After the critical and commercial failure of Battlefield 2042, EA aimed to bounce back with a bang. The plan was bold: a free-to-play battle royale, a six-hour solo campaign, classic multiplayer modes, and a community-driven Portal experience — all designed to attract a staggering 100 million players. For reference, Battlefield 1, the series’ most successful title, never came close to that mark.

To steer the ship, EA brought in industry legends like Byron Beede (ex-Call of Duty) and Marcus Lehto (co-creator of Halo). However, tensions quickly flared between the American-led vision and the more cautious Swedish studio DICE. This cultural rift led to distrust, shifting priorities, and ultimately chaos. By 2024, the Ridgeline studio (handling the campaign) shut down, Lehto left, and the entire story mode had to be restarted — already two years behind schedule.

The game’s budget ballooned past $400 million, and hundreds of new developers were added to the project. With unrealistic deadlines and non-stop crunch, burnout spread across teams, forcing many into sick leave. EA’s internal layoffs in 2024 only deepened the morale crisis. Today, developers expect to ship unfinished features post-launch through season passes and suspect a massive day-one patch is inevitable.

Battlefield’s journey mirrors the broader AAA industry’s unraveling: big promises, bigger budgets, and unsustainable pressure. Critics like Swen Vincke (Baldur’s Gate III) are calling for slower, smarter development — a plea that EA may have ignored in its race to catch up. Whether this next Battlefield will save the franchise or sink it further remains an open question.