EA Play Live 2021 recap LIVE: All the big news, major reveals and must-see live streams
Catch up on all the major news from EA Play Live 2021, which has now reached its crescendo!
The EA Play Live 2021 schedule has now come to an end - it all came to a head on the evening of July 22nd (from a UK perspective), with the developers from EA closing things out with the biggest live-stream event they've done in a while.
This hotly-anticipated main event came after four smaller events, full of preamble and build-up, which took place as online live streams over the last couple of weeks.
Huge upcoming games such as Battlefield 2042 and FIFA 22 featured in those pre-show events, which were clustered together as the EA Play Live Spotlight Series, but EA still had plenty to show during the big EA Play Live 2021 showcase.
This final stream has now ended, and we've got a handy recap for you below! So if you want to know what happened at EA Play Live 2021, you just need to keep on reading.
EA Play Live 2021 recap (Thursday 22nd July)
This is it, then, the main event! With all those smaller streams behind us, EA Play Live 2021 kicked off its final showcase at 6pm here in the UK. After a few minutes of watching a clock count down, they treated us to a few things, which we'll break down for you now. Here's what happened:
EA Play Live main show recap
With WWE star Austin Creed hosting the stream, backed up a fancy light show and a very big screen, EA Play Live has now taken place! Below we've summed up all the key moments for you, which we noted down as EA toured around its various development teams:
- The racing games experts at Codemasters kicked things off, showing the world premiere trailer for GRID Legends and confirming that Ncuti Gatwa from Sex Education (he plays Eric in the Netflix show) will star in the game's story mode.
- Respawn Entertainment, and specifically Apex Legends, was up next. They revealed a big trailer for Apex Legends: Emergence, the new season of content that will centre around the new Legend called Seer.
- Next up is Lost in Random, an upcoming EA Originals indie game by a studio called Zoink! There was a trailer for the dice battle gameplay and a confirmed release date (September 10th).
- Knockout City Season 2: Fight at the Movies was revealed with a launch trailer and a release date (July 27th).
- Battlefield 2042 was up next, with the team from Ripple Effect (formerly known as EA DICE LA) revealing the Battlefield Portal game mode where you can make your own custom experiences - read our explainer on Battlefield Portal here!
- And finally, the last thing at the show was the long-dormant Dead Space franchise! We saw an atmospheric trailer for a Dead Space remake, which will hopefully relaunch the series in a major way - it's developed by EA Motive (makers of Star Wars Squadrons).
EA Play Live Pre-Show recap
Before the full show began there was one final piece of the preamble - there was a brief Pre-Show stream, where EA recapped a few other things which have happened recently, and this is what it entailed:
- The Sims 4: Cottage Living kicked things off with a brief trailer featuring Japanese Breakfast doing a concert for cows.
- Then we spent a few minutes with Lost in Random, the upcoming indie game, with EA showing the game's story trailer.
- FIFA 22 got a quick mention in the Pre-Show, with EA showing the game's first trailer again - plus, Lars Ricken and Ole Gunnar Solskjær were confirmed to appear as FIFA Ultimate Team Heroes.
- Apex Legends got a mention here, too, with EA re-showing the lore trailer for Seer, the new Legend.
- The recently-released F1 2021 game got a shoutout, as well - you can read our review here!
- EA also recapped the recent EA Play: Spotlight Series videos, which led up to today's event over the last couple of week. We've also recapped them below.
EA Play Live 2021 recap (Tuesday 20th July)
The fourth day of build-up at EA Play Live 2021 put FIFA 22 in the spotlight, with EA Games' FIFA 22 getting a whole stream to shine on its own. Funnily enough, this video dropped the same day that Konami announced its plans to rebrand the Pro Evolution Soccer series as a free-to-play living game simply called eFootball. But with the focus fully on FIFA, this is what happened in this Spotlight Series stream:
Spotlight: FIFA Next Gen Gameplay Powered by HyperMotion Technology
Hosted by Wired UK's Amit Katwala, this steam was all about the technical innovations that will come to FIFA 22's next-gen version on PS5 and Xbox Series X. There was plenty of gameplay footage shown, alongside heaps of chat with EA's Sam Rivera, Kantcho Doskov, Shaun Pejic and Gabriel Zaro.
If you consider yourself among the tech-obsessed subset of FIFA fans, it's well worth watching this stream on full on the EA website. If you prefer just a quick recap, it's worth knowing that the main talking points were HyperMotion Technology, Full Team Authentic Motion, Tactical A.I., Kinetic Air Battles, Composed Ball Control and Player Humanization, as well as big changes that have been made to goalkeepers, ball physics and sprinting. The video also featured a lot of footage of real-life players, who were motion-captured during the game's development.
EA Play Live 2021 recap (Monday 19th July)
The third day of EA Play Live 2021 preamble was another sporty one, aimed at gamers who prefer the American variety of football, with the latest NFL game being the topic of discussion in this one. You'll find our summary of this stream below:
Spotlight: Madden NFL 22 All-Access Scouting
With Nick Mizesko (the voice of competitive Madden NFL) hosting the stream, this Madden 22 event mainly focused on the improvements made to scouting in the game, with insights coming from a big chat with EA's Seann Graddy, Tom Lischke and Andre Weingarten.
Hardcore fans will probably appreciate this deep dive into how the new Madden game has come together this year, and lucky for them the full stream is still available on the EA website. There wasn't much in the way of gameplay footage, but there was plenty of insider info about the making of Madden NFL 22.
EA Play Live 2021 recap (Thursday 13th July)
The second major day of EA Play Live 2021 put the EA Originals label under the spotlight. This is the sub-brand within EA that publishes games from smaller companies. In the past year, they've served up such great games as It Takes Two and Knockout City, so this is definitely a corner of EA that it's worth keeping tabs on. Keep reading to learn what happened in the stream!
Spotlight: EA Originals Hearts Independent Studios
There was not a massive amount of information to gather from this particular showcase, despite it being a fun watch. It was primarily one that allowed creators to discuss where they get their inspiration from for the titles that they work on, and to give an insight into what it is like to work on them.
One game we did get to learn more about was Lost in Random, which is an upcoming action and adventure game that looks interesting. Developed by Zoink and set to be published by EA, this gothic adventure will come to Switch and PC at some point in the future.
But this stream was much more about getting to know those people behind the games, rather than hearing about any new and exciting developments. You can still rewatch the stream in full if you didn't watch it live!
EA Play Live 2021 recap (Thursday 8th July)
The first day of EA Play Live 2021 was all about first-person shooter games, which EA has rather a lot of! While some surprises are likely being held back for the main EA Play Live showcase, there were still plenty of interesting info-nuggets here for fans of shooters. Find out what happened below!
Spotlight: The Future of FPS
It should come as no surprise to learn that Battlefield 2042 took up a lot of the time here as it is the biggest FPS on the way from EA. About half of this live stream, which you can watch back online if you missed it, was devoted to the game and we had a ton of new gameplay to feast our eyes on.
Things became a little clearer too as to what the game will ultimately play like and, while we do wish there was a dedicated single-player experience, this allowed us to see that the narrative will still be important and that the game will be a hybrid of the two modes - of sorts.
- For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021
The other game that got a lot of attention was fellow FPS title Apex Legends which also had a lot of gameplay shown off. We didn't get any huge reveals for either but we did get to see more of them - and there will likely be even more to come on 22nd July.
We'll be keeping track of everything else coming from EA over the next couple of weeks and we will have a full breakdown of the main EA Play 2021 showcase up after we watch it on 22nd July when, hopefully, we will be able to talk some more about that new Dead Space project.
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