BY KAT BAILEY
POSTED: SPET 16, 2024
Ahead of its Investor Day on September 17, EA revealed fresh details on its untitled Battlefield game alongside its first officially concept art, which IGN can exclusively reveal for the first time. IGN can also confirm that Battlefield will be returning to a modern setting after stints in World War I, World War II, and the near future.
While EA is cagey about specifics when it comes to the concept art, including declining to name of the city where its set (though it looks a lot like Italy, France, or somewhere else in Europe), it does include details that should stand out to longtime fans of the series. Among other things, it appears to suggest that ship-to-ship and helicopter combat will be part of the new game, and that it will feature natural disasters like wildfires. Its greyish color scheme is evocative of Battlefield 4, which remains one of the most popular games in the series despite being released a decade ago.
Battlefield goes back to basics
All of it points to a back-to-basics approach for the next Battlefield. Indeed, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella is quick to shout out Battlefield 3 and 4 in the course of sitting down with IGN to talk about these new reveals. On the decision to return to the modern era, Zampella says, "I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3... Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern. And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it's that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it's nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday...although I would say 1942 also."
The return to the modern setting represents a course correction for the series after Battlefield 2042, which eventually found its footing but was otherwise widely panned for features like Specialists — characters that made it seem as if Battlefield was trying to be a hero shooter. Its ambitious 128-player maps also proved unpopular with fans who preferred a more focused experience. Battlefield 2042 eventually went back to supporting 64 players per maps, and the next Battlefield plans to stick to that approach.
I'd rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good"
"Yeah, the 128 player, did it make it more fun? Like...doing the number for the sake of the number doesn't make any sense. We're testing everything around what's the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It's a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields," Zampella says. "I'd rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good. I can't wait for you to see some of them.
Specialists are also out this time around. "So I wasn't there for 2042. I don't know what the rationale was, but for me, it's like the team tried something new. You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn't work. It didn't fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we're going back to that," Zampella says.
He's careful to stress that Battlefield 2042 wasn't a "failure of a game" despite not doing as well as hoped. He notes that the development team "really spent a lot of time learning how to adapt it and getting things back." Still, he says, EA doesn't want a repeat of the experience it had with 2042. "We want it to be good out of the gate."
It adds up to what one might call classic Battlefield, but bigger — big enough that it merits the efforts of four separate studios in DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion (Ridgeline Games was briefly part of its development before being shuttered after founder Marcus Lehto's departure). EA CEO Andrew Wilson claims it's one of the "most ambitious projects in [EA's] history."
Nevertheless, Zampella remains vague on what all of that actually entails. "Yeah, it's definitely betting bigger on Battlefield. It's going in and expanding what Battlefield is. We have to have the core. The core Battlefield players know what they want. They've been with us forever, they've been amazing supporters. We need to earn their trust back and get them back on our side. And then it's expanding out and getting more players into the universe and seeing what we can do, so when you want a different experience, you don't have to leave Battlefield. You can experience more things within the Battlefield universe. So we're expanding the offerings that we're giving."
The road ahead for Battlefield
In the meantime, Activision Blizzard is planning to release Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 — Battlefield's traditional competitor. Where Battlefield has stumbled, Call of Duty has largely continued to thrive. It begs the question: will Battlefield ever outsell Call of Duty?
"If you look at the best Battlefields have outsold some Call of Duties and other way around, back and forth. So I think absolutely it can," Zampella says. [Note: While sales data is incomplete, the publicly available data for even weaker releases like Infinite Warfare has typically favored Call of Duty]. "I mean, is that what we're going for? I mean, not directly, but always. We're not looking to take down Call of Duty. We're making something that's different and we're making something that's us. But yeah, it definitely has the possibility."
On the subject of pushing into the transmedia space, where franchises like The Last of Us and Fallout have thrived (the latter taking home an Emmy Award over the weekend), Zampella demurs.
"There are definitely opportunities there. We've had some discussions, but it's not our core business. To me, that stuff, when it works, it's super cool... Like Arcane was f*cking great. But there's other ones that haven't worked as well and I won't name those, but you know what they are," he says. "It's a marketing opportunity of getting your franchise out there, and it's not core to what we're doing right now. So we are game first. That has to work. And if the right opportunity comes, absolutely, we'll look at it. And do we take meetings all the time? Sure. But it's not the core business. So it's that balance. I would love to see it. Right now, we're not looking at anything like that for Battlefield."
It's unclear when the next Battlefield will release, but there are signs that EA is ramping up for 2025, having entered full production earlier this year. According to Zampella, EA is "play testing the game every week" and plans to launch a community program next year, though it's unclear if it's a closed beta or something else.
I think we're in a really good place. Is it challenging? Of course, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't"
"We have a program that we're going to announce next year around getting more community in, because that's kind of the core of what we have to do — get the community back on our side, get that trust back," he says. "So I think we're in a really good place. Is it challenging? Of course, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't."
Whenever Battlefield eventually releases, it'll be a big test for the series, which has a lot to prove to fans after close to a decade since its last really successful entry. It'll be entering an unsettled console landscape, with Sony announcing the PS5 Pro last week, rumors of a next-gen Xbox, and Nintendo expected to announce the Switch 2 soon. Zampella is broadly taking a "we'll see" approach to both the PS5 Pro and the unannounced Switch 2, though he has some kind words for Nintendo in particular.
"I mean, since [Switch 2] isn't announced and it doesn't exist, I can't really comment on that. But I would say absolutely, Nintendo, along with Microsoft and Sony are great partners for us, are important to us on our business at EA, at Respawn, would love to see it," Zampella says. "We don't have anything to announce, but is there a world? Sure. We love them as partners. They've been great to us. I love the [Switch]."
One way or another, EA is betting a huge amount of time, money, and manpower on the idea that the multiplayer shooter space is ready for a shakeup. As for whether that bet will pay off, it sounds like we'll know sooner rather than later.
