Controversial Battlefield rumor claims Call of Duty-style release cadence could be here in few years

While the Battlefield 6 Beta ran only for a few days, it was enough to confirm that there is a huge demand for Battlefield games. The beta peaked out at more than 865,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, placing Battlefield 6 among the biggest Steam launches ever. Battlefield 6 even beat out Call of Duty’s concurrent peak player count by a wide margin.

Seeing this huge demand, it is not surprising that EA is reportedly planning to release a new Battlefield game every year in the near future. According to industry analyst Michael Patcher (via charlieINTEL on X), EA is planning to adopt a yearly release for future Battlefield games, mimicking the release cadence of Call of Duty. The information has been attributed to an unnamed Battlefield GM who also reportedly confirmed that it could take five years for yearly Battlefield releases to become a reality.

So, how is EA planning to achieve this? By allegedly having three studios simultaneously develop new Battlefield games with a three-year development time. This is similar to Activision’s approach with Call of Duty, where three main studios work on mainline CoD entries.

On the surface, having three studios simultaneously work on multiple Battlefield projects is good news for BF fans, as it would mean shorter wait for a new BF. However, modern AAA titles are notoriously time and resource-consuming to develop. Adding a short development time constraint on top has been known to introduce serious issues, including crunch. 

Take, for example, the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Sledgehammer Games reportedly made the game in only 1.5 years, half of the usual 3-year development time. The studio was also hit with accusations of crunch and overtime. The short development time seems to have also affected the quality of the game, as the title was rated 4/10 by IGN and has a user rating of just 2.5 on Steam.

This is exactly what is troubling the Battlefield fan base. User replies to charlieINTEL’s post on X and on r/GamingLeaksAndRumors have expressed concerns related to possible quality issues, burnout, and lack of content if EA does a yearly BF release.

In the end, it remains to be seen what becomes of this rumor. For now, Battlefield Studios is focused on Battlefield 6, which is releasing in October.

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