Electronic Arts is getting ready to lay off upwards of six percent of its workforce, as the company restructures its game portfolio. The company had some 12,900 employees globally in March 2022 according to Games Industry.biz and should as such be laying off some 775 employees. This is far less than we've seen from other companies and it won't affect all of EA's subsidiaries equally. The EA CEO—Andew Wilson—sent out a memo to the company employees that have been posted publicly on EA's website. It seems like EA will make the cuts fairly quickly, as the company is expected to be done informing affected employees sometime early in its next fiscal year, which starts on April first.

It's unclear exactly where EA will be making the cuts and according to Games Industry.biz the company has already trimmed some 200 employees that were working in support, most of them specifically supporting Apex Legends. That said, Apex Legends, EA Sports FIFA 23 and The Sims are the only games mentioned in the announcement, so presumably those titles are safer than others. At the same time, TPU spoke to a contact at a different EA subsidiary and there had been no mention of any redundancies there and the person in question works on another successful series of games. We'll have to wait and see if EA drops any projects the company is working on or if some titles end up being discontinued earlier than expected, due to lack of support from the teams that built the games. Regardless, EA is about to re-focus on what should be its more successful titles, which may or may not be a successful strategy for the company.

As we close in on 15 years since the release of Battlefield 1943, and Bad Company 1 & 2, we are announcing that their journey is coming to an end. Starting April 28 2023, Battlefield 1943, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 & 2 will be removed from digital storefronts and you will no longer be able to purchase them.

This is in preparation for the retirement of the online services for these titles which will happen on December 8 2023. For Bad Company 1 and 2, you can still continue playing them and use their respective offline features, such as the single player campaign. You can also read our FAQ and Service Updates for further information on the retirement of online services.

Update 14:17 UTC: EA updated their press release this morning, to clarify that the inclusion of Mirror's Edge was an error. They stated via Twitter: "We currently have no plans to remove Mirror's Edge from digital storefronts."

Electronic Arts has released the official story trailer for its upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game, that is scheduled to launch on April 28th. The new trailer not only shows the story behind the new Star Wars game but also has some in-game parts.

Developed by Respawn Entertainment in cooperation with Lucasfilm Games, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a third-person, action-adventure game, set five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and puts the player again in the role of Cal Kestis, who has now grown into a powerful Jedi Knight.

This coming week's games have something of a horror theme with a remake of a horror game from 2005, which is also this week's AAA title. Two of the games are even in VR, which could cause some further excitement compared to a regular horror game. Overall it's not a super exciting week for new game releases, unless you're into horror themed games that is.

Resident Evil 4 / This week's Remake & AAA title / Thursday 24 March
Survival is just the beginning. Six years have passed since the biological disaster in Raccoon City. Leon S. Kennedy, one of the survivors, tracks the president's kidnapped daughter to a secluded European village, where there is something terribly wrong with the locals. And the curtain rises on this story of daring rescue and gruelling horror where life and death, terror and catharsis intersect.

It's a thrilling GFN Thursday with GRID Legends racing to the cloud this week. It leads a total of eight new games expanding the GeForce NOW library. New content for Rainbow Six Siege is also now streaming. Plus, two new cities are now online with GeForce RTX 4080 performance for cloud gaming. Chicago and Montreal have completed upgrades to RTX 4080 SuperPODs, delivering next-generation cloud streaming to GeForce NOW Ultimate members.

AMD has released its latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon graphics cards. With support dating back to RX 400, the latest Adrenalin 23.3.1 WHQL drivers bring a lot of improvements to the table, as well as support for Halo Infinite Ray Tracing Update and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. Most importantly, the new driver has a series of fixes, including intermittent driver timeout, system freeze, or BSOD, with the latest Radeon RX 7000 series. Problems in games such as Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23 and Dying Light 2 lighting effects corruption have been fixed. As far as Radeon RX 6000 series goes, this driver release manages to fix corruption in certain scenes with ray tracing enabled observed in the Returnal game. Check the list below for the entire set of changes.Download: AMD Radeon Graphics Drivers 23.3.1 WHQL here.

