EA has laid off an unknown variety of people from throughout its Battlefield groups, together with employees at Criterion, Cube, Ripple Impact, and Motive Studios, IGN understands.
People are being knowledgeable that the layoffs are happening as a part of a “realignment” throughout the Battlefield studios, because the crew continues its ongoing, stay service help for Battlefield 6 following launch. All 4 studios will stay operational, although the layoffs appear to be impacting a wide range of groups throughout a number of studios and workplaces. IGN has reached out to EA for touch upon complete quantity and kinds of roles impacted, in addition to for the precise causes for the layoffs.
Battlefield 6 was the best-selling recreation of 2025 in the US. It bought a “report shattering” 7 million copies in three days and was the perfect launch ever for a recreation within the franchise. Whereas its marketing campaign acquired a little bit of a blended response from critics together with us, we gave its multiplayer an 8/10 at launch.
Nonetheless, the months since Battlefield 6’s launch have seen the sport start to wrestle from patch to patch. Followers have criticized a lot of updates attributable to causes starting from cosmetics to motion, and three months in, Steam evaluations have fallen to “Blended” from a “Principally Optimistic” begin. Main points reported embody criticism of heavy monetization, use of generative AI for in-game cosmetics, and fewer content material updates than anticipated. The criticism was heavy sufficient that the groups delayed the beginning of Season 2 to permit extra time to implement group suggestions. EA not too long ago revealed a three-month roadmap for its anticipated updates.
Steam concurrents have additionally dropped considerably following Battlefield 6’s massive launch, when it hit an enormous 747,440 peak. Steam concurrents are actually, usually, within the tens of hundreds. For instance, Battlefield 6 hit 67,000 peak concurrent gamers on Valve’s platform yesterday. In fact, Steam numbers don’t paint the entire image of a recreation’s reputation or success, given Battlefield 6 can be accessible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X and S. However they do give us a way of the place a recreation is at, and in Battlefield 6’s case the drop-off could have been extra dramatic than EA had anticipated. In the meantime, the free-to-play Battlefield battle royale, Redsec, has had issues of its personal, with a ‘Principally Unfavourable’ Steam consumer evaluate score for current posts.
These layoffs come simply months after the surprising loss of life of Battlefield franchise head Vince Zampella in a automotive accident. In addition they come as EA is making ready to be acquired by an investor group composed of Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Companions for roughly $55 billion. Nonetheless, the acquisition has not but closed (it is anticipated to shut within the first quarter of the 2027 monetary yr, or April, Might, and June of this yr). IGN understands internally, EA is stating that the layoffs are unrelated to the acquisition.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.