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EA Play 2019: 5 Announcements I'm Hoping To Hear During E3 Week

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EA doesn't do the E3 thing the same as some publishers. Instead, the EA Play celebration has become the organization's platform for massive new announcements and game previews each year. There are obviously several non-sports vehicles under the EA umbrella, but I'll mostly focus on the EA Sports brand with wishlist for major announcements at EA Play.

Official Announcement for EA UFC 4

We already know EA is working on a new version of EA UFC. That is good news for fans of the series. EA UFC 3 was one of my favorite games in 2018. It's hard to put the finger on it, but the game was just plain fun to play, and I can't wait to see how the series develops in the next version. We still don't know when it will be released.

Hopefully, that'll be announced at EA Play.

The Return of the Fight Night Franchise

Credit: EA Sports

Speaking of EA combat sports series, there are many hundreds of thousands of fans who would applaud the return of the Fight Night series or any boxing video game on the current or next-generation consoles. Every year, we hope for the announcement that a new Fight Night is in development, but every year we're disappointed.

If I'm being honest and realistic, unless there is a different team set to be assigned to the rebirth of the series, there probably isn't one coming anytime soon.

With resources dedicated to EA UFC, it's hard to imagine that same team, or a chunk of the men and women involved, also working on a new Fight Night in the near future. Still, I stand hopeful along with the rest of the virtual boxing fans.

The Return of the NBA Street Franchise

Let's face it, over the past 10 years, the NBA Live series has been underwhelming, to say the least. EA could get much better use of its NBA license if it brought back the NBA Street series. To this day (in my Deontay Wilder voice), it is still the best arcade street basketball video game series ever created. There is so much that could be done with it in this era of gaming and on more powerful consoles.

If NBA Street is announced at EA Play, it will be one of the biggest sports video game stories of the year.

A Complete Reboot of the NBA Live Franchise

Credit: EASports.com (h/t Steve Noah)

As I said, NBA Live has been less than stellar. I don't believe the series should be canceled, but I do think it needs a year off to rework the game from the ground up. Instead of announcing what's new in NBA Live 20 at EA Play, I'd much rather learn that the developers are sending the team into a 12-18 month development cycle to rebuild the game into a serious competitor for the NBA 2K series.

Plans to Adopt a Subscription Service

I'm over the annual sports video game release. That doesn't mean I don't want to have a major new content drop each year; It just means I no longer need to have a Madden 20, 21, 22 and so on, as it has been for decades.

I'd rather see EA adopt a subscription service, which it has hinted at, that would give subscribers access to all of its content, DLC, and a monthly gift of virtual currency for use in games like Madden, FIFA, and NHL.

Every other year we should see a significant gaming update that should deliver a bigger jump in quality from one version to the next.

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