The PCI Resizable BAR feature can have a major impact on the performance of "Dead Space" (the 2023 reboot). sxKYLE on Reddit discovered that his GeForce RTX 4080 "Ada" experienced a major performance jump from 76 FPS up to 111 FPS (+46%) with resizable BAR enabled. NVIDIA Profile Inspector was used to enable resizable BAR for the game. The feature allows the CPU to see the graphics card's video memory as a single, continuously-addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. We can imagine how "Dead Space" in particular could benefit from the feature, as the game's campaign is a single continuous action sequence with assets being constantly streamed to the GPU (and no level load screens).

The galaxy is more dangerous than ever as the next chapter in Cal Kestis' journey begins. Today at The Game Awards, Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games revealed that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on March 17, 2023. During the annual awards show, a first look at gameplay was premiered in a new Official Reveal trailer showcasing Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) as a stronger and more experienced Jedi Knight while setting up the threats that await him. The veteran team at Respawn Entertainment is developing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the latest generation of gaming hardware to deliver action-packed Jedi combat with the deepest exploration and cinematic gameplay in the series.

"Star Wars Jedi: Survivor evolves the gameplay, story, and exploration from Fallen Order in every way," said Stig Asmussen, game director, Respawn. "Responsive and powerful combat makes players feel like a true Jedi Knight, with new lightsaber skills and Force abilities that add additional layers of strategy to each enemy encounter, and worlds that are filled with environmental challenges that must be overcome to unveil the mysteries within."

Electronic Arts Inc. today announced it is collaborating with Marvel on a long-term deal to develop at least three new action adventure games that will be available for consoles and PC. Each of these games will be their own original story set in the Marvel universe with the first title in-development being a single player, third person, action-adventure Iron Man game coming out of Motive Studios.

"We have been long-time fans of Marvel and their impressive leadership, so this is a remarkable moment for our developers as well as our players and fans," said Laura Miele, COO at EA. "We look forward to welcoming Marvel into the EA family of creators and know this collaboration will produce exceptional experiences for our players. We can't wait to see players' reactions when they suit up as Iron Man and do the extraordinary things this Super Hero is known for."

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. and KOEI TECMO officially unveiled WILD HEARTS, a new kind of hunting game featuring unique crafting mechanics, coming February 17, 2023 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Origin, Steam and Epic Game Store. Published under the EA Originals label and developed by Omega Force, the team behind the popular WARRIORS series, WILD HEARTSwhisks players away on an epic adventure set in fantasy feudal Japan. There, they'll battle against giant nature-infused beasts called Kemono with the help of Karakuri, sophisticated mechanisms crafted from a lost, ancient technology.

"WILD HEARTSopens up a vibrant fantasy world to players that's as untamed as it is beautiful," said Yosuke Hayashi, Executive Vice President of KOEI TECMO GAMES CO, LTD. "With WILD HEARTS, not only did we want to showcase the evolution, infusion and real threat caused by Kemono, but we also wanted to create a game where crafting was at the core of the experience, redefining what can be possible in a beast hunting game. We have placed great care in designing our Karakuri to fit within the combat, and we're excited for players to use these powerful mechanisms to fight giant beasts and traverse the world."

Motive, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced during their Crafting the Tension Art Developer Livestream that Dead Space will officially launch on January 27, 2023 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Dead Space is a remake of the classic sci-fi survival horror game that is being rebuilt from the ground up leveraging the Frostbite game engine. Still remaining true to the original game's thrilling vision, the remake offers enhanced audio and crisp, harrowing visuals that have been carefully reimagined to evoke a new level of immersion and quality.

"Developing this remake has been a lot of fun for us at Motive, as we're true fans of the franchise and want to treat it with the respect it deserves. It's been equally exciting to see players' reactions as we're taking them on this development journey with us," said Phillippe Ducharme, Senior Producer of Dead Space. "We're making great progress on our road to hitting Alpha and we're happy to announce that the game will be launching in January next year. We can't wait for players, both old and new, to see how we've elevated the original experience in the remake to be just as impactful for this generation."

