Thursday, February 29th 2024
EA Axes Star Wars FPS, Battlefield Single Player Project Reassigned to Criterion
This announcement was shared with EA Entertainment employees by Laura Miele, President of EA Entertainment and Technology: "Hi Everyone, over the past six months, you've heard me talk about aligning our portfolio and organization to deliver on our ambitious growth strategy. One of the essential parts of delivering on our plans is making sure we are listening to our players and investing in the games they want to play. As Andrew noted in his EA Action, the reality of a creative business is that market conditions and players' needs are always changing. We're seeing a rapid player shift toward large open-world games, massive communities, and live services. With that in mind, we have shared the following updates with our teams:"
Respawn:
Respawn's unique ability to connect with players and create exceptional game experiences is unrivaled in entertainment. As we've looked at Respawn's portfolio over the last few months, what's clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn's rich library of owned brands. Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games. It's always hard to walk away from a project, and this decision is not a reflection of the team's talent, tenacity, or passion they have for the game. Giving fans the next installments of the iconic franchises they want is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the right place to focus.Battlefield Studios:
Our vision for Battlefield is ambitious and exciting. The project is making meaningful progress, thanks to the strong leadership of Vince Zampella and Byron Beede and dedicated studios committed to building a Battlefield platform our fans will love. Today, we have the largest Battlefield team in the franchise's history, with passionate people in place across the globe and our studios organized to benefit from both franchise and local leadership.
Marcus Lehto recently made a personal decision to leave the project. To ensure our work continues uninterrupted, we immediately appointed leadership at Criterion to oversee our single-player work. As part of this change, we'll be winding down Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They'll continue to work with teams across DICE, Ripple, and Criterion as they build the next Battlefield experience.
Mobile:
Mobile continues to be the largest gaming platform and we see strong growth opportunities for EA, and the teams are more focused with a clearer strategy and priorities than ever before. Over the past six months, we have brought together the mobile and HD franchise teams under singular leadership across EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL, and The Sims. The next step is setting up our standalone mobile portfolio for growth. Over the past few weeks, we have announced we are sunsetting Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings, Tap Sports Baseball, and F1 Mobile. These games have entertained many people over the years, and it's the right time to focus our time on the remaining games in our portfolio which we believe can grow. We have some great titles, and I'm optimistic about where we can take our significant library of owned IP.
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. I will never lose sight of the human impact of these decisions and know that change and disruption aren't easy. In difficult moments, we must remember how important it is to show up for our players and for each other.
Source:
EA News
Respawn:
Respawn's unique ability to connect with players and create exceptional game experiences is unrivaled in entertainment. As we've looked at Respawn's portfolio over the last few months, what's clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn's rich library of owned brands. Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games. It's always hard to walk away from a project, and this decision is not a reflection of the team's talent, tenacity, or passion they have for the game. Giving fans the next installments of the iconic franchises they want is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the right place to focus.Battlefield Studios:
Our vision for Battlefield is ambitious and exciting. The project is making meaningful progress, thanks to the strong leadership of Vince Zampella and Byron Beede and dedicated studios committed to building a Battlefield platform our fans will love. Today, we have the largest Battlefield team in the franchise's history, with passionate people in place across the globe and our studios organized to benefit from both franchise and local leadership.
Marcus Lehto recently made a personal decision to leave the project. To ensure our work continues uninterrupted, we immediately appointed leadership at Criterion to oversee our single-player work. As part of this change, we'll be winding down Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They'll continue to work with teams across DICE, Ripple, and Criterion as they build the next Battlefield experience.
Mobile:
Mobile continues to be the largest gaming platform and we see strong growth opportunities for EA, and the teams are more focused with a clearer strategy and priorities than ever before. Over the past six months, we have brought together the mobile and HD franchise teams under singular leadership across EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL, and The Sims. The next step is setting up our standalone mobile portfolio for growth. Over the past few weeks, we have announced we are sunsetting Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings, Tap Sports Baseball, and F1 Mobile. These games have entertained many people over the years, and it's the right time to focus our time on the remaining games in our portfolio which we believe can grow. We have some great titles, and I'm optimistic about where we can take our significant library of owned IP.
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. I will never lose sight of the human impact of these decisions and know that change and disruption aren't easy. In difficult moments, we must remember how important it is to show up for our players and for each other.
- Laura
8 Comments on EA Axes Star Wars FPS, Battlefield Single Player Project Reassigned to Criterion
It'll be interesting to see what Battlefield becomes... I believe BF was also a brand through EA that didn't necessarily sell the way they expected based on prior games... but I could be wrong.
And yes, I know Criterion made Black and assisted on several BF titles, I am mostly just being snarky for the sake of it.
Folks - leave the social commentary to your pub chats.
What a load of crap, go back to making games and stop chasing trends.
If they'd stop getting high of the smell of their own feces they'd stop telling us what we want and listen and realize what players what really doesn't change. It's paradoxical, but I'm going to gloss over this by saying yes we like having the same thing consistently but at th same time we don't want a hundred sequels (EA/Activision) or the same exact game repackaged into 10 different titles (Ubisoft). Hence why every time something new and novel shows up in the indie creating waves aforementioned examples rush to adapt the idea into or create their own clones by the time they get something out the door interest in the concept has already waned, and everyone has already gone back to what they usually play. Black sucked, mind numbing is the best thing I could say about it. It felt like a tech demo, or proof of concept that they were working on in-house that got far enough along that they figured they might as well make a full release out of it.