More evidence points to a recommitment by EA to the Battlefield franchise after the fallout surrounding Battlefield 2042. This latest development relates to what’s on the horizon, and longtime fans may find reason to rejoice at the news. EA opened up a new DICE studio in Seattle, picking up senior talent including Halo co-founder Marcus Lehto. That team is now hiring for more positions, and the job description clearly states that a single-player campaign experience for Battlefield is in the works.
The job description is specifically for a design director, which comes with many responsibilities. One of the core objectives is to “embrace the core tenets of the Battlefield franchise and make sure they are woven through all layers of a masterfully designed single player campaign.” The design director will “manage the design team and design vision of a new Battlefield campaign.”
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This is a noticeable shift away from the mindset of previous development teams that focused largely on online Battlefield experiences. Battlefield 2042 didn’t feature any single-player experience, and the War Stories approach in Battlefield 5 and Battlefield 1 lacked cohesive narratives like in previous games. Although Battlefield is known for its chaotic multiplayer action, the single-player stories offered a different way to experience the games and familiarize players with gameplay mechanics.
It remains unclear whether this project is solely focused on single player to serve as an expansion to Battlefield 2042, or if it will be a separate game entirely. The Frostbite engine is still visually impressive by today’s standards, so this could be a spin-off project with repurposed assets. The current sentiment from EA is to keep supporting Battlefield 2042 multiplayer for the foreseeable future, and its development took up resources across several studios. With this in mind, it’s still possible the developers at the Seattle studio could be laying the preliminary groundwork for a future main installment.
The futuristic setting of Battlefield 2042 has the potential for an interesting narrative. This was lightly touched upon in the marketing campaign leading up to the release of the game.
