Next Battlefield game set to release before April 2026: 'We're looking for this to be the biggest Battlefield we've ever made'
During its quarterly investor's call on Tuesday, EA said we can expect the next Battlefield game to release sometime during its 2026 fiscal year.
Different companies define their fiscal years differently. EA is currently in its 2025 fiscal year, but that ends soon with March, after which the 2026 fiscal year begins. So, where EA is concerned, the 2026 financial year starts this April. Yeah, it's baffling, but that's how they do it, and it means that the next Battlefield will be out sometime between this April and the start of April 2026, if everything goes to plan.
Things could change, of course: Answering a question during the call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that if the FY2026 release window turns out not to be ideal—say, because of a big competing game—the timing could change. I also doubt that EA plans to release the new Battlefield this calendar year, even if it's within its release window. Sometime early next year seems most likely.
On Monday, EA announced Battlefield Labs, a new playtesting program that will inform development of this as-yet-unnamed Battlefield game. We also saw a brief snippet of gameplay: It looks a lot like Battlefield 3, which aligns with our expectations. After the dire initial reception of Battlefield 2042, EA said explicitly that the next one will emulate Battlefield 3 and 4.
BF2042 was released not long after it was revealed, with just a couple obligatory beta sessions in between. After players ripped into it at launch, DICE went into 'we hear your feedback' mode and made substantial changes over the next couple years. I was an outlier in that I liked BF2042 from the start, but it did get a lot better over time by many accounts.
Despite the less-than-ideal launch of BF2042, EA has committed heavily to the series since it came out. The publisher put Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella—formerly of Call of Duty dev Infinity Ward—in charge of the franchise, and has multiple studios working on it: DICE, as usual, plus Criterion, Motive, and
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