The Battlefield Franchise is Copying a Worrying Call of Duty Trend

Fans of the Battlefield franchise are finally starting to look towards the future, with the recently launched Season 7 of Battlefield 2042 being confirmed as the last major piece of post-launch support for the title. A lot of pressure is already being placed on the IP’s next project, with it having to contend with the controversial launch and eventual redemption of 2042, and some reports are beginning to shed light on what the development process for this next title is looking like.

These reports stated that the next Battlefield title is set to be developed by a cooperative group of four EA-owned development studios, with Motive Studio being the latest to join. While this can be a positive for the next Battlefield project, some of the most controversial Call of Duty titles suffered from the inconsistencies caused by having multiple development studios, and Battlefield runs the risk of facing the same fate if things do not run smoothly.

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The Next Battlefield Game Might Suffer From Having Several Development Studios

These recent reports suggest that the next Battlefield game will be spearheaded by a combined force of DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect, and now Motive. Of course, Motive has a lot of experience working under EA and the Frostbite engine, being responsible for Star Wars: Squadrons and the 2023 remake of the original Dead Space. While this experience could be put to good use on the next Battlefield release, Motive is also currently developing the upcoming Iron Man game alongside Marvel, meaning the studio’s attention may be spread too thin during the vital periods of this next project’s development.

A multi-studio approach to development is something that Call of Duty has employed over the years, to varying levels of success. 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard famously used this approach, with Sledgehammer Games developing the campaign and multiplayer of the title while Treyarch handled the game’s Zombies mode. This joint approach led to crossed wires and inconsistencies in the quality of different gameplay areas, with 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 suffering from a similar fate.

Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch all played large roles in the development of 2023’s MW3, which itself suffered criticisms of inconsistency, especially towards MW3‘s infamously short campaign. Perhaps the most glaring downside of this multi-studio approach is how it takes away from a solid sense of identity for a title, and this is something that Battlefield cannot afford to fall victim to.

Multiple Studios Might Make the Next Battlefield Too Complex for Its Own Good

The next Battlefield game still needs to repair a lot of the damage that 2042 created, despite the game doing well to redeem itself in recent months. A lot of the criticism surrounding 2042 concerned how it felt too far removed from the identity of the greatest past Battlefield titles, with the launch absence of things like a campaign, leaderboards, and the four-class system going against what had made the franchise so great in the past.

It seems wise in this way that the next Battlefield game should go back to basics, and adding a new studio to the game’s development that has no prior Battlefield experience may go against this. While Motive could easily provide a massive positive boost to whatever comes next for Battlefield, the franchise should pay attention to how this approach has worked to the detriment of the Call of Duty series in the past.

Battlefield 2042

Released

November 19, 2021

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts

Genre(s)

First-Person Shooter

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood, Strong Language, Violence

How Long To Beat

N/A

X|S Enhanced

Yes

File Size Xbox Series

84 GB (June 2023)

Platforms That Support Crossplay

PC, PS5 & Xbox Series X|S and PS4 & Xbox One