EA’s Battlefield apology streak might finally be over

Early signs of success abound for Battlefield 6, but it is indeed still early

Battlefield 6. Screenshot: EA, captured by Game File

In 2014, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson apologized for the botched launch of Battlefield 4, the company’s then most recent installment of its multiplayer-centric military shooter series. Battlefield had been a winning formula for a while: the games lets players fight it out on foot as well as while commandeering tanks, helicopters, planes and more. But Battlefield 4 was rough.

The game’s’s multiplayer had been a mess when it launched in late 2013, which was “unacceptable,” Wilson said during a mid-2014 mea culpa interview.

He elaborated: “We have changed development processes. We’ve changed development timelines. And we’ve changed testing processes and beta processes, all with a view to not have the issues again.”

Two years later, 2016’s Battlefield 1 went over well, but, in early 2019, Wilson had to explain another franchise miss.

November 2018’s Battlefield V had sold one million copies fewer than the company projected, Wilson investors, per a Variety write-up of an earnings call. “I think we did not do a great job of building momentum early in the project,” he said.

Once again, Wilson said the company needed to revise its approach, though he spoke in investor-ese for this one: “you should expect that we will be more innovative and more creative around both our marketing campaigns and how we bring games to market and more diligent in our operation against execution of the project plans around development of video games on a go-forward basis.”

And then it happened once more.

In 2021, Battlefield 2042 stumbled out of the gate in such rough shape that the Washington Post declared “‘Battlefield 2042’should have been delayed again.”

Speaking about B2042 several months later, Wilson said EA was “rethinking the development process from the ground up.”

And, later in the year, he said of Battlefield: “I don’t think we delivered in the last two iterations of that in the way that we should have.”

Which brings us to today, launch day for the next game in the franchise, the one they’ve put a ton of effort into getting right: Battlefield 6.

The initial returns are promising. (Well, almost all.)