Items tagged with Electronic-Arts
You know that we love freebies here at HotHardware, and we've a hard to pass up one for you today courtesy of the Epic Games Store. The game in question is Star Wars Battlefront II, which launched just over three years ago for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 platforms. When the game first came out, it was more than a bit rough around the edges and drew a lot of complaints from gamers. The most infuriating aspect of the game was its loot system, which made progression and unlocking some of the most cherished characters a time-laden (or expensive) proposition. However, Electronic Arts and DICE worked through the kinks over the years and have massaged Battlefront II to be a worthy...
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Respawn Entertainment has announced via Twitter that it's going back to where everything started for the Apex Legends franchise. Starting today, February 21, through February 24, in addition to the World's Edge map, the season one map Kings Canyon will be available for gamers to play. While the devs behind Apex Legends are proud of their Kings Canyon season one map being offered, the responses to the tweet from fans have been highly critical. Multiple comments talk about the random LTM events that Apex Legends offers. Complaints also focus on how the developers have yet to give the community what they are crying for while continually releasing LTM modes that fans don't seem to want. The community...
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Do you feel the need… the need for speed? Ghost Games, an EA Studio, just announced the upcoming release of Need for Speed Heat. The game will reportedly include more customization options and a more immersive narrative. Need for Speed Heat will take place in the fictional city of “Palm City”. Players will race in a competition referred to as “Speedhunters Showdown” during the day to earn money or “Bank”. Players will also be able to compete in underground races at night to build up their reputation or “Rep”, while outrunning a police task force. The game also includes more customization options than its predecessors. Riley Cooper, Creative...
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The launch of Anthem, the latest offering from BioWare and EA, has been anything but smooth. Players have complained that the game is riddled with bugs and is crashing their consoles. Anthem thankfully recently released a massive patch that removes respawn restrictions, fixes the loot system, and improves the overall stability of the game. Anthem’s Patch 1.0.3 is rather extensive. First and foremost, the patch has “improved stability for all platforms”. The game had previously been crashing both Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles. BioWare's head of live service, Chad Robertson, noted that they had discovered a bug that would shut consoles down as if the power plug had been...
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If you just cannot wait for Anthem to be released at the end of the month, now is your time to get a taste of that sweet exo-suit action. Anthem is free to play this weekend on the Xbox, Playstation 4, and PC. The demo ends Sunday, February 3rd at 9PM EST. PC players will need to log into Origin using their EA account and go to the Anthem product page. They will next need to click “Try it First” to add the game to their library. Anthem will then be available for download. The minimum requirements are an Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350 processor, an NVIDIA GTX 760 or AMD Radeon 7970/R9280X, 2GB GPU RAM, 8GB of system memory, at least 50GB of free space, and a 512 kbps or faster stable...
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If you are a fan of the Star Wars universe, then Electronic Arts has an upcoming game that is sure to get your motor running. Star Wars Battlefront II was announced earlier this year, but it’s the newest multiplayer gameplay trailer that has fans salivating in anticipation of the game's fall release. As we’ve previously reported, the game covers a four-decade span of time that touches on major sequences in the Star Wars movie universe starting with The Phantom Menace and ending with The Force Awakens. This is a big expansion from the Star Wars Battlefront, which focuses primarily on the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV through VI). Over the course of two minutes, the new multiplayer...
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It is time for every history buff’s favorite activity: analyzing the historical accuracy of modern media. The YouTube channel The Great War recently published a video critiquing the historical accuracy of the Battlefield 1 trailer. The trailer for Battlefield 1 was released on May 6th, 2016. According to Indy Neidell, the voice behind The Great War video, the trailer is a hodgepodge of accuracy. Some of the most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as the tanks bursting into trenches or giant, ominous zeppelins hovering, are actually historically accurate. The trailer often shows soldiers wearing custom armor or carrying weapons from the opposing side. One example is of a young woman riding...
