EA is combining two of its biggest franchises with the announcement of a Dead Space crossover event coming to Battlefield 2042. The event runs for one week, starting on July 9, and features unlockable rewards and a new bundle.

What is the Battlefield 2042 Dead Space crossover?

Battlefield 2042’s Dead Space crossover event is called Outbreak and tasks players with surviving “a new and relentless enemy” in the Boreas laboratory. Rather than Necromorphs, the new enemies are more human in appearance and clearly the result of some manner of unethical experiments. They’re also not quite zombies, seemingly possessing the coordination to use guns and melee weapons in combat.

Players who participate in the Outbreak event can unlock rewards, including a new weapon charm, weapon skin, player card background, and tag. Meanwhile, the event also sees the arrival of the Dead Space Bundle to Battlefield 2042. It includes three legendary weapon skins and the Marked Man Operator outfit. The former transforms the player’s guns into weapons from the sci-fi horror trilogy, with the new outfit drawing inspiration from Isacc Clark’s iconic space suit. The bundle costs 2200 BFC from the game’s store.

Battlefield 2042 hasn’t had the best reception since it launched in 2021. The game received mixed reviews at release and an overwhelmingly negative reception from players. Developer DICE made hundreds of changes in subsequent updates to address the criticisms. EA also denied rumors in 2022 that it had reduced the game’s developer to a “skeleton crew.”  

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EA’s Ripple Effect Studios is working on a new Battlefield game, though we don’t have a release date or official title yet. However, the publisher announced that it hired two military veterans to improve the game’s authenticity.

What do we know about EA’s next Battlefield?

EA hasn’t revealed much about the next Battlefield game, though its development team is reportedly the series’ largest. The project draws talent from four studios: DICE, Criterion, Motive, and Ripple Effect. The latter recently hired two former military personnel through the Hire Our Heroes program. The development team will use their experience to make the next Battlefield game a more authentic experience.

Madison Daugherty’s military career began as an enlisted military police soldier before becoming a logistics officer and battalion operations officer. She was assigned to the Third Infantry Division, where she was the distribution platoon leader for 30 Blackhawk helicopters. “The best way to describe it is as the most expensive mobile gas station you’ve ever seen,” she explained on EA’s blog.

After a three-month fellowship with EA’s Battlefield team, she joined Ripple Effect as a Product Manager. “I have been able to give good feedback on what realistic military stuff looks like,” Daugherty said. “We’ve put together executive summaries on military realism.”

Meanwhile, Ripple Effect’s new Associate Game Manager, Aaron Johnson, is a former green beret and small unit tactics instructor. Johnson’s career saw him stationed everywhere, from Afghanistan to Japan and many other places. “I was there to manage the assault force and maneuver them on the ground at first,” he explained. “And so, when I was on the other side of that, I was the guy leading the charge somewhere.” Later, as an instructor, Johnson trained soldiers to move, shoot, and provide medical aid in combat.

However, after his long military career, Johnson is just as enthusiastic about game development. “I wanted to be part of the Battlefield team as much as I wanted to be a Green Beret,” he said. “When I got placed on that team, I cried tears of joy.”

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The directors of Dead Space Remake are forming a new team at EA Motive to help create the next Battlefield game. The game’s Executive Producer Philippe Ducharme and Creative Director Roman Campos-Oriola will lead the new team that will help DICE, Criterion, and Ripple Effect create the single-player and multiplayer Battlefield universe.

The next Battlefield game will likely be built on the Frostbite engine

Ducharme and Campos-Oriola have been chosen to lead the new EA Motive team because of “their proven expertise in storytelling, immersive battles, and developing on the Frostbite engine,” at least according to Motive’s GM Patrick Klaus. The specific mention of Frostbite seemingly hints that the next Battlefield game will be developed using that engine.

Few details are known about the next Battlefield game, although EA CEO Andrew Wilson has previously stated it will be a “reimagination” of the franchise with “content as a platform to drive live services over the decades to come.” Battlefield’s GM Byron Beede confirmed this will include connected multiplayer experiences and single-player.

While players wait for more details on the new game, Beede also detailed the future of Battlefield 2042. The game’s seventh season launched last month, bringing a new map, vehicle, and weapons. A revamped map based on the Stadium location from Hourglass, two themed events, a new weapon, and a new vehicle are due to arrive later in the season, but this will be the last seasonal content to be released.

