Electronic Arts Pulls Need For Speed Devs To Work On Battlefield 6 With DICE
With just a few months until the promised Battlefield 6 holiday 2021 release, Electronic Arts is under pressure to deliver a polished game, especially with the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco fresh on every gamer’s mind. To accomplish this, the publisher has given DICE extra manpower by pulling Criterion Games developers working on Need for Speed and reassigning them to Battlefield 6.
Criterion Games had previously worked with DICE on Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Battlefront 2, and the Firestorm battle royale mode for Battlefield 5 which makes them the best choice for the project.
This probably means that the next Need for Speed game will be delayed quite a bit. EA Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele, however, says that reassigning the team was necessary given the COVID-19 work-from-home conditions. EA is also already guaranteed at least one racing game this year thanks to their recent acquisition of Codemasters, a British video game developer that specializes in racing games.
“[Battlefield 6] is shaping up great, the team has been working incredibly hard, they pushed hard last year, and yes, we have been working from home,” said Miele in an interview with Polygon. “And it’s hard; it’s hard to make games from home, and the team is fatigued a bit. We’re playing to win; we’re playing to put a great Battlefield game out in the market.”
Miele further assured fans that the upcoming Need for Speed game isn’t being cancelled and that Criterion Games will resume work on the title once they’re done with Battlefield 6. She also maintained that the decision doesn’t mean that EA is having internal problems with its game assignments following the publisher’s decision to cancel Anthem Next last week.
Meanwhile, DICE Los Angeles Head and Respawn Entertainment founder Vince Zampella is also getting involved with Battlefield 6 with a focus on the game’s live service components.
If previous Battlefield release windows are any indication, we can probably expect Battlefield 6 to launch sometime in October or November.
