While we reported on a rumor previously that Battlefield 6 would be next-gen only, this was apparently incorrect. According to an EA investor’s call today, CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed that the new Battlefield would be cross-generation.
Wilson made the following comments (courtesy of VGC):
“Battlefield will be available for both current-gen and next-gen as will our sports titles,” he said.
“The reference specifically from our prepared remarks,” when EA said Battlefield has been designed for next-gen platforms, “was around the nature of gameplay – what we can do with the fidelity of the game, what we can do with the physics, artificial intelligence, and the immersive nature of the game.
“And in the case of Battlefield, what we can do with respect to the amount of players that we can have in the game, and the nature of destruction and those all-new Battlefield moments that are truly next-gen opportunities that we are able to do in the context of our next-gen franchises because of the increased processing power and memory and output of the new consoles.”
Other details shared was that the game will feature “grand-scale destruction” and “all out warfare on an epic scale”. The game will debut in June and if we had to guess, it will be during Xbox’s E3 conference as they have traditionally held the marketing rights.
Our Take
On the surface this is disappointing. While it will certainly increase the playerbase, particularly given next-gen console shortages, we just hope that the developers are able to truly utilize the new hardware. Battlefield has always been a PC-first franchise so if there is a massive gap in performance it could frustrate fans. Time will tell!
