In the wake of its financial results for Q2 FY2019, Electronic Arts announced that a new Battlefield was coming. Hold your horses though – it will release in EA’s 2022 fiscal year, which means it could arrive between April 1st 2021 and March 31st 2022. Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends will be the publisher’s main first person shooter in the meantime.
So that means Battlefield 6 could come to Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 but it could be further from their launches than expected. CEO Andrew Wilson said in the publisher’s earnings call that “launching into the next gen platforms was going to offer tremendous opportunity for innovation. But we really wanted to give the install base some opportunity to grow.”
Releasing Battlefield 6 in FY2022 then is a “really strong move for us” and “presents us with an opportunity for strong two years of growth”. Also, the live service model that Battlefield 5 has adopted will continue with the next game. Wilson said that the live service will be “cutting edge” and “high fidelity.” “It will be doing things in the context of multi-play and social play and competition that Battlefields to this point have not done.”
In the meantime, Battlefield 5 continues to receive new content. Chapter 5: War in the Pacific is out today and brings two new maps – Iwo Jima and Pacific Storm – along with two new factions in the US Armed Forces and Imperial Japanese Army. There will also be new weapons and new pickups like katanas and flamethrowers.