Clik here to view.
EA has confirmed that a new Battlefield game will be coming in 2018, although it’s not known if it’ll be a direct sequel to 2016’s wildly successful Battlefield 1.
The announcement came from EA CFO Blake Jorgensen in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, as the company attempts to distract fans from the fact that its highly anticipated Destiny-like shared-space shooter Anthem was delayed. When announcing that Anthem had been delayed to early 2019 – which EA is insisting isn’t a delay, despite listing “fall 2018” in its announcement trailer – it slipped in that a new Battlefield title would be taking its slot instead.
However, this isn’t new news. Last year, EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson said in an earnings call to investors that a new Battlefield title would be coming in 2018. So, for those who hoped there’d be more news around a “Battlefield 2”, you may well be disappointed to hear it’s the same news we’ve known about for the past six months.
Still, Battlefield 1 was an explosive success for EA and DICE, with EA reporting that an unbelievable 21 million unique players dived into the game in June last year. So it should come as no surprise to know that Battlefield 2, or Battlefield 2018 (nobody’s really sure what it’s going to be called yet), is one of 2018’s most anticipated games already.
READ NEXT: Will Halo 6 be released in 2018?
But just what is Battlefield 2 going to be about? It’s likely we’ll see it jump towards World War II, thanks to Call of Duty: WW2’s resurgence of the period, but perhaps focus will land on other World War I campaigns. Regardless, here’s everything we know about EA’s Battlefield 1 sequel so far.
EA has already revealed that Battlefield 2 will release in 2018. However, beyond that, it’s not known when we’ll actually have an exact release date for DICE’s sequel.
EA first revealed the 2018 window for Battlefield 2 in an investors' call when EA boss Andrew Wilson confirmed it was EA’s major shooter for the year. The same 2018 release window for a new Battlefield was reiterated by company CFO Blake Jorgensen when announcing that it would be standing in for Anthem following its delay that EA won’t call a delay.
The company didn’t provide a date, but as Battlefield 1 still has its Apocalypse DLC to arrive in February, we’re still a while off hearing anything official on Battlefield 2.
Going by past releases, Battlefield 2 should arrive around October 2018. Battlefield 1 landed in October 2016 and EA DICE’s other shooter, Star Wars: Battlefront, saw a release in September 2014 and November 2017 too. Because of that, it’s likely we’ll see Battlefield 2 arrive within the same sort of end-of-year window as past high-profile EA releases.
READ NEXT: GTA 6 unlikely to launch until 2021
During the same investors call that Wilson revealed the Battlefield 2 release year, he also confirmed our first slice of gameplay info. Just like Battlefield 1, Battlefield 2 will utilise the Frostbite engine, meaning that all environments will be destructible.
Beyond that, little else was revealed, but we don’t expect EA or DICE to venture too far from the old template as it worked so well for them compared to past Battlefield entries such as Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. We feel that it’ll keep on with the small-scale soldier solo missions for storytelling and retain its strong online multiplayer presence too.
It’s also likely we’ll see just as many classes of weaponry and this time around, and as vast an array of vehicles to boot.
Just like Battlefield 1, we see absolutely no reason for Battlefield 2 to come to the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, alongside the PS4, Xbox One and PC. It’s highly unlikely we’ll find the same Nintendo Switch version of Battlefield 2 but, thanks to the strong sales of Nintendo’s system, we could see EA making a play for it with a pared-down build of the game.
Still, we won’t hear anything concrete on a Switch release, nor on supported platforms, until EA decides to make an official announcement. Expect to hear more at E3 this year.