EA has big plans for its next Battlefield game, which will reportedly go back to basics with a focus on a modern setting. In a new interview with IGN, Vince Zampella, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organisation, has called out Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 as major inspirations for the next game, as they were “the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield.”
“I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we’ll see where it goes from there,” Zampella said. ” I think for me, it’s that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it’s nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even.”
As revealed in new concept artwork, shared by IGN, it appears the next game will be set around a modern city, potentially somewhere in Europe. The artwork depicts various warships in the sea and helicopters in the sky, while an isolated town deals with bushfires, explosions, and all manner of chaos. The setting is not distinctly clear, but IGN has speculated it could be somewhere like Italy or France.
EA learned much from Battlefield 2042
In discussion, Zampella has made clear that EA has learned from the challenges of Battlefield 2042, which released to poor reviews and had a long road to improvement over time. He specifically called out elements like 128-player maps as being unnecessary, and claimed that “doing the number for the sake o the number doesn’t make much sense.”
Read: Battlefield 2042 Review – Everything and nothing
In the design of the next game, EA is instead focusing on what is most fun, with frequent testing to ensure maps remain fun, even as they expand.
“The maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It’s a different play space, and I think you have to design around that,” Zampella said. “So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields. I’d rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces.”
Zampella has also revealed a number of other tidbits about the upcoming game, including that Specialists won’t be coming back as they “didn’t work” and “didn’t fit” in 2042.
Four separate studios – DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect and Criterion – are all working on the upcoming game, with a view to make it bigger and better-rounded than its predecessors.
At this stage, EA is not ready to confirm when the game will release, but Zampella did announce plans to launching a community testing program in 2025, suggesting launch may be some way off. We could see the game releasing in later half of 2025, but for now that remains speculation.
As it stands, it appears Zampella and the wider EA team is very enthusiastic about the future, and that the next game will eclipse 2042. Over the last few years, the franchise developers have learned plenty of lessons about what works, and there’s hope this will be implemented effectively, for a worthy FPS sequel that harkens back to the glory days of Battlefield.