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. announced its world-famous football games will move forward under a new EA SPORTS FC brand in 2023. The move will enable EA to deliver the world's biggest interactive sports experience for its growing community in collaboration with 300+ partners across the world of football. EA SPORTS FC will be the platform for EA to innovate, create, and grow new experiences. It will bring more areas of the sport to life, and harness the collective strength of more than 150 million players across EA SPORTS' global football games - and reach hundreds of millions of new fans in the years to come.

"Our vision for EA SPORTS FC is to create the largest and most impactful football club in the world, at the epicenter of football fandom," said Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson. "For nearly 30 years, we've been building the world's biggest football community - with hundreds of millions of players, thousands of athlete partners, and hundreds of leagues, federations, and teams. EA SPORTS FC will be the club for every one of them, and for football fans everywhere." EA SPORTS FC brings the strength of more than 300 individual licensed partners, giving players access to more than 19,000 athletes across 700 teams, in 100 stadiums and over 30 leagues around the world. Through EA SPORTS FC, EA will further grow the reach and power of its football licensing portfolio by retaining and expanding the licensed football content, scaling to new experiences, and increasing access through more platforms. EA will also build on a foundation of inclusivity and innovate in new areas around both women's and grassroots football for the global community.

Codemasters and Electronic Arts Inc. today deliver GRID Legends, an all-action, edge-of-your-seat driving experience that gives players cross-platform multiplayer gameplay, story mode, deep career, and a faster route to connect with friends. Courtesy of the revolutionary hop-in gameplay mechanic, players can now jump to the action in seconds without waiting in lobbies. This function also extends to the expanded Career, with each player rewarded based on their performance. Further innovations include an intuitive Race Creator allowing players to build their ultimate racing match-ups, and 'Driven to Glory', an epic motorsport story with players competing for the GRID World Series against a formidable line-up of racing superstars.

GRID Legends revamped in-race choreographer means no race is ever the same. Unique AI driver personalities create unpredictable racing at every turn, so players must expect the unexpected. AI vehicles jostle for position and take risks to stay ahead. The living, breathing world can produce unpredictable moments such as crashes, engine blow-outs or cars flipping in front of you. GRID Legends also takes players to every corner of the globe across the 130 routes at launch, including real-life tracks such as Brands Hatch and Indianapolis, to iconic city circuits like Dubai and London.

MAINGEAR—an award-winning PC system integrator of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations—today announced that new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics cards are now available to configure within MAINGEAR's product line of award-winning custom gaming desktop PCs and workstations. Featuring support for real-time ray tracing effects and AI technologies, MAINGEAR PCs equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 offer gamers next-generation ray-traced graphics and performance comparable to the latest consoles.

Powered by Ampere, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 features NVIDIA's 2nd gen Ray Tracing Cores and 3rd generation Tensor Cores. Combined with new streaming multiprocessors and high-speed G6 memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 can power the latest and greatest games. NVIDIA RTX on 30 Series GPUs deliver real-time ray tracing effects—including shadows, reflections, and Ambient Occlusion (AO). The groundbreaking NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) 2.0 AI technology utilizes Tensor Core AI processors to boost frame rates while producing sharp, uncompromised visual fidelity comparable to high native resolutions.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Lucasfilm Games are joining forces to continue delivering all-new, world-class gaming experiences set within the beloved Star Wars galaxy. Respawn Entertainment, best known for their work on Apex Legends, Titanfall and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is leading the development and production of these new projects. Vince Zampella, Group GM and Founder of Respawn, will oversee this new phase of EA's relationship with Lucasfilm, building on Respawn's award-winning history in game development and expertise in telling compelling Star Wars stories.

Game Director Stig Asmussen and his team at the studio are already working on the next game in the action adventure Star Wars Jedi series, and are joined by two new teams working to deliver additional unique Star Wars gameplay experiences across multiple genres. Leading the development of Respawn's all-new Star Wars first-person shooter game is Peter Hirschmann, Game Director at Respawn, who has a long and accomplished history with the Star Wars franchise. The third title is a Star Wars strategy game developed through a production collaboration with the newly formed studio Bit Reactor, helmed by games industry veteran Greg Foerstch. Respawn will produce the new Star Wars strategy game while Bit Reactor leads on the development of the title.

Battlefield Portal is a community-driven platform within Battlefield 2042 that will let you create and find fantastic experiences made by the series' creative and passionate community. The creation suite includes Settings, custom modes, and a Logic Editor so you can build your own signature spin on Battlefield's sandbox; you'll be able to change team ratios, tweak victory conditions, restrict weapons, and even put different factions from different eras in Battlefield's history against one another. Those who want to focus on discovering what others have created will have easy access to an entire world of unexpected battles featuring some of the series' most famous eras mashed together in distinct, exciting experiences.

On top of the content available in Battlefield 2042, Battlefield Portal also lets you play with maps, weapons, vehicles, and more from some of Battlefield's greatest experiences, all reimagined at modern visuals. We're excited for you to be able to relive content from Battlefield 1942, Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.

Netflix seems to be closer to coalescing its gaming vision, as the company just hired former EA and Oculus exec Mike Verdu as Vice President of game development. Netflix aims to offer not only streaming video content, but also a gaming pass subscription that ties into its monthly subscription philosophy. Bloomberg says that Netflix might add game streaming to its library as soon as next year - just as if they were another content category, and at no extra charge, which would make sense from a market penetration perspective.

Netflix is still in the hiring process for its gaming team, even though the company prefers to list job openings without employing the word "gaming", choosing instead to market it as "interactive experiences". It remains to be seen what will come from these efforts; another games developer with deep pockets such as Netflix would surely be welcome into this space, especially considering the breadth of Netflix-developed IPs. However, as we've seen with Google's gaming development efforts, deep pockets don't solve all the problems related to delivering compelling gaming experiences. But who would say no to a good Stranger Things interactive experience?

Electronic Arts Inc., today introduced EA SPORTS FIFA 22, featuring next-gen HyperMotion technology that brings the football's most realistic and immersive gameplay experience to life, in every match and across every mode on next-gen consoles and Stadia. FIFA 22 will be available worldwide on October 1 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Origin and Steam, Stadia, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Powered by HyperMotion, FIFA 22 combines Advanced 11v11 Match Capture and proprietary machine learning technology to deliver the most realistic, fluid and responsive football experience for next-gen consoles and Stadia, unlocking the raw emotion, passion and physicality of the world's game. HyperMotion technology enabled the integration of the first-ever motion capture of 22 professional footballers playing at high intensity. Additionally, EA's proprietary machine learning algorithm learns from more than 8.7 million frames of advanced match capture, then writes new animations in real time to create organic football movement across a variety of interactions on the pitch. Whether it's a shot, pass or cross, HyperMotion transforms how players move on and off the ball.

EA DICE on Tuesday named NVIDIA as the official partner for Battlefield 2042 on the PC platform. To gamers, this means that Battlefield 2042 will feature support for NVIDIA DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex. DLSS integration will allow gamers to increase performance with minimal loss to image quality, while NVIDIA Reflex integration will be key to the game's online multiplayer component, as it works to cut down input latency. There is no word on whether Battlefield 2042 will feature RTX real-time raytracing, but given that Battlefield V was the pioneering title for RTX, some form of raytracing for Battlefield 2042 cannot be ruled out.

Among the other companies named as partners by EA DICE are Xbox Series X/S, as the "official console partner." Logitech has been named the official gaming peripherals partner, which means we'll see plenty of Battlefield 2042 co-branded gear from Logitech G. Western Digital, specifically its WD_Black brand, is the storage partner, with co-branded SSDs and external storage devices on the anvil, both for PC and Xbox Series X/S.

Since teaming up with Electronic Arts, we've been working to provide Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC members an EA Play membership at no additional cost. We want to thank the PC community for your patience over the past few months as we worked to deliver a better Xbox App experience for EA Play. We're excited to share with you that starting tomorrow, March 18 at 2:00 p.m. PT, Xbox Game Pass PC and Ultimate members will be able to enjoy all the benefits of EA Play on Windows 10.