Battlefield 2042 will still receive updates with bug fixes, new in-game challenges, events, and modes. However, the team is shifting its main resources and focus to the next Battlefield game.

Meanwhile, EA Motive will also continue to work on its Iron Man game, which is an “important priority” for the studio. The game recently hit a major internal milestone and is making excellent progress.

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Recently departed Battlefield director Marcus Lehto has said that he hasn’t commented on his resignation or the mass layoffs at Electronic Arts because he doesn’t “have anything positive to say” about the publisher. Lehto, who co-created the Halo franchise, was tasked to shape the next Battlefield game’s narrative. However, following his departure, his studio Ridgeline was shut down by EA.

Battlefield director’s departure was a “personal decision,” says EA

EA put out a statement following Lehto’s resignation, claiming that it was his “personal decision.” Lehto confirmed as much on Twitter, adding that the decision to leave EA “on my own accord” was “very tough.” He later seemed shocked by the closure of Ridgeline and the ousting of his entire team, calling it a “gut punch” and suggesting that he was not aware of EA’s plans to wind down the developer.

From the sound of things, EA and Lehto didn’t share the same vision for the future amid cost cutting exercises, prompting him to leave.

“To ensure our work continues uninterrupted, we immediately appointed leadership at Criterion to oversee our single-player work,” EA said of the next Battlefield game in late February.

Following the lackluster launch and reception of Battlefield 2042, EA said that the next Battlefield game will offer single-player narrative.

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Publisher Electronic Arts has announced another round of layoffs and restructuring, as a consequence of which Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars first-person shooter has been canceled. The company is also moving away from games based on licensed IP, choosing instead to focus on its own IP and sports franchises. As part of the restructuring process, Battlefield studio Ridgeline Games is also shutting down.

Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi games are safe

In a press release, EA executive Laura Miele said that Respawn’s Star Wars FPS was in early development, and moving away from the project wasn’t an easy decision to make. However, the publisher determined that the Jedi series and “new projects based on our owned brands,” like Apex Legends, is the “right place to focus.”

As for Ridgeline Games, the recently-established developer was led by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto. Interestingly, Lehto departed Ridgeline earlier this week but appears to have had no knowledge of EA’s plans. He tweeted that the news of Ridgeline’s closure as EA lays off nearly 700 employees is a “gut punch.”

Ridgeline was working on the next Battlefield’s campaign. The game’s development is “making meaningful progress,” according to EA.

“It’s not lost on me that these changes are more than words on a page; they directly impact the work you do every day and, in some cases, mean we are eliminating roles and saying goodbye to talented colleagues,” Miele wrote. “I will never lose sight of the human impact of these decisions and know that change and disruption aren’t easy.”

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Need for Speed and Burnout developer Criterion Games has been moved from EA Sports to the EA Entertainment, where it will assist on upcoming games in the Battlefield franchise. The move comes on the heels of some high-profile departures from Criterion following the release of Need for Speed Unbound in late 2022.

Criterion Games joins the EA Entertainment group under Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella

News of the unexpected move was shared by GamesIndustry.biz, with an EA representative telling the site that no layoffs are planned as part of Criterion Games’ reshuffled role. The EA Entertainment division under which Criterion Games will now be working was formed earlier this year after the publishing giant split the EA Sports brand from its other gaming properties. As part of the EA Entertainment, Criterion Games will now be working under Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella.

Explaining the reasoning behind the move in a blog post on EA’s site, Zampella states that Criterion Games will help usher in a “new era for the [Battlefield] franchise.” The majority of Criterion’s employees will be working with other EA studios like DICE as the publisher begins pre-production on what it describes as a “connected Battlefield Universe.” In addition to working on upcoming Battlefield titles, Criterion will also provide assistance with ongoing updates to Battlefield 2042. While much of the team will now be tasked with working on the Battlefield franchise, Zampella’s post notes that work will still continue on new Need for Speed games.

While Criterion is most well-known for its work on the Need for Speed and Burnout franchises, the developer is no stranger to the Battlefield series. In 2021 the studio was tapped to support EA DICE on the development of Battlefield 2042, leading to a year-long delay for Need for Speed Unbound. Moving such a high-profile developer to its military shooter series is in line with statements made by EA in 2022 indicating that the publisher was taking a “long view” of the Battlefield franchise following what some fans have decried as a drastic drop in quality for recent entries.  

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Electronic Arts has announced that it’s shutting down servers for a number of PS3 and Xbox 360 games, including Crysis 3 and Dead Space 2. EA will stagger the closures, but all servers will shut down by December 2023.

