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Darkspore is back on Steam, following its recent removal from the digital distribution service over service issues.

EA moved quickly yesterday after a post from a moderator of the game's official forum claimed "[Darkspore] is for almost all intents and purposes an abandoned title." It was a significant concern, given that the always-online Darkspore had an error preventing the majority of its players from accessing it. The publisher later stated the moderator was not an EA employee

Late yesterday EA told us it had resolved the problem and it was in the process of relisting Darkspore. The game continues to have a 65 Metacritic and lukewarm reviews.

As the first-person shooter genre becomes increasingly crowded, IGN sat down with EA Labels president Frank Gibeau to discuss how Battlefield stands apart and how it stays competitive.

Electronic Arts' Darkspore has been removed from Steam, likely due to server-related issues that make it unplayable. The top-down action RPG, which requires an always-on connection, has suffered from server problems since launch in 2011, according to Polygon.

The latest missive on the game's official forum thanks players for supporting the game, and says the connectivity issue has been resolved. It concludes, "We will continue to support Darkspore, so feel free to continue to discuss the game here." Darkspore continues to be available on EA's Origin digital distribution service.

Curiously, an earlier message on the forum (since removed) suggested an end of support for the game. "Darkspore is no longer developed. It is for almost all intents and purposes an abandoned title," it read. It went on to urge customers to contact EA customer support for any technical issues and that "Error Code 4" had arisen for the "majority" of Darkspore players.

It seems that EA, unconvinced that we press lackeys were going to pay enough attention to its games at E3, actually sent its own correspondents around to interview its developers. Thanks, EA! Now, if they would just review their own games we could all put our feet up and play some Dwarf Fortress… But I digress: Titanfall looks incredible. And yes, it’s basically going to be Call Of Duty with giant robots, but at the same time Call Of Duty was lacking giant battle suits, and futuristic exploding locales. So they’re fixing that.

There’s a lot more Titanfall footage below, thanks to EA’s Stephanie Prentice. Oh, and Nathan did interview the developers while he was there. We aren’t really that lazy.(more…)

Oh, SimCity. Its launch was far from smooth and yet the powers that be now believe it would be wise to unmoor a series of airships, allowing them to drift into the skies above the game’s colourful sort-of-simulated neighbourhoods. The blimps and balloons cost $8.99, which seems expensive, but at least they don’t have giant adverts printed on the side. I must admit, I was concerned that SimCity might receive a series of pricey add-ons that actually improved the game, making its meager municipal offering rather more sinister, an intentionally hobbled creation awaiting a costly cure-all. In a way, this gust of hot air is preferable. Video below!

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The world's most whimsically impractical mode of transportation (read: airships) is now available to SimCity mayors willing to part with about $9. This means that Goodyear tire enthusiasts and steampunk aficionados alike can now bond even more deeply over their shared love of lighter-than-air travel, provided they've already bonded over their shared love of city-building games. Look, we're still working on this fanfic.

The Airships Set, available on Origin for $8.99, includes an "Airship Hanger" for receiving/removing tourists, a "Commuter Airship Mooring" for local metropolitan commuters, two hot air balloon parks and "Event blimps" that appear during sporting events and the like. The set also includes two achievements, neither of which involve declaring the relative humanity of something, at least as far as we know.

Madden Share is a feature new to the series in Madden NFL 25, a destination where the community can swap custom playbooks, rosters and gameplay settings. Those settings can then be used in exhibition games and imported into your Connected Franchise career.

Players can cherry pick their favorite plays from across all playbooks in order to create a custom attack plan. A ratings and sorting system will help cull content, along with a featured area designated to highlight new files from the community and developers.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 has hit a wall-nut and won't launch on July 18 as intended. According to game's official Twitter account, the continuing battle between flora and undead won't continue until "later in the summer."

In follow-up tweets, PopCap notes the game will still launch on "Apple products first," as it was originally announced and scheduled for iOS. After that, more braaaaains will be found on other platforms. It is the PopCap (and EA) way.

This Battlefield 4 trailer is a glorified sizzle reel for Frostbite 3, but it's a glorious sizzle reel too. Developers working on the DICE engine discuss the detail work the latest Frostbite delivers to the multiplayer mayhem of the battlefields.

