EA has announced release dates for three new Battlefield-related games, with Battlefield Hardline confirmed for March.
Developer DICE is now officially working on Battlefield 5, and the game will be out before the end of the year in 2016.
The game was described as the ‘next Battlefield experience’ from DICE, and was never actually referred to as Battlefield 5 by publisher EA. Although it was clearly implied to be a mainline entry in the series, and not a spin-off.
‘Battlefield 4 continues to add new players and engage existing fans a year after launch,’ EA boss Andrew Wilson told investors.
‘As a result of the extended services and content updates that we provide, it’s clear that players want to experience the games we’re delivering for longer periods of time. Looking into next year, we will ensure that our players have enough time between releases to fully explore the depth and innovation in our shooter titles.’
Unlike rival Call Of Duty there’s never been any regular pattern of release for the Battlefield games, and although some had suspected it was moving towards a bi-yearly schedule that’s obviously not the case here.
It’s unclear how much this is due to the controversy surrounding Battlefield 4 though, which suffered a catastrophic launch and was plagued by problems for almost a year. But since Star Wars: Battlefront was already announced, and always assumed to be out in 2015, it may be that that was always the plan.
Battlefront itself was given a Christmas 2015 release by Wilson, which will coincidence with the release of movie Star Wars: Episode VII on December 18. It also all but guarantees the game will feature content derived from the new film, even though only classic trilogy content has been teased so far.
Star Wars: Battlefront is a reboot of the original LucasArts series, which was always intended to be a Star Wars-themed take on regular Battlefield games. Nothing has been seen of the game beyond the video below, but we’d expect the hype to begin in earnest early next year.
The final announcement was regarding the release date of cops ‘n’ robbers spin-off Battlefield Hardline, which is being developed by Dead Space creators Visceral Games.
It was meant to be out this Christmas but was delayed until the spring, with EA now quoting a March 19 date. Although that’s a Thursday, so it’s actually likely to be March 20 in the UK.
The announcements were made as part of EA’s second quarter financial results, which saw them achieve record sales of $1.22 billion. The company is now officially the number one publisher on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, thanks to games like FIFA, Madden NFL, Battlefield, and Titanfall.
Despite all the Battlefield-related revelations though no mention was made of Mirror’s Edge 2, the other DICE game currently in development. After years of rumours the game was officially announced at E3 2013, but the video below, from E3 2014, is the most we’ve seen of it since.
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