Electronic Arts revealed Thursday that its eagerly anticipated “Battlefield 6” will be released Oct. 10. As the larger gaming community is sure to clock, that portion of the calendar was previously penciled in for “Grand Theft Auto 6.”
But EA Entertainment president Laura Miele says a lot of thought went in to exactly when to launch the expansive next chapter in the “Battlefield” franchise, well before Take-Two Interactive’s Rockstar had moved the game out of that slot to next May.
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“We have always have been heads down, unblinking about this fall and executing at a level of excellence,” Miele told Variety Thursday ahead of the “Battlefield 6” release date announcement. “So we really worked hard with our team and with ourselves, candidly, to not get distracted by what was happening around us. But we always said that with all of this investment and with all the potential of this franchise, we would not have put it in harm’s way, and we would not have put it out in the blast radius of something really large. So we had our eye on it, for sure, and we were thinking about scenarios, but we were pretty unblinking, and we weren’t allowing ourselves to play the ‘what if?’ game with the schedules and development. We were like, no, we have to get this done, because the opportunity is so big and the potential is so significant for the company.”
But “Battlefield 6” is far from the only thing Miele has to talk about these days.
While EA has remained largely mum and very teasing on its upcoming multiplayer offering for “The Sims” franchise, Miele confirms it now “represents one of the biggest growth opportunities for Electronic Arts” moving forward and the team is “hard at work and feverishly developing what this [multiplayer] platform is going to be.”
“What we’re doing is upgrading and refreshing all this technology, and we’ll be adding modes of play — but we also are going to be creating and updating the base technology and the base user experience on the core game,” Miele said. “So you’re going to have this life simulation, you’re going to have multiplayer capabilities, we are going to have mobile expressions of this. We’re doing cozy games as well and more to come on that. We did a release with Nintendo on cozy games in Asia for ‘The Sims.’ I see ‘The Sims’ as a significant ecosystem, and a universe of multiple ‘Sims’ experiences that we have to build on.”
While some fans have expressed disappointment the game isn’t going to the traditional sequel game route with a “The Sims 5,” Miele maintains this is for the best for the larger community of Simmers.
“What I wouldn’t want to have happen is you to have to start from day zero and start from scratch and give up all of the things that you have created, give up all of the content that you’ve purchased over the years,” Miele said. “We put out over 85 content packs over the last 10 years on ‘The Sims 4,’ and so resetting that is not player friendly and not a good idea for our community.”
EA’s biggest transmedia project at the moment is the upcoming “The Sims” movie from Amazon MGM Studios and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap, which was finally the “right creative partnership” for a film that Miele says the team has been talking about for “years and years and years.” (“The Sims” video game franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary this year.)
Miele says EA is currently considering significant opportunities for tie-ins with “The Sims” games upon the release of “The Sims” movie.
“Where we sit today, from a technology perspective, innovation perspective, we are in a moment where we can actually co-create content and be a multiplier for each other and have these great experiences for fans,” Miele said. “It’s going to be so full circle and so fulfilling to bring content in a linear way and an interactive way, simultaneously, and even have it adapt to fans and how things are going. When we have a couple of ideas about how we would go to market with a movie and a couple of different expressions, I just think the opportunity is so ripe.”
Regarding the potential to adapt the “Apex Legends” franchise for TV or film, Miele hints that players “don’t have all the backstory, the history, and there’s just rich worlds and rich history with these characters and these legends that can come to life through linear media and partnerships,” adding: “We’re pretty motivated to do that, and doing it in a way that really respects and upholds the brand and the franchise.”
Following the cancellation of EA’s planned “Black Panther” game this May, questions have arisen about the publisher’s plans when it comes to licensed games.
According to Miele, EA’s current slate tied to Disney and Marvel IP includes the upcoming “Star Wars Jedi 3” game from developer Respawn, large-scale mobile title “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes,” MMO “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” as well as an “Iron Man” video game and “a few others that haven’t been announced yet.”
For Miele, this is all about maintaining a “really strong balance in our portfolio” while forging EA’s future in “massive online communities.”
“As we’re talking about ‘The Sims’ and ‘Apex’ and ‘Battlefield’ and ‘Skate’ — these are significant investments,” Miele said. “There is significant time, energy and focus to get these right and get these platforms right. We’re doing new things with these massive online communities, so when we assess our resources, our priorities, our teams, I think we are striking the right balance of investing in these big online communities with EA’s brands and IP, and while partnering with this incredibly rich, amazing IP for the action RPG category that is still really strong and we are quite confident our ability to execute in that space.”
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