Despite all efforts to kill it, the lawsuit over who really made the Madden we all play today keeps chugging along. A jury ruled that a statute of limitations does not apply to the claim of Robin Antonick, credited on the cover of the first John Madden Football for PCs back in 1988. This would have been the easiest way for Electronic Arts to be rid of a lawsuit it has called, from day one, "utterly without merit." Instead, they now go further into trial on Antonick's claims that subsequent editions of Madden were based on his original work, without properly paying him royalties. Madden, as you could probably guess, has sold billlions of dollars worth of product over its lifespan, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. If Antonick prevails, he could make a fortune. Antonick filed his suit in 2009. He said he had not been aware, before 2005, that EA Sports continued to use work he claimed was part of the original Madden's development. If he had been, the case would have been tossed. Antonick's suit must now be tried in two phases: one for games pre-dating 1996, the other for games after that. The pre-1996 trial will begin on July 1, and it alone could be worth more than $200 million in damages to Antonick. The trial on games made after 1996 would include not only Madden but products using the same engine, such as NCAA Football. “While we’re disappointed that the trial will proceed, we are confident that we will prevail on the merits once the evidence is presented,” an Electronic Arts spokesman told Bloomberg News in an email. Ex-EA Madden Programmer Wins Verdict on Timing of Lawsuit [Bloomberg]

E3 should be a brilliant time of the year. Even if there’s nothing good to see, it’s at least fun to gather on Twitter and mock what’s being presented. I’m usually there, at the Command Station 3000 (my desk), dropping truth bombs (tweets) with the incisiveness of of Eminem crossed with Jed Bartlet (“Lol, me make fun of E3″). But this year, I just couldn’t face EA at E3. All I could imagine were shinier helmets on sports games, and the hollow promises of excited producers shilling for a Next Generation that seems to already be lagging behind what I viewed as the current one. And because of that world-weary attitude, I managed to miss the announcement of a few games I actually had an interest it. One of those being Peggle 2, which is what the trailer below remixes.(more…)

Daniel Matros, producer on Battlefield 4, gives us a look at the new Spectator Mode direct from E3. The voyeur mode is there for those soldiers who want to watch a battle go down, but don't want to participate in the skirmish directly.

Spectating is live, with no delay - which may present problems with ghosting in the final game, though it should be noted that this is pre-Alpha gameplay from E3 and spectating may be changed prior to launch on October 29.

After eons of hush-hush legal drama and remarkably silent tinkering, Respawn Entertainment finally revealed Titanfall during E3. Gone are the rah-rah-rah military men – neck veins like titanium from a lifetime of barking orders – replaced by futuristic commandos and the mechs who love them. Or at least nearly bro-fist them into their cockpits. There’s some unintentional silliness involved, to be sure, but this one actually looks rather promising. It has agile, Hawken-esque mechs, fleet-footed infantry, a campaign that intriguingly fuses single-player and multiplayer, and – tornado hurricane sigh of relief – it’s not a Windows 8 exclusive. But how exactly does all of that come together? And how far along could the game actually be given that it was caught in the crossfire of a legal battle between Respawn and Infinity Ward until not too long ago? I spoke with Respawn’s Joel Emslie to find out.

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Plants vs Zombies is boldly going where no popular gaming franchise has gone before: to a land of over-the-shoulder camera angles and gleefully bobbing crosshairs, whereupon things will be shot mercilessly. OK, maybe it’s not the boldest move ever in the grand scheme of things, but Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is quite a departure for PopCap’s vegetable stew of a tower porch defender, and it’s looking admirably silly. But so far, all we’ve seen is a quick bit of co-op. What about large-scale (24-ish player) competitive multiplayer and the ability to play as zombies? Also, stepping back a bit, why make a shooter out of Plants vs Zombies at all? I spoke with creative director Justin Wiebe to find out. (more…)

We know very little about Star Wars: Battlefront but it is in development and perhaps that in itself deserves mention? When EA took exclusive control of the well-tilled license, some observers no doubt feared/expected a procession of games in which Jar-Jar Binks must match three ewok faces in order to unlock new catchphrases. Fear not. DICE are taking a Frostbite of the Battlefront cherry, presumably bringing their distinctive brand of Things Blowing Up to Hoth and other such hotspots. As EA Games Label boss Patrick Söderlund told Eurogamer, “There are absolutely things in the previous Battlefront games that you’ll recognise and remember, but DICE wants to put its own flavour on it…but again, it’s going to be very Star Wars and very cool.” I have placed a thirty second trailer below, but is it cool? Is it Star Wars?

