EA CEO Andrew Wilson had confirmed the publisher would be willing to delay its next Battlefield – currently expected to release before April 2026 – if “some things happening in the year” meant that “wasn’t a great window for us”.
Battlefield’s recently announced launch window is, of course, absolutely stuffed with major releases, with the likes of Borderlands 4, Mafia: The Old Country, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yōtei, and Fable all currently aiming to launch in the same timeframe. And that’s without considering the juggernaut release of Grand Theft Auto 6, which is still officially arriving this “autumn” despite persistent rumours of a potential delay – a release window other publishers appear reluctant to commit to until Rockstar makes its plans known.
So there’s fierce competition for eyeballs and wallets ahead – something Wilson acknowledged in a response to an investor question regarding the new Battlefield’s launch window in its latest financial call. “I do believe that this year might be a nuanced year relative to competition,” he admitted. “There may be some things happening in the year that may cause us to think differently about our launch timing.”
Wilson also noted EA has “invested more in this Battlefield than any Battlefield before… We’re looking for this to be the biggest Battlefield we’ve ever made.” As such, the publisher “[wants] to make sure that we launch that into a window where we can deliver on the fullness of the promise of what Battlefield can be and grow the community to a level that is commensurate with the size of the game that we’re making.”
And while the publisher believes its new Battlefield “will be great and ready” for release in Financial Year 26, Wilson admitted, “If we got close to that timeframe and believed that this wasn’t going to be a great window for us, then we would take a look at what an alternate window might be that would give us the appropriate time, energy, and player acquisition opportunity for this Battlefield to be all that it needed to be.”
EA has, of course, been investing heavily in its new Battlefield instalment, with a huge group of developers spanning four of its teams – DICE, Ripple Effect, Motive, and Criterion – now working on the game. That’s as it seeks to “get the community back on [its] side” following the poorly received Battlefield 2042 – which quickly became one of Steam’s worst-reviewed games of all time after its launch in 2021, and was later acknowledged to have flopped.
EA has already promised a return to the modern era for Battlefield’s next outing, alongside traditional classes and more focused maps as it attempts to win series fans back. And with so much riding on the new Battlefield if the franchise is going to survive, release timing will be a significant consideration. Even so, EA’s hype machine is already gaining momentum ready for the new Battlefield’s arrival, with the publisher recently unveiling its new Battlefield Labs community testing initiative alongside first footage of the game.