‘Battlefield’ Confirmed For 2016, EA Says Three New IP Titles By Next Spring

The Battlefield train will keep on churning for Electronic Arts and DICE. The publisher confirmed during an earnings call on Wednesday that a new entry in the long-running shooter franchise will return next year. The EA line-up of games won’t be completely sequel dependent though, as three original new IP titles are also coming at the start of 2016.

The mega-publisher made the revelation that original new IP was coming while discussing its established EA Sports franchises along with the next entry in the Need for Speed series and Star Wars: Battlefront. CEO Andrew Wilson made sure to declare that something fresh is on the way from the developers under the Electronic Arts umbrella.

“We’ll have some great new mobile games, and we’re excited to have three new and original IP titles launching in Q4,” Wilson said as picked up in a Seeking Alpha transcript.

That puts the three new game title releases between January and March 2016. We already know that Unravel will be one of them following its well-received E3 debut in June. What the other two might be is completely unknown at this point.

Other EA games released during the same time period include Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. Wilson shouldn’t be referring to either of those as one is a prequel/reboot and the other is a direct sequel.

Electronic Arts isn’t going to give up on established franchises, however. It’s obviously going to make the most out of the Star Wars license it obtained from Walt Disney with the release of Battlefront this fall. There’s also the Star Wars meets Uncharted title that is currently being worked on by Visceral Games. Naturally, more Battlefield is on the way as well.

“Looking further ahead, we’re preparing more new games for our players,” Wilson said. “The reaction to a first look at Mass Effect: Andromeda at E3 was incredibly positive. We have a new Battlefield experience coming in Q3 FY 2017 and another new Star Wars project being led by the dynamic creative team of Jade Raymond and Amy Hennig. These are just a few of the new experiences in development across our studios today.”

The new Star Wars title is a 2017 release at the earliest and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it slip into 2018 with Blake Jorgenson’s comment suggesting that the Jade Raymond and Amy Hennig project is still early in development.

“The reality is it will take Jade some time to develop the IP ideas and develop the core team,” he said during the Q&A session of the earnings call.

As for Battlefield, a 2016 release isn’t particularly surprising, though it will be interesting to see how DICE handles the release of Star Wars: Battlefront this fall followed by another entry in its seminal franchise next fall. The Battlefield series has garnered a bad reputation for bugs, and back-to-back releases will have industry folks and fans watching.

[Images via Battlefield, Unravel, Star Wars: Battlefront]