EA has announced that their recently founded studio Ridgeline Games will be dedicated to expanding the Battlefield franchise, focussing on the development of a narