Next Battlefield to launch holiday 2021

The next Battlefield title is currently set to launch holiday 2021, according to publisher Electronic Arts.

During a recent investors call (via Battlefield Bulletin), EA CEO Andrew Wilson narrowed down the release window for the next Battlefield, which was previously stated as arriving sometime in 2021. Wilson also stated that EA is planning to “share a lot more about the game in the spring.”

Wilson also stated that developer DICE is “creating our next Battlefield game with never-before-seen scale.” Previous reports have said that the game will have a player count of 128 in some modes.

Perhaps the best news for Battlefield fans is that DICE already has “hands-on play testing underway internally,” and according to Wilson, “the team’s been getting very positive feedback on the game as we’ve begun to engage our community.” What this means is that not only is the next Battlefield already in a playable state, but DICE and EA feel comfortable enough with the game’s progress to engage and discuss details with members of its EA Gamechangers program.

During the call, Wilson credits the “technical advancements of the new cosnoles [with] allowing the team to deliver on a true next-gen vision for the franchise.” The small snippets of tech that EA showed off during EA Play Live 2020 revealed a massive amount of soldiers in one server, as well as advanced destruction technology that’s potentially made possible by the more powerful CPUs in the Xbox Series X and S and PlayStation 5. However, this also calls into question whether there will be “feature-limited” current-gen versions of the game as previously rumored, or if DICE is focusing solely on next-gen hardware.

It’s been a long dry spell for Battlefield fans ever since Battlefield V stopped receiving content updates this past June. Though it’s generally expected that the next Battlefield will return to having a modern warfare theme, that’s still just rumor and speculation. Even a previous report that EA was planning on releasing a Battlefield 3 remaster for next-gen consoles doesn’t seem to have panned out, so Battlefield fans have been waiting for months for any word on the franchise. This latest news is a good start, and spring will be here before we know it.