EA hypes up the next Battlefield ahead of its June reveal

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said that he believes the next Battlefield game coming later this year to the consoles and PC will be “spectacular.”

EA now has multiple studios working on Battlefield — DICE in Stockholm, Sweden; Criterion in the United Kingdom, DICE L.A.; and a technology team in EA Gothenberg, Sweden. Wilson made the “spectacular” comment and fielded more questions about Battlefield in EA’s analyst call for its fourth fiscal quarter ending March 31.

“We are realizing the next phase of growth in our vision for Battlefield with two new experiences launching in FY22. Three world-class studios – DICE Stockholm, Criterion and DICE L.A. – and our technology team in Gothenburg now form our largest-ever Battlefield development team,” Wilson said on the call. “They are working in lock-step to deliver the definitive next-gen experience for Battlefield fans.”

He added, “The game has everything fans love about Battlefield — epic scale, all-out warfare, unexpected moments and game-changing destruction — and takes it all to the next level through the power of next-gen consoles and PCs. We’re excited to reveal the game to fans next month and share a lot more about the game throughout the summer. We also have a Battlefield game for mobile platforms in development at Industrial Toys, in close partnership with DICE.”

He said Industrial Toys’ mobile Battlefield is in testing now.

“We’re looking forward to players around the world getting their hands on this innovative Battlefield experience later in FY22,” Wilson said. “As I mentioned before, our strategy is to grow Battlefield as we have with our other blockbuster franchises like FIFA and Apex — best-in-class gameplay, deeply-engaging live service, a new mobile experience, and more ways to play that we will introduce to reach more players all over the world.”

Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said the unreleased trailer for the game blew him away, and he believes players will engage with the game for a long time.

Wilson said the team has had unrivaled ambition in building the game.

Meanwhile, EA has also engaged mobile game studio Industrial Toys in Pasadena, California, to make a mobile version of Battlefield for launch in 2022. It’s a growing sign of mobile’s importance to traditional triple-A game publishers as the biggest revenue generator among game platforms. And it shows EA’s own efforts to make big moves into mobile games, as the publisher recently bought Glu for $2.4 billion.

The free-to-play mobile game will be a good way to ramp up the number of players for the Battlefield franchise, and hopefully EA will be able to upsell those people to the premium game for the PC and consoles. Rival Activision Blizzard has done that, using free-to-play Call of Duty: Mobile and Call of Duty: Warzone to upsell players to Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War.

Jorgensen said that guidance is for high expectations for Battlefield, and he thinks that will be very achievable. He said there is financial conservatism in the forecast about Battlefield.

“We know the title is going to be very strong,” he said.