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Despite being "an important IP to EA," there is no new Dead Space game in development; instead, Visceral Games is working on something else right now. "Is that team working on a Dead Space game today? No they're not," EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund told Eurogamer at E3 last week.

"They're working on something else very exciting. You have to think of it from that perspective. Is it better to put them on the fourth version of a game they've done three previous versions of before? Or is it better to put them on something new that they want to build, that they have passion for?" This isn't the end for Dead Space, however, as Söderlund reiterates that it's "a brand that is close to Electronic Arts' heart."

"I am of the utmost opinion that we have to put the best possible games in the hands of our fans," Söderlund added. "How you get to a great game, the first thing you need is a great development team that have a passion for building what they're building. That's a simple parameter. Everything else follows. Money, time, everything else follows. It's less relevant. That's ultimately how you get success. It's as simple as that."

Dead Space 3, which launched earlier this year, failed to meet EA's sales expectations at launch and has had fewer sales than Dead Space 2.

The most glaring indictment of the Wii U's poor performance to date is the fact that FIFA—one of the biggest-selling franchises worldwide, in any genre—is publishing for everything but Wii U. FIFA 14 will come out on the PSP. It will publish on the original Wii. There'll be a version on the PS Vita, for god's sake. EA Sports may have been there on the Wii U's launch day with its Madden and FIFA flagships, but the president of its games labels said bluntly it won't be back unless and until that console starts selling. "The only thing [Nintendo] can do to fix it is to sell more boxes," Frank Gibeau told Joystiq. "We publish games where we think we can make a great game and hit a big audience, and make money." To March 31, Wii U has sold 3.45 million units, worldwide. Gibeau pointed out that EA has published four games on Wii U, including, most recently, Need for Speed: Most Wanted. "It was a good game," he told Joystiq, pointing to its Metacritic rating (an 86). "It wasn't a schlocky port. We actually put extra effort into getting everything to work." That's a key factor. In processing power, the Wii was actually a generation behind its contemporaries, with a controller that required special development attention. EA still made games for it because the Wii was a sales phenomenon. The Wii U has a special controller and, after the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 arrive later this year, its hardware will be behind its generational peers. Except the Wii U has a fraction of it's predecessor's installation base. EA: Wii U's lack of Madden, FIFA a 'rational' business decision [Joystiq]

"It's dead, it's dead, it's deep-sixed, it's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench," Electronic Arts' President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau stated plainly yesterday about the company's Online Pass program to Joystiq.

Following EA's announcement in late May that it was eliminating the Online Pass program, gamers braced for "the twist." That occurred last week when Microsoft finally announced the digital rights management (DRM) scheme for the Xbox One, which would have made an Online Pass program unnecessary. However, with Sony's announcement the PlayStation 4 will follow the current model of game console DRM and used games, it was a question if Online Pass was back on the table at EA.

"We're not crafting a strategy to bring [Online Pass] back, you will not input codes to unlock your game, it's not going to happen," said Gibeau. The executive then moved on to tell us the company's decision to kill Online Pass and Microsoft's Xbox One DRM plans weren't linked at all, therefore PlayStation 4's recent reveal wouldn't have changed their decision on the program anyway. He called the Online Pass program "flat out dumb."

"It's dead, it's dead, it's deep-sixed, it's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench," Electronic Arts' President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau stated plainly yesterday about the company's Online Pass program to Joystiq.

Following EA's announcement in late May that it was eliminating the Online Pass program, gamers braced for "the twist." That occurred last week when Microsoft finally announced the digital rights management (DRM) scheme for the Xbox One, which would have made an Online Pass program unnecessary. However, with Sony's announcement the PlayStation 4 will follow the current model of game console DRM and used games, it was a question if Online Pass was back on the table at EA.

"We're not crafting a strategy to bring [Online Pass] back, you will not input codes to unlock your game, it's not going to happen," said Gibeau. The executive then moved on to tell us the company's decision to kill Online Pass and Microsoft's Xbox One DRM plans weren't linked at all, therefore PlayStation 4's recent reveal wouldn't have changed their decision on the program anyway. He called the Online Pass program "flat out dumb."

