EA announced a major round of layoffs this week and said it was reprioritising its portfolio of upcoming games. As part of its announcement, the company confirmed a new shooter title was in the works at two of its studios, Respawn Entertainment and Dice. That title is reportedly a new Star Wars: Battlefront game.
The Star Wars Jedi developer and the Battlefield studio are partnering to develop Star Wars: Battlefront 3 for Lucasfilm, Variety reported Wednesday, citing multiple sources. There are no details about the project yet.
EA Confirms New Shooter Title
EA did not confirm the game in its announcement, but said it planned to grow its portfolio of shooter games beyond future Battlefield games.
“In our Shooters business, Battlefield 6 was a great success, and we learned a lot from the launch and the live service,” the company said in a statement.
“We’re going to take those learnings, balance our resources, and leverage the technology to deliver a shooter portfolio that unlocks growth. In addition to our future Battlefield titles, we’ll be bringing together our Respawn and Dice studios to collaborate on a future project that will help us achieve that ambition.”
Respawn is also working on the next Star Wars Jedi game, while Dice continues to work on updates for Battlefield 6.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was developed by Dice and released in 2017 with both a single-player campaign and multiplayer modes. The game was heavily criticised at launch for containing loot boxes that significantly impacted player progression and gameplay. Battlefront 2 was accused of featuring pay-to-win microtransactions.
EA has not revealed a launch timeline for Star Wars: Battlefront 3.
Aside from shooter games, EA said it would focus on sports titles, action-adventure games, and lifestyle titles like Sims. The company also announced it was shutting down BioWare, the famed studio behind iconic RPG franchises Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The next Mass Effect title, which was in early development at a small team at BioWare, was cancelled, as well.
