Call of Duty co-founder and Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella is taking the reigns on the Battlefield series amidst a major franchise shakeup.
On the heels of Battlefield 2042's rocky launch, a new report from GameSpot details several major changes at the highest levels of the series' development team and structure. With Zampella now leading the charge, EA DICE aims to build what's being called a "connected Battlefield universe" seemingly consisting of multiple unannounced games or experiences.
"We intend to build a Battlefield universe, one with multiple projects that are interconnected with the player at the center," Zampella said. "We will continue to evolve and grow Battlefield 2042, and we'll explore new kinds of experiences and business models along the way that we can add to that foundation to provide an awesome array of experiences for our players."
Not everyone's coming along for the ride. GameSpot's report also revealed that Oskar Gabrielson is out as Dice GM, to be replaced by ex-Ubisoft Annecy director Rebecka Coutaz. Moreover, Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto is heading up a new development team in Seattle to help bring a bigger focus on storytelling to the new Battlefield universe. Finally, Ripple Effect, the studio behind Battlefield 2042's Portal mode, is reportedly making a new "Battlefield experience" that'll be connected to the larger universe.
This is all pretty vague right now, and it's unclear how many new games are actively in development under which development teams, but it's an undeniably foundational restructuring that likely spells a significant change in direction going forward. Battlefield 2042 has drawn criticism for a few reasons, not least of which are its many bugs, glitches, and technical shortcomings. The game's day one patch fixed a number of those issues, but it's still sporting one of Steam's lowest user ratings ever. While EA Dice says it'll continue to support Battlefield 2042, it sounds like much bigger plans are in the works for the series at large.
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