It’s been a rough stretch for the Battlefield franchise, and recent layoffs/studio closures at EA aren’t inspiring much confidence right now. Former Battlefield director Marcus Lehto (and head of the now-shuttered Ridgeline Games) jumped on Twitter/X recently and had this to say about him leaving EA.
One day after he announced his departure, EA joined countless other tech companies in announcing layoffs. Five percent of its global workforce was affected, and Ridgeline Games was also closed.
In the announcement covering the layoffs, EA’s Laura Miele touched on what was happening to Battlefield moving forward (specifically the single-player portion Lehto and Ridgeline were working on).
Marcus Lehto recently made a personal decision to leave the project. To ensure our work continues uninterrupted, we immediately appointed leadership at Criterion to oversee our single-player work. As part of this change, we’ll be winding down Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They’ll continue to work with teams across DICE, Ripple, and Criterion as they build the next Battlefield experience.
For a franchise struggling to find its way back to its glory days, the recent layoffs and Lehto’s comments aren’t what fans want to hear. But there are some glimmers of hope. Battlefield 2042’s most recent update is bringing players back to the game. On Steam, the game hit a peak player count of nearly 26,000 in the past 24 hours. That’s double its usual daily peaks.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest from Battlefield 2042, the game’s trailer team has you covered. We can always count on a badass trailer from these folks.
What about Battlefield’s future? According to EA’s most recent earnings release, the next game will not be released until at least 2025.