While there were likely to have been several reasons for that, according to Alex Seropian – founder of Battlefield Mobile developer Industry Toys – the failure of its console and PC counterpart Battlefield 2042 was a major factor.

Speaking in a recent interview with Mobilegamer.biz, Seropian said that the widespread backlash against Battlefield 2042 “cascaded a bunch of introspection” and contributed to the mobile title’s shuttering, while he also added that Apple’s changes to rules for IDFA, an anonymized unique identifier for advertisers, also “made user acquisition a lot more expensive”. Alongside Battlefield Mobile, Apex Legends Mobile, too, was cancelled earlier this year.

“At the beginning all the wind in the universe was in the sails of the SS Battlefield Mobile: the [shooter] genre is growing, it’s a great IP, we’ve got a great team – all this was super good,” Seropian said. “In the course of the last year, a few things happened. Battlefield 2042 came out and the community reaction to 2042 was not good. That cascaded a bunch of introspection.

“Apple also changed the IDFA rules, and the long and short of it is that it’s made user acquisition a lot more expensive. So organics eroded away with 2042’s release, and paid distribution got an order of magnitude more expensive because of the IDFA rules.

“And then Apex came out and I don’t know if EA has talked about why they cancelled it, whether it was economics or whatever, but without me saying, you could fill in the blanks, I guess.”

Though Battlefield has taken a few pretty major beatings over the last couple of years, it seems like EA has ambitious plans to expand and improve the franchise. A new Battlefield game is in development, which, in addition DICE working on the multiplayer, will also see Ridgeline Games developing a narrative campaign, and could launch in 2024. Meanwhile, Ripple Effect Studios is also working on a separate Battlefield experience.

A mobile iteration of the popular shooter franchise has been in development for some time, and details and screenshots on its Play Store page suggested that it was fairly close to launch. However, EA says that following its recent internal change in plans for the Battlefield franchise, it has decided to cease development of the mobile game.

“We’ve also made the decision to stop the development of the current Battlefield mobile title,” the company wrote in its announcement. “As the industry has evolved and our strategy to create a deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem has taken shape, we decided to pivot from the current direction to best deliver on our vision for the franchise and to meet the expectations of our players. We remain highly committed to unlocking Battlefield’s enormous potential. We’re hard at work at evolving Battlefield 2042, and are in pre-production on our future Battlefield experiences at our studios across the globe.”

In addition to continuing to support Battlefield 2042, EA has a number of other Battlefield projects in the works across multiple teams, including Ridgeline Games and Ripple Effect Studios. Reports have claimed that DICE has also started working on its next Battlefield game.

CEO Andrew Wilson talked about how the company will continue to invest in Battlefield 2042 even after Update 4.0 in EA’s recent quarterly earnings call. He said that Battlefield 2042 belongs to a premier franchise that will continue to grow and thrive in the years to come. Additionally, he also said that the company is looking at the situation in the long term.

“No, and again, we take the long view here,” he said (as transcribed by VGC). “This is one of the great franchises of our industry, built by one of the great teams in the industry, and our expectations are it’s going to continue to grow and be a really important part of our portfolio for many, many years to come.”

“We’ve got incredible leadership of that team now,” he added. “They’re rethinking the development process from the ground up, and really using kind of the Vince Zampella/Respawn model of ‘get to the fun as quickly as possible’.

“They’ve been doing thousands of updates for the community, working on quality of life, and really getting the core game right. I think there’s still more work for us to do there and the team is committed to doing that work for the community.

“Beyond that, once we get to a place where we feel like we’re in the right place with the core experience, and with the core game, then you should expect us to invest and grow beyond where the game is at today.”

Additionally, the earnings call also provided an update on Battlefield Mobile, where Andrew Wilson talked about the company’s plans for the launch of the game. He said that the team might be ready to launch as soon as the end of year, but it could easily be pushed to early 2023. Wilson is confident about the quality of the game and wants to focus on tuning the balance through rigorous beta testing and soft launches.

“Right now, I think we’re looking at going into further testing at the end of May, and then subject to the metrics and the data and the engagement that we see, we might look towards the end of this year, beginning of next year, for a global launch, but remembering, mobile all really comes down to the tuning and the balancing once we go into that closed beta phase,” he said.

EA also officially announced that it will be breaking ties with the FIFA license, and that its soccer games will be rebranded as EA Sports FC– read more on that through here.

The game promises “the same wild situations and explosive spectacles Battlefield is famous for” across a variety of game modes, including multiplayer and objective-based modes, while you can also expect large-scale destruction, though it remains to be seen exactly how that will be replicated on mobile devices. Where maps are concerned, you can expect both new and familiar locations.

A variety of weapons and gadgets will also be featured, as well as various vehicles to use during combat, including ATVs and tanks. As you’d expect from a Battlefield game, you will be able to choose between four character classes- Recon, Assault, Medic, and Support. There’s also mention of customizable loadouts, upgrades and progression, specializations, levelling up your squad, and more.

There is, of course, no release date mentioned for the game, but we’ll likely be hearing more about Battlefield Mobile in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned for that.

DICE GM Oskar Gabrielson has provided an update on the Battlefield franchise, announcing that the next big title would be revealed soon. The developer has “A LOT” to show players in the coming months and reaffirmed a Holiday 2021 launch. Gabrielson noted that this was the biggest Battlefield development team yet and that the title would have “All-out military warfare. Crazy, unexpected moments. Game-changing destruction. Massive battles, packed with more players and mayhem than ever before.”

It’s currently being playtested daily with balancing and polish still being applied. Only next-gen consoles, meaning Xbox Series X/S and PS5, were mentioned along with PC so it’s possible that the next Battlefield is skipping Xbox One and PS4. But that’s not all – a new Battlefield mobile title is also in the works at Industrial Toys.

Touted as a “standalone game” that’s “completely different” from DICE’s title, it will be coming to smartphones and tablets in 2022. Testing will commence before launch with more details to come in the meantime. It’s safe to say that both titles will be revealed in June at the next EA Play Live so stay tuned.