Dead Space 2 among numerous PS3 titles being shut down this year

As spotted by PureXbox, EA’s announcement was tucked away in a lengthy list of games whose multiplayer components have been shut down over the years. Among the “new” entries are a number of FIFA games as well as Dante’s Inferno.

Here’s what’s shutting down before the end of the year:

• Battlefield 1943 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Battlefield Bad Company for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Crysis 3 for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One (backwards compatibility), Steam and EA App
• Dante’s Inferno on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360
• Dead Space 2 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• FIFA 18 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
• FIFA 19 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
• FIFA 20 for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
• FIFA 21 for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5

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Battlefield fans are already worried about the yet-to-be-announced new game after EA CEO Andrew Wilson provided an update on the title in a recent earnings call. According to Wilson, the next Battlefield will be a “reimagination” of the franchise.

Why fans are worried about the new Battlefield game

Wilson said that Electronic Arts is aiming for Battlefield to be a “truly connected ecosystem.” Fans are concerned because the company made similar statements in the past, only for Battlefield 2042 to land with a thud. EA eventually admitted that it failed to meet fan expectations.

“We’re hard at work on a new experience from The Sims that will transform what players can do with creativity, a sprawling action-adventure Iron Man game, a reimagination of Battlefield as a truly connected ecosystem, and the expansion of the Apex Legends universe across platforms, geographies, and modalities of play,” Wilson said (via SeekingAlpha).

Despite Battlefield 2042’s shortcomings, EA believes that DICE has turned the game around. Previously, Wilson said that the next game will be “a meaningful part” of EA’s future.

At the moment, it’s unclear what any of this means. The upcoming title has yet to be unveiled and only time will add context to Wilson’s comments.

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Electronic Arts opened up about the next Battlefield game in its quarterly financial conference call, hinting at what the future of the series may look like.

When is the new Battlefield game coming out?

In its conference call (via TechRaptor), Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson spoke briefly about the future of the Battlefield franchise. According to Wilson, the next Battlefield game will be a big part of EA’s future, and he’s excited about what’s coming together for the game, praising the leadership team they’ve put together for the title.

“I think we’ve put together an extraordinary creative leadership team,” said Wilson of the next Battlefield game. “We’ve got the team gathering actually this week in Sweden. I had a call this morning with some of the leadership and they’re very bullish on how that’s progressing. I think we’ve got extraordinary confidence in that team and extraordinary confidence in the progress they’re making against the future of that franchise.”

Wilson went on to say that the team behind the next Battlefield game isn’t building just a game, but instead “a platform” in order to continue to “drive live services over the decades to come.” However, he wouldn’t much more beyond that, noting that they will share more as the time comes.

“We’re not just building a game. We’re building a platform, content as a platform to drive live services over the decades to come,” Wilson said. “And so, as we continue to move through this process and become appropriate will share more about the future of Battlefield, but it is firmly implanted in that first pillar of our strategy, building games and experiences that attract and entertain massive online communities across platforms. across business models, and across geographies and we think that Battlefield is going to be a meaningful part of our future, and will share more as time progresses.”

The last Battlefield game to release, Battlefield 2042, launched in 2021 to negative reviews due to the game’s technical issues and various lack of features. However, through updates over the past year and a half, fans have slowly returned to the game.

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A rumor has been circulating on Reddit that Electronic Arts will pull the plug on Battlefield 2042 support sometime in late 2023, a year ahead of the next game’s launch. However, EA’s Marcus Lehto has said that the “leak” is “total bull****.”

Battlefield 2042 support and updates will continue in 2023

The latest rumor apparently came from a disgruntled former employee who claimed that the new Battlefield game is targeting a fall 2024 release. They also shared paragraphs upon paragraphs of details that concerned series’ fans. Lehto, who is in charge of the next Battlefield’s narrative, was quizzed about the leak by a follower, to which he said:

Yeah, don’t trust leaks dude. Total BS

— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) February 27, 2023

EA and DICE have previously said that they’re dedicated to Battlefield 2042 despite the game’s rocky launch and subsequent issues. The game will continue to get post launch updates and support throughout 2023, as detailed in a roadmap that was shared late last year.

That said, EA has admitted that Battlefield 2042 “strayed a little too far” and is committed to bringing back a game that includes a traditional campaign and multiplayer features that fans love.

Plans to unveil the next Battlefield game have not been announced yet.

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