After the mixed fortunes of Battlefield V, EA has confirmed that developer DICE is turning its attention to a new entry in the long-running franchise, presumably dubbed Battlefield 6, unless EA opts to pursue different nomenclature as it did with Battlefield 1.
Last week, an EA spokesperson confirmed that it was halting the creation of new content for both Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Battlefield V, with only skeleton teams working on community games and general maintenance as well as performance updates.
Battlefield V will receive one final content update this summer, but beyond that, players have no further significant updates to look forward to in the future. The bottom line is that these two titles are coming to the end of their lifecycle so that EA can redivert resources elsewhere.
Speaking to IGN, EA confirmed that ‘DICE is focused on the future of Battlefield,’ citing a 2021 release date seemingly confirming previous reports that a new game was planned to launch sometime in 2021 or 2022.
With this being the first official confirmation that a new Battlefield game is in the works, details about what players can expect as a setting or historical period are inexistent at this point in time.
What we do know is that EA and DICE are taking the most significant break to date from the previous yearly release cycle for the franchise. Battlefield V launched nearly eighteen months ago back in Autumn 2018. With a presumed release during the same period in 2021, we could be looking at a three-year gap between games.
As for the reasons for the lengthy development cycle, we don’t have to look far. Battlefield V weathered controversy as the game fell short of player expectations with a shifting release date, successive delays to content updates, and a poor sales performance. Multiple promises from DICE that it was working to redress the flailing game resulted in very little for players to sink their teeth into other than mediocre content updates.
With the cat now out of the bag, we can expect to hear more as we trudge towards a 2021 release, which will presumably be on next-generation consoles.