG series is 90% off on Steam until 13th May. That translates to 6€, $6 or £5 for all three main games and 40 DLC packs, plus bells and whistles such as 4K Ultra HD and beefed-up character models. If you haven't played a Mass Effect game before, this is a pretty good place to start.

Paradox Interactive has told players not to expect any further delays to its upcoming life simulation game Life by You.

Matthew Shell, a veteran of LucasArts, has reportedly died.

People Can Fly, the developers of Bulletstorm and Outriders, have cancelled development of a co-op action RPG codenamed Project Dagger. The Polish company informed investors of the decision to cancel the game, which was initially to be published by Take-Two, earlier this month.

We are in the midst of a Metroidvania renaissance. Metroid: Dread, Ori, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and more have kept fans of the genre fully satiated in recent years. 2024 has already seen the launch of one of the genre’s best in Price of Persia: The Lost Crown.

The Electronic Software Association has shot down the idea of supporting libraries in the preservation of defunct online games.

Former developers of futuristic racing classic WipEout - including the series’ co-creator - have formed a new studio with the co-creator of Skate to work on a new sci-fi sports game.

Wipeout co-creator Nick Burcombe is making a futuristic sports title at a new development studio called Starlight Games.

Electronic Arts has revealed more details about its upcoming Formula 1 racing sim, EA Sports F1 24, with a new trailer. F1 24, first announced in February, will arrive earlier than previous games in the series on May 31 across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X. EA detailed the features coming to the game and confirmed that players will be able to compete as a driver of their choice from the 2024 F1 season in the Career mode for the first time.

EA Sports released the first official trailer today, previewing the upcoming game and detailing some of the new features set to arrive.

Electronic Arts announced the  cover stars on Tuesday, revealing some of the biggest stars in the sport as gracing the cover this year.

Apex Legends developer Respawn has told fans it will not change the game to block certain characters and cosmetics from being played during the Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia this summer, despite concerns over how the country might censor the battle royale's diverse character roster.

We have an update on rumors about EA’s plans to bring back Fight Night.

The Black Panther video game from Electronic Arts appears to be an open sandbox game.

A new job opening has confirmed that Motive’s upcoming Iron Man game will be an open world title.

EA's Black Panther game will be open world.

It continues to be a difficult time at Ascendant Studios, the developers behind last year’s magical shooter flop Immortals of Aveum, as it’s claimed that the studio have now furloughed most of their staff - only a matter of months after almost half of their employees were laid off.

Rockstar has raised GTA+ subscription prices.

Her character in Barbie may not control the railways or the flow of commerce, but soon Margot Robbie herself will. Well, sort of.

Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios has reportedly furloughed the majority of its staff.

Command and Conquer games stormed the European software sales chart in March.

Ascendant Studios, the developer behind last year's EA-published magic shooter Immortals of Aveum, has reportedly furloughed the majority of its staff.

Last night, a report claimed a Dead Space 2 remake had been in the works at EA. However, a subsequent report — which itself follows on from EA denying any such remake was in the pipeline — has poured more cold water on these initial claims. In fact, the whole series is reportedly «on ice».

There's good news if you've been awaiting the next Sims 4 DLC announcement to reassure yourself of the continuing passage of time; EA has revealed two new Kit packs — Urban Homage and Party Essentials — are launching next Thursday, 18th April.

Electronic Arts is raising the price of its EA Play subscription service.

Update: EA have now denied Grubb's claims that the Dead Space 2 remake was in development before being effectively cancelled, telling IGN: "We don't normally comment on rumors but there is no validity to this story." That report adds that the sequel wasn't considered for development to begin with, despite the first remake having performed well in EA's eyes, according to a source.

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Despite the original Dead Space getting the remake treatment, the same isn't happening for its sequel, at least not now.

Last year, the Motive Studios remake of the 2008 game Dead Space saw rave reviews for its improvements to the original, smooth sound design, and otherworldly graphics. Despite this, sales were slow, and this has led EA and Motive to shelve work on Dead Space 2.

Sony has announced the game catalogue additions for PlayStation Plus this April for Extra and Premium subscribers.

Yesterday, EA announced that Season 7 of Battlefield 2042 would be the game’s last. After poor reception upon its release in 2021 and countless efforts to revitalize the fanbase, DICE is likely eager to move on to the series’ next installment for a much-needed fresh start. However, while the end is near, plenty of content will be added to the title in periodic updates over the next few months.

The Battlefield series increasingly seems like a square peg held by a publisher that only owns round holes. Created by EA Dice, overseen now by Respawn CEO Vince Zampella, recently worked on by EA's founded-and-shuttered Ridgeline Studios, and now EA Motive are the latest to be stuck with the beleaguered milsim.

EA’s  has given an update on its still-untitled  game made in collaboration with Marvel Games.

A new team at EA's Motive Studio will work alongside the Battlefield studios to create the next phase of the shooter franchise.

Season 7 of Battlefield 2042, titled Turning Point, will be its last, as reported by EA today in a new blog post. In preparation for production on the next entry to the Battlefield franchise, the dev team will be prioritizing the future—though Battlefield 2042 will still be getting some updates and events going forward.

Helldivers 2 was the UK’s best-selling game for the second consecutive month in March.

A big 'ol patch is coming to the System Shock remake next Thursday, headlined by "[reworking] the entire final fight with new mechanics and a unique flow" and adding a female character option for our hacker. Update 1.2 will also tweak and fix and fiddle with heaps of other things. Our System Shock review called it "a breathtakingly beautiful and astonishingly faithful remake that proves the enduring power of Looking Glass design" when it launched last year, though I would say System Shock's final battle is one of the most dated parts, so I'm curious to see the new form.

Popular mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is coming to PC later this year.

EA announced that the mobile strategy game is getting an official PC port. Originally released on Android and iOS in 2015, the game lets players recruit hundreds of heroes and over 20 ships and control them in turn-based battles.

Two new games are being added to the PlayStation Plus lineup for April. Extra and Premium subscribers can snag the Metroidvania Tales of Kenzera: Zau on April 23, while the indie fishing management game Dave the Diver will hit the service on April 16.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is coming to Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription on day one of its release.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is coming to PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue on the day of its release.

Side-scrolling platformer Tales of Kenzera: ZAU will be available as part of the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on day one when it launches on April 23, publisher Electronic Arts and developer Surgent Studios announced.

Ascendant Studios' Immortals of Aveum is currently enjoying a new lease of life as a 'free' game on PlayStation Plus — and two major upgrades are coming soon. The first — patch 1.0.6.3 — adds support for high dynamic range and should be rolling out to all console versions of the game today. Perhaps more exciting is the upcoming 1.0.6.4, which brings AMD's FSR 3 frame generation to consoles for the first time, increasing frame-rate via inserted, interpolated frames.

Louis Gossett Jr., who made history as the first Black man to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and had a prolific, successful career across film, television and stage - as well as voicing the friendly Vortigaunt aliens in Half-Life 2 and its follow-up Episode One - has died.

Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and known to millions as the voice of Half-Life 2's vortigaunts, has died at the age of 87.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly instructed his government to explore developing video game consoles in Russia.

TimeSplitters Rewind, a fan-made remake of the zany shooters’ multiplayer in a single game, might well represent the last gasp of the beloved first-person shooter franchise following the closure of resurrected original developers Free Radical - who were working on their own TimeSplitters reboot - at the end of last year. With over a decade of work already invested in the fan project, however, the team have now released a call for help to overcome development hurdles caused by the ongoing troubled state of the games industry.

I've not played Hellgate: London, but I'm sure I must've passed it on the shelves in Gamestation (I'll never forget you, friend) way back when. Apparently, the original was a dark fantasy action RPG with roguelike elements and MMO subscription models before developer Flagship Studios shut down. Then it was re-released a bunch of times, with London giving way to Tokyo in one expansion. Now, Hellgate's original creator Bill Roper has announced he's working on a brand new Hellgate game under his new studio Lunacy Games.

Yellow Brick Games, the studio founded by former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw, has released a teaser trailer for its «ambitious new action RPG», ahead of a full reveal in April.

Sony has announced its PlayStation Plus games for April.

It Takes Two — the co-op platformer from Hazelight and Josef Fares (yes, of that Oscars rant) — celebrated its third anniversary earlier this week.

Microsoft is in the process of adding mouse and keyboard support for Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Just over a year ago, Shinji Mikami - he of directing the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4 fame - was confirmed to be leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio that he had co-founded over a decade earlier to create a modern successor to his survival-horror classics, The Evil Within.

Velan Studios' director of marketing, Josh Harrison, has one recommendation for studios looking to close down or «sunset» a live-service game: «make a private hosted version of your game».

There’s a The Sims movie in the works, and it’s already signed up some major star-power in the form of Margot ‘Barbie’ Robbie’s production company and the director behind Marvel show Loki and the upcoming second season of The Last of Us. EA’s on board, too.

Shadows of the Damned, the unexpected collaboration between No More Heroes, Killer7 and Lollipop Chainsaw creator Goichi ‘Suda51’ Suda and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, will finally see a PC release with a new remake later this year - over a decade after it first hit consoles.

A third of staff are at risk of losing their jobs at Velan Studios, the company behind Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and shutdown dodgeball game Knockout City.

Assassin’s Creed Jade’s release has reportedly been delayed from this year to 2025.

A movie adaptation of The Sims is under way, with Margot Robbie's production company LuckyChap set to produce.

A Sims movie adaptation is in the works from Margot Robbie's production company, to be helmed and co-written by Loki director Kate Herron.

The hacker who disrupted the North American Apex Legends Global Series finals has said he did it «just for fun».

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Connie Booth, former executive at Sony, and arguably one of the founders of PlayStation, has now joined Electronic Arts.

Developer Respawn has addressed the recent Apex Legends hacks.

Microsoft has confirmed the next wave of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass for console, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Almost two thirds of game development studios are using artificial intelligence in their workflows.

A hacking incident during the Apex Legends Global Series last night has caused wider concerns over Easy Anti-Cheat and whether it's safe to play games it's used in.

Pro players in the Apex Legends North American finals were suddenly given cheats by hackers mid-game, prompting the esports competition to be postponed until further notice. It’s unclear whether this will impact future scheduling.

Marcus Lehto – co-creator of the Halo universe and former lead of the recently shuttered Ridgeline Games – says he doesn't have «anything positive to say about EA».

Port-o-remaster publishers Aspyr yesterday launched the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, bundling together the two 'What if Battlefield but Star Wars?' shooters originally released by Pandemic Studios and LucasArts in 2004 and 2005 (not to be confused with Dice and EA's uncolonic Star Wars Battlefront games from the mid-tensies). It's one of those rereleases that exists mostly for consoles which never saw the games in the first place, made a bit useless on PC by the fact that you can still buy and fully play the originals for half the price. It's made even less useful by launching in a right wonky technical state, with bad lag, crashes, and reportedly only three 64-player servers online at first.

Respawn Entertainment—the studio behind games like Titanfall 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and Apex Legends—has been hit by layoffs as part of larger cuts taking place throughout EA. As spotted by VGC, various current and now-former members of the Respawn team, including Apex Legends level designer Aaron Stump, took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to talk about the layoffs.

Apex Legends developer Respawn is the latest studio to be affected by EA layoffs.

Released in 2011, Shadows of the Damned remains one of the most beloved third-person shooters from the 2010s. Produced by Shinji Mikami, the director of the first Resident Evil and Dino Crisis games, and written by Suda51, the brain behind No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw, the action-adventure game has a signature style that continues to impress gamers to this day.

Development on free-to-play MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is still going strong after 13 years, with its latest patch adding a new storyline surrounding House Inrokini and highly requested date nights with romanced companions.