These 8 EA Games are Worthy of a Comeback

AAA-game publisher/developer Electronic Arts certainly gets a ton of flack. And to be quite honest, it’s quite justified. For every good move that EA makes (releasing a single-player focused Star Wars game to critical acclaim deserves to be applauded), the company makes an equally confounding and upsetting decision (the Star Wars Battlefront II loot box scandal immediately comes to mind).

Recently, however, EA has taken some positive steps in the right direction. Gamers have been clamoring for a new entry in the Skate series forever - EA made the decision to honor that loyal fanbase by announcing that a new game is coming. The EA Play Live 2021 event is slated to stream on Thursday, July 22, and will surely treat everyone to exciting news regarding EA’s current and future games lineup. And based on a hot rumor that’s recently been making the rounds, it looks as if EA is set to bring back another beloved IP of theirs in a major way. It’s been said that the third-person survival horror series known as Dead Space is set for a revival that’s being developed by EA’s Motive Studio (which is the development team that worked on Star Wars: Squadrons). All signs are pointing to the return of the necromorph-filled nightmare game getting officially announced at the EA Play Live digital event.

That got us to thinking - what other EA properties are worthy of making a grand comeback? EA’s graveyard is filled with a dizzying amount of beloved IPs and it’s about time that the publisher/developer brought them back from the dead for another go-round. The following eight games we listed below are more than ready to come back in a triumphant fashion and wow gamers of the old and the new generation alike.

It’s only right that we start this list off by acknowledging the elephant (well, shambling alien lifeform) in the room. Rumors say that we should expect to see Dead Space make its welcome return sooner rather than later. And judging by the recent upsurge in the survival horror genre, it makes sense for EA to try their hand at that winning formula once again. Now would it be worth keeping it played from a third-person viewpoint? Or should EA follow Capcom’s lead by switching all the horrifying action to a first-person viewpoint? Either one is fine in our eyes. As long as we get to play with a new ship systems engineer and explore a derelict ship full of crawling terrors once again, we’d be more than satisfied. Keep the co-op out and stick to what worked in the first two series entries, we say!

Yes, we know. Signing the biggest boxers on today’s current scene would bleed EA’s pockets dry. Lord knows Floyd Mayweather would fetch a high price to have his likeness adopted for a new boxing game full of the greats. But the lack of a high-quality fisticuffs simulator in this day and age truly stings. Fight Night Champion still holds a special place in our hearts due to its amazing roster, Full-Spectrum Punch Control mechanic, and excellent story mode. If EA is ever willing to break open its vault full of money to sign some modern-day boxing stars and past legends, then we’d truly appreciate their costly effort to bring the Fight Night series back into the limelight. Those EA Sports UFC games are cool and all, but we just want to stand and bang with the best of them in a well-crafted boxing sim once again.

2K Sports rules the basketball sim market with the annual NBA 2K franchise. NBA Live used to reign as the unbeatable king of digital hoops, but it was knocked off the top of the mountain and hasn’t recovered since. Instead of taking another ill-timed shot at revisiting the world of basketball simulators, we think it’d be better for EA to take it back to the streets. NBA Street, to be exact. The formula is so easy to revisit and bring to the appreciative masses once more - throw in a nice gathering of real-world NBA legends, get creative with some original street ballers, go overboard with the player customization features, and make sure those Gamebreakers are flashier than ever. A new NBA Street that offers its signature brand of on-court fun in an online setting would make our day, fam.

Yes, we hear you on this suggestion too. It would certainly take a whole lot of funds to make sure a majority of the premiere names in the rap game joined the roster for a new Def Jam fighting game. Today’s Def Jam roster includes expensive talents such as 2 Chainz, Big Sean, Dave East, Fabolous, Fredo Bang, etc. And then you have to consider all those non-label artists that would also make for great selectable characters. Honoring the past, present, and future of hip-hop with a new Def Jam brawler is a dream scenario that would be difficult to pull off. But the fans demand it and we need something truly remarkable to wash the stench of Def Jam: Icon away. All we want to do is pick Rick Ross and have a steel cage match with Fat Joe all over again, EA! Make it happen.

Getting one’s snowboarding fix through interactive media is pretty hard these days. There are games out there like Steep, plus new projects like Riders Republic are looking to scratch that snow shredding itch. But the king of all snowboarding games is still (in our humble opinion) the SSX series. From the very first game right up until the fourth, fans took great pleasure in pulling off outlandish tricks, grinding on pipes, and catching major air with a roster of charismatic snowboarders. The last two entries in the series sullied SSX’s good name and it’s about time that EA corrected that wrong. Ditch the survival elements of the reboot and get back to the arcadey feel fans fell in love with in the first place. If Tony Hawk and the gang can come back strong, so can Elise Riggs and the rest of the SSX crew.

Need for Speed shouldn’t be the only racing game that EA relies on nowadays. Wouldn’t it be nice if they gave the dormant Burnout franchise another try? Development studio Criterion Games once held the reins to the series and built up a legacy as the team that crafted the best car crash games of all time. They’re reportedly working on a new Need for Speed that’ll hit the streets sometime in 2022, but it’d be awesome if they returned to the racing game IP that brought them so much acclaim. The open-world format of Burnout Paradise worked before and it damn sure can work now. Burnout’s signature brand of outrageous car crashes, wild sense of speed, and a huge offering of playable events are due for a major return.

In 2019, Tripwire Interactive published the EQ-Games and Pixel Dash Studios developed motorcycle romp Road Redemption. It ended up impressing everyone that gave it a shot due to the fact that it felt like a spiritual successor to the Road Rash series. Zipping around the road as a part of a biker gang gave way to intense races full of vicious battles between rival racers. That winning formula still resonates today and it needs to be applied to a Road Rash reboot. A new entry in the series that adopts the feel of Freekstyle (remember that one?) and updates the look of past Road Rash games would make for a satisfying revival. Wait a minute - could a new Road Rash pull off a racing rendition of the battle royale genre? We could see it!

Shout out to Hazelight Studios and its always outspoken director Joseph Fares. They’ve done an amazing job of creating the sort of co-op games that produce memorable experiences that are heralded for their creative approach to gameplay. If EA ever makes the wise decision to bring Army of Two back, then they should reach out to Faris and his team to see if they’d be willing to apply their brand of co-op magic to the IP. Salem and Rios have been MIA for far too long, so now’s the perfect time to put them back on the battlefield for some double-duty shootouts. Hazelight Studios’ two-player magic could do wonders for the dormant Army of Two franchise.