Whereas there was a good bit of optimism relating to the subsequent main entry within the Battlefield franchise, a brand new report courtesy of Ars Technica signifies that every one won’t be nicely with the assorted growth groups engaged on the title. In keeping with the report, present and former workers from EA have indicated it’s confronted quite a lot of points, from budgets increasing an excessive amount of to main disruption.
Internally codenamed Glacier, the subsequent Battlefield is shaping as much as have the biggest price range of any recreation in the whole franchise. Again in 2023, it had a focused price range of over $400 million; setbacks and disruptions to manufacturing since then have additional ballooned this.
A significant supply of issues has been the participant quantity targets set by EA’s management for Glacier. The report signifies that the corporate has set a goal of 100 million or extra gamers over a set interval. This, the report notes, is in order that the corporate can compete with different main shooters out there – Name of Responsibility and Fortnite.
“Clearly, Battlefield has by no means achieved these numbers earlier than,” mentioned one EA worker. “It’s necessary to grasp that over about that very same interval, [Battlefield 2042] has solely gotten 22 million,” mentioned one other. Even 2016’s Battlefield 1—essentially the most profitable recreation within the franchise by numbers—had achieved “perhaps 30 million plus.”
Builders have additionally famous that there was skepticism within the groups relating to the price range, the goal participant numbers, and the way these prices are going to be recouped by EA. One developer mentioned that there may additionally be an issue of the market not having an urge for food for a Battlefield-styled shooter to fulfill the participant numbers with out cannibalizing the audiences for different video games.
“Among the many issues that we’re predicting is that we gained’t should cannibalize anybody else’s gross sales,” they mentioned. “That there’s simply such an urge for food on the market for shooters of this sort that we’ll simply naturally be capable to get the viewers that we’d like.”
The event troubles confronted by Glacier have additionally been affecting the sport’s skill to hit growth milestones – referred to internally at EA’s studios as “gates” – in a well timed method. Whereas the primary two of those “gates” revolve round pre-production work, together with prototyping and testing key applied sciences, gate three marks full manufacturing. Glacier was anticipated to move gate 3 in 2023 however ended up getting delayed fairly a bit.
“I didn’t see sturdy price range, workers plan, function record, danger planning, et cetera, as we left gate three,” mentioned one worker, questioning whether or not the mission ought to have been allowed to move the gate in any respect. Issues with the mission spanned from not having prototypes for key recreation methods and studio management not being in contact with the on-the-ground actuality of the mission’s growth.
“In the event you don’t have these issues fleshed out once you’re leaving pre-pro[duction], you’re simply going to be enjoying catch-up the whole time you’re in manufacturing,” mentioned a supply, in keeping with the report. For what it’s value, Glacier cleared gate 3 in Might 2025, with all of its options aside from its single-player marketing campaign having alpha builds.
The following Battlefield will launch by March thirty first, 2026 with a reveal deliberate this Summer season.