These benefits include access to more than 60 of EA's biggest and best PC games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, FIFA 20, Titanfall 2, and Need for Speed Heat, as well as titles from some of EA's most popular franchises like Battlefield, Madden NFL, Command & Conquer, and The Sims. You also receive exclusive in-game challenges and rewards, special member-only content, and discounts on EA digital purchases via the EA Desktop app beta. Xbox Game Pass with EA Play also includes the option to trial games for up to 10 hours from best-loved franchises and top titles like FIFA 21. Finally starting on day one of EA Play on PC with Xbox Game Pass, members can play the new-to-Play List title Star Wars: Squadrons on PC and console.

Silver Rain Games, an interactive entertainment development studio co-founded by BAFTA-nominated actor and producer Abubakar Salim has signed a major deal with Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) EA Originals Label, which is dedicated to elevating bold independent studios. EA Originals will provide funding for the up-and coming studio's unannounced IP, as well as guidance and support in the team's journey to bring a fresh perspective to games and to the industry.

Silver Rain, which is based in the U.K., was co-founded in December 2019 by Salim, best known for his role on HBO's hit show Raised by Wolves, alongside Melissa Phillips, who will lead as Head of Studio, who previously worked as the BAFTA Games Programme manager on BAFTA Games programs and events. The company was launched with the intent to generate thought-provoking and innovative games and content across different mediums of entertainment. Since its inception late last year, the studio has quickly grown to approximately 20 staff members, who all currently work remotely.

In the spirit of transparency and closure we wanted to share that we've made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT). We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today. Since Anthem's launch, the team has been working hard to continually improve the game, releasing multiple updates that brought with them a variety of improvements and introduced new content to play. Towards the end of 2019 we expanded on that effort and started working on a more fundamental restructure of the game.

During the development we've provided updates revealing some of the team's work through blog posts and conversations with you on social media and it's been inspiring for us to see the positive reactions and feedback. I've been incredibly proud of the work the team has been doing, and excited to see and play each new build of the experience.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), a global leader in interactive entertainment, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Codemasters for 604 pence (approximately US$8.37) in cash for each ordinary share of Codemasters with an implied enterprise value of US$1.2 billion.

The combination of Electronic Arts and Codemasters marks an exciting new era in racing game entertainment. Bringing together two of the most passionate, creative and talented game developer and publishing organizations in the industry will enable further growth and continued success for a stable of the most powerful and popular racing brands in the world, including Formula 1, Need for Speed, DIRT, DiRT Rally/WRC, GRID, Project CARS, Real Racing and more. With this critically acclaimed portfolio, Electronic Arts and Codemasters will be positioned to bring fans a regular cadence of new and exciting racing content, in addition to reaching across more platforms and more regions of the world.

The upcoming "Battlefield 6" would mark a "soft-reboot" of the franchise in a modern-era setting; much like "Battlefield 3" was, according to Tom Henderson, a reliable source with leaks related to the franchise. He predicts that the game could even be titled simply "Battlefield" (not to be confused with "Battlefield 1"). The game (if it includes a campaign), could have a modern mechanized warfare setting, and be a marked departure from the historic (or pseudo-historic) plots of "Battlefield 1" and "Battlefield V."

Much like how Activision is handling various game modes with its latest releases of "Call of Duty," the next Battlefield could include a dedicated Battle Royale mode that's more evolved than simply being a gameplay mode within its Multiplayer. The main Multiplayer could build on the modes Battlefield perfected, including large PvP conquests with up to 128 players on the PC platform (fewer players on consoles).

The EA-announced, Bioware-developed love letter to the original Mass Effect trilogy will be seeing a remastered once-over that brings the games' graphics up to today's standards. As much as possible, of course, whilst keeping the "Remaster" tag instead of the "remake" one - it seems that the Legendary Edition of the original Mass Effect will still keep those long treks on scannable planets. The improved versions of the original trilogy of games will feature improved graphics, alongside higher resolution and refresh rate support. The Legendary Edition will further bring together all the pre and post-launch DLC for each release, bringing those together for a cohesive package.

The 12th march release date is derived from release dates online stores Shopitree and GSShop have attached to the game, and has since been confirmed by Eurogamer, whose site editor Tom Phillips added that "...barring any further delays, Eurogamer understands the above date to be currently accurate". It seems we won't have long to wait until we can vault through the stars against the Reapers once more.