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Fans of the Mass Effect franchise are going to have to wait just a little bit longer for the fourth title in BioWare's third-person sci-fi shooter, Mass Effect: Andromeda, which the developer confirmed has been delayed until "early 2017." In the meantime, BioWare promises another update at the EA Play conference on June 12. The delay isn't a total surprise. Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen hinted that things were slightly off schedule during a recent earnings call. He said at the time that Mass Effect: Andromeda would release in EA's fourth fiscal quarter, which works out to the first quarter of 2017 for the rest of us. BioWare's subsequent announcement is a confirmation of what many had already...
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Battlefield 5 was the expected name of DICE and Electronic Arts’ latest shooter, but a new leak just ahead of the game’s office debut reveals that this isn’t the case at all. In fact, DICE has turned the clock back to Battlefield 1. While Call of Duty is delving further into the depths of space with Infinite Warfare (to the horror of series veterans), the latest edition of Battlefield is going back in time to World War 1. But this isn’t a completely historic representation of the first world war -- according to various reports, Battlefield 1 is set in an alternate universe. We should expect to see some laborious trench warfare, up close and personal attacks on opponents (just look at the trench...
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Get ready to start your engines, mobile users, because a new Need For Speed title is headed to a device near you (provided you're rocking an iOS or Android tablet or smartphone). Electronic Arts that Need For Speed No Limits will launch to iPhone, iPad, and Android devices sometime in 2015, and has put out a launch trailer guest starring rally driver Ken Block. The game is being developed by Firemonkeys, the same studio that brought Real Racing 3 to mobile. With Need For Speed No Limits, the team is building the game from the ground up to provide "insanely-fast driving" and the same great graphics experience that fans of the NFS franchise have come to expect. "The team at Firemonkeys has also...
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It has not been a great year for casual game maker Zynga. The company axed a pile of games that weren’t bringing in enough cash, broke up with Facebook, saw its stock price plummet, dealt with a lawsuit from Electronic Arts, and lost a top employee or two. However, Zynga’s fortunes looked as though they might turn around if it could convince the Nevada Gaming Board to approve it for online gambling. Alas, that cash cow is not to be. In a statement, Zynga said, “Zynga is making the focused choice not to pursue a license for real money gaming in the United States. Zynga will continue to evaluate all of its priorities against the growing market opportunity in free, social gaming,...
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Got a Kindle? Got a kid? Amazon has you in mind, as the company announced updates to its Kindle FreeTime Unlimited content service that delivers as much kid-friendly content as they can consume. The service originally rolled out in December of last year, and since then Amazon says it has added over a thousand titles to its lineup of books, games, movies, TV shows, and other apps, including content from Disney, Warner Brothers, Interactive Entertainment, and Electronic Arts. The service has no in-app payment system so you don’t have to worry about Junior racking up hundreds of dollars in fees, and there are no ads or social media links, either. There’s just a flat monthly fee, too,...
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Electronic Arts is slashing more jobs yet again, and to make matters worse (or at least more annoying), the company isn’t releasing many details about the who, what, where, and when of those layoffs. Instead of coming right out and saying publicly what’s happening, EA posted this incredibly vague “organizational update” on its blog: In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile. This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees – those that are leaving EA will be missed by their...
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At this point, after its CEO resigned in the aftermath of a launch fiasco, a couple of rounds of worker layoffs, and being voted “Worst Company in America”, Electronic Arts is probably in “screw it” mode. To that effect, the company announced that it’s killing off a trio of its Facebook games. The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society will all be shut down on June 14th. In a blog post, EA staff stated, “After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off. For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising.” EA says that PopCap...
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Electronic Arts is not in a good way these days. After the recent disastrous launch of SimCity, which led to the ignominious resignation of CEO John Riccitiello, the company was voted as the Worst Company in America. Now the company has confirmed a round of layoffs, which follow layoffs in Montreal and L.A. this February. Polygon believes this round will be focused on EA’s Montreal studio; EA did not release numbers on how many people would be let go. EA says that it’s streamlining operations and that it’s attempting to retrain or relocate as many employees as possible. As always, we wish the best for the recently unemployed. And without making light of their situation, perhaps...
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