When Battlefield 2042 launches in October, it will be the first new entry in the series in nearly three years, raising the question: is that the new normal? Given the rising costs of game development and the industry’s move toward long-tail live-service games, is the old Battlefield schedule out the window every two years? Well, not necessarily.
During EA’s most recent earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson was asked if a biennial schedule would return for Battlefield, and he said it would. That said, EA is also viewing Battlefield as a more complex live service, with new “free-to-enter” options and more…
Do we think Battlefield will return to a launch every two years? I’d say — I think that’s our orientation. But more importantly, I think you should think of Battlefield as a service. What we announced, what we are doing for the launch of this game is really revolutionizing and reinventing what all our epic warfare is in the context of gameplay. In addition, you’ve heard our Battlefield Portal announce, which is really starting to rely on user-generated content and will encourage deep, long-term engagement in the game. And while we’ve announced Hazard Zone, we haven’t disclosed much about what’s going on there, and you’ll be hearing more about that in the coming months,
This really sets the stage for what we believe to be the future of a live service around Battlefield, which over time will include a mobile launch, some free-to-enter components, and the nature of what’s happening from launch to launch will really change. So that while — and launching every two years probably makes sense when we think about it today — we’re really focused on 365-day engagement with the franchise at the platform level on whatever device consumers want to play on.
So, in other words, EA looks at Call of Duty, with its lucrative combination of free-to-play Warzone, regular premium CoD releases, and mobile, and says, “we want some of that.” It’ll be interesting to see how all the parts will work together, but it’s clear that a more versatile (and profitable) Battlefield live service is being built.
Battlefield 2042 launches on October 22 on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5.
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