The E3 gaming expo is underway, and there are already a ton of animated GIFs, all reacting to the various press conferences. We have gathered some of the most hilarious ones. The GIFs might take a few seconds to load. sources: demoncry54, ta-ble, R7729dash44, taidstick via animal-crossing, zferolie, imgur To contact the author of this post, write to gergovas@kotaku.com

The game formerly known as Generals 2, probably also known within internal EA circles as ‘please rescue the franchise after we repeatedly tried to murder it with really silly decisions’ but officially known as simply Command & Conquer has fully broken cover at last. In what way? Well, this week is E3. I’ll give you three guesses as to how an upcoming videogame might try to promote itself right now, and the first two don’t count.(more…)

Back under new management, EA Sports' beleaguered NBA Live series will return late this year only on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game promises a new ballhandling and dribbling engine called "bounceTek" that you can see in this video. NBA Live 14 also will be served by the official statistics service of the NBA, updating player performances and tendencies hourly on Xbox One and PS4. NBA Live 10 featured something similar to this, called "Dynamic DNA," though the updates did not come as frequently. "NBA Live will be a new experience every time you pick up the controller," vowed Sean O'Brien, the game's executive producer, appearing on stage with the Cleveland Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving.

EA Sports' UFC game will launch in Spring 2014 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The game will feature something called "full body deformation," which will show, in visceral detail, the effects of being punched, kicked, and choked out.

Mirror’s Edge wasn’t actually that good. Discuss.(more…)

The EA press conference at E3 has confirmed the release of Dragon Age 3, aka Dragon Age: Inquisition, in 2014. The game will apparently take place in “a vast open world”, while familiar characters Morrigan and Varric have been glimpsed in the trailer shown to press, which you can now see below.(more…)

Battlefield 4's multiplayer will feature a Commander Mode, EA has announced at E3, similar to the one seen back in Battlefield 2142. The mode will allow players to send commands out to five-man squads from tablets and other devices across Battlelog, in maps that will support up to 64 players at a time.

EA showed off a demo of the mode on a map called the Siege of Shanghai map, and will have gameplay streaming live from the show on Battlefield.com all this week.

Images reportedly showing off an alpha build of Battlefield 4 have leaked on site NSS. The images reveal loadouts, a map, menus and what's clearly some very early in-game screenshots. Head on over to NSS to view them all.

Earlier this month, publisher EA made the decision to stop offering controversial "online passes" with its upcoming games. It's now getting rid of them for its older games, too. A new FAQ on EA's site explains the move, saying "we are in the process of eliminating Online Pass requirements from existing EA games. This process will take several weeks. For some games, the prompt to enter an Online Pass code will no longer appear; for others, you will still need to download and install an Online Pass, but they will be available free of charge from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace or PlayStation Store." The first games to see their passes removed will be EA Sports titles, with other games to follow. While EA continues to claim that it "listened to the feedback from players", and removed the passes to "allow more people to play and enjoy EA games for a long time to come", it's important to note that at least one upcoming console features similar technology built into the machine, removing the need for EA to administer its own online pass. ONLINE PASS HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED, AND ITS REQUIREMENT FOR OLDER GAMES WILL BE ELIMINATED [EA, via Eurogamer]

As EA discontinues its Online Pass system for future games, existing passes are also getting the axe, making some content and even full games free, first on Xbox 360. Over the coming weeks, EA will get rid of Online Passes in its games, corporate communications rep John Reseburg tells Game Informer.

"As we discontinue Online Pass for our new EA titles, we are also in the process of eliminating it from all our existing EA titles as well," Reseburg says. "We heard the feedback from players and decided to do away with Online Pass altogether."

When the rollout is complete, EA Sports games will no longer prompt players to enter an Online Pass code, and other games will offer content for free, Reseburg says.

NeoGaf member MMaRsu compiled a list of Xbox 360 EA games that already offer free content once barred by the Online Pass, including a free copy of the original American McGee's Alice, Bad Company 2 VIP, Mass Effect 2: Cerberus Network, and more, listed in full below.

Crysis 3: The Lost Island, a multiplayer downloadable content pack, will be available June 4 for $15 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The pack includes four new maps, two new multiplayer modes and some additional weapons.

"By transporting players out of the Liberty Dome and into the Lost Island setting, we're not only returning to Crysis' spiritual roots, but also introducing fresh ways to play that provide Crysis 3 fans with genuinely game-changing new tactical options," said Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek.

Crysis 3 launched earlier this year with the simple premise of: bigger, badder, bowier.