EA has reportedly set an ambitious player target for Battlefield 6, which is unlikely to be met due to massive development issues that are negatively impacting developers and may cause some features to be cut before launch.
The game's huge development issues have been revealed by a new report from ArsTechnica, which highlights how the work on the next entry in the series has faced a lot of problems, such as culture clashes, a ballooning budget, which has reportedly surpassed $400 million USD, and stress deriving from EA wanting to stand head to head with Call of Duty and Fortnite, setting a 100 million players target which the developers that have talked with Ars Technica believe the game will never hit, as nothing in market research or quality deliverable indicates the game would reach anything near the target, according to one source.
With the pressure of a player target that looks unreasonable, and so many studios involved in creating a game with an unprecedented scope for the series, it's no surprise to learn how Battlefield 6's development has been quite troubled. The single-player campaign, for example, has been lagging behind the other modes, as the original developer of the campaign, Ridgeline Games, had to hire and scale up from zero while also having to meet milestones as other established teams. The campaign was eventually handled to Criterion, DICE and Motive, but it's still lagging, and in Spring 2025, it was the only game mode that did not reach alpha, one year later than it was supposed to. Adding in culture tensions between European teams and the US-based leadership, the vast majority of people that talked with ArsTechnica believe that some planned features or content will be cut before the game launches. Other issues, like some parts of the game reaching alpha status later than others, and the teams' problems with estimating the status of features, could also lead to the release of a massive day one patch similar to that released for Battlefield 2042.
As Battlefield 6 has yet to be formally announced, it's not surprising to learn that the project is having plenty of development issues that are negatively impacting not only the project as a whole but also developers. However, the game is still scheduled to be announced this Summer, so it may not be long before we see how these issues have impacted the project.
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