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Fore! EA Sports PGA Tour brings golf out of the Woods
EA announced EA Sports PGA Tour, a new golf game that drops the Tiger Woods label, during their E3 2014 press conference today. While details are scarce, a teaser trailer revealed courses which appear to take place inside of other EA games. One course, for example, looked to be set on a tropical island with a beached Navy ship. Hmmm, that sounds familiar. The game is even rendered in DICE's Frostbite 3 engine, making it one ridiculously pretty game of golf. [Image: Joystiq]
Battlefield 4 Premium includes five DLC packs
EA will once again offer a Premium service alongside its latest Battlefield game. Battlefield 4 Premium offers five expansions on top of Battlefield 4, kicking off with the Second Assault DLC pack, available first on Xbox One when Battlefield 4 launches in October. Second Assault is a collection of four multiplayer maps from Battlefield 3, updated in Frostbite 3. China Rising, which takes place on the Chinese mainland, arrives next in December, followed by the ocean-based combat of Naval Strike in Spring 2014. The "all-out urban warfare" of Dragon's Teeth makes up the fourth pack, available next summer, and Final Stand brings it all to a close in Summer 2014. In addition to the DLC packs, Battlefield 4 Premium also guarantees access to the Battlefield 4 beta this October and "priority" position in server queues. Other means of beta access include pre-ordering the digital deluxe version of Battlefield 4 or getting in through limited edition and digital deluxe versions of Medal of Honor: Warfighter. There is no pricing listed in the original announcement, though the Battlefield site lists Battlefield 4 Premium for PC at a one-time fee of $50 – the same price as Battlefield 3 Premium.
Battlefield 4 enlists the aid of Kinect on Xbox One
Battlefield 4 on Xbox One will implement some sort of Kinect functionality, though DICE isn't really talking specifics yet. DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson says that DICE has "a pretty pragmatic view" on Kinect and that due to the series' emphasis on skill, input is a big factor when designing features – so motion controls are out. "You need to have very precise control over what's going on, and trying to do something like that with motion control input does not make sense – not if you want to keep the same kind of formula of the game as we [have] now. You'd need to build a different kind of shooter," Troedsson said in the latest issue of Game Informer (via Videogamer). "But there are other places where it will make sense, and we are going to use it for other things in the game, but we haven't announced exactly what." Voice commands? That seems like the obvious choice, though it's purely speculation at this point. Battlefield 4, which runs on the Frostbite 3 engine and resurrects the series' Commander mode, is set to launch on October 29. Battlefield 4 will be available on PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One and PC.
EA developing Frostbite Go mobile game engine for iOS and Android
EA has published a website for its Frostbite graphical engine, and text on the website mentions the existence of a project called Frostbite Go, which EA describes as "a mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite's proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms." In other words, the company is putting together the technology to run Frostbite on platforms such as iOS and Android. The blurb doesn't say which version of Frostbite the mobile engine will be based on, but given that Frostbite 3 is the new hotness around EA, it's a fair guess that the company is adapting the latest and greatest for Frostbite Go. We're supposed to see Frostbite 3 games arrive later on this year (with Battlefield 4 being the first of these), so odds are that any Frostbite Go-created products should hit the market at that same time.
Wii U Frostbite engine tests yield 'not too promising' results
EA DICE technical director Johan Andersson revealed that the developer's Frostbite 3 engine, which powers Battlefield 4 and the next entries in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises, does not run on Nintendo's Wii U. Responding to fan questions on Twitter, Andersson explained that DICE's Wii U experiments with Frostbite 2 had "not too promising" results, leading to the company abandoning efforts to get Frostbite 3 up and running on Nintendo's latest console. During the Game Developers Conference in March, Epic Games' Mark Rein noted that Unreal Engine 4 does not currently run on the Wii U. Rein later clarified, explaining that licensed developers could potentially port Unreal Engine 4-powered games to the Wii U, at their discretion.
Unreal Engine 4 not designed to work on Wii U [Update]
Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 won't support the Wii U, Epic VP Mark Rein said during GDC. During a theater presentation of the Infiltrator demo, Rein laughed and said "no" when asked if UE4 would run on Wii U."Our goal for Unreal Engine 4 console-wise is next-gen consoles," he explained to Kotaku. "That's really what our energies are focused on. If you want to make a Wii U game, we have Unreal Engine 3, and it's powering some of the best games on the Wii U already."Battlefield series executive producer Patrick Bach told Eurogamer this week that not only is Battlefield 4 not coming to Wii U, the new Frostbite 3 engine on which it runs is also not designed for Wii U. "We right now don't have support for the Wii U in the Frostbite engine," he said. "The reason for that is it takes development time."Update: Rein spoke with Engadget and clarified his comment from the presentation, noting that it's totally possible to run Unreal Engine 4 games on Wii U. "You heard the stupid gaffe yesterday about the Wii U," he said. "If someone wants to take Unreal Engine 4 and ship a game on Wii U, they can! If they wanna ship an Unreal Engine 4 game on Xbox 360, they could make it happen."
Next Mass Effect, Dragon Age 3 powered by Frostbite 3
Both the next Mass Effect game and Dragon Age 3: Inquisition use the Frostbite 3 engine, despite initial official word from publisher EA saying otherwise. An official press release for Dragon Age 3 from September 2012 said the upcoming RPG was underpinned by Frostbite 2. However, BioWare Montreal & Edmonton General Manager Aaryn Flynn, following some speculation, took to Twitter to settle the matter.Flynn tweeted: "For everyone who's been asking after the #BF4 reveal, #DA3 and the next Mass Effect are also using Frostbite 3. It's awesome."While the Dragon Age 3 press release was explicit, looking back certain BioWare devs were coyer on the matter. BioWare Montreal Studio Director Yanick Roy only said in a November 2012 blog post that DA3 used Frostbite tech, not specifically Frostbite 2. That correlates with the careful wording of DA3 Executive Producer Mark Darrah, who in an announcement post said his studio was working on a new game engine for DA3, and that it had "started with Frostbite 2 from DICE as a foundation to accomplish this."So Battlefield 4 isn't the only Frostbite 3 game confirmed to be arriving this year, as Dragon Age 3 is scheduled for a "late 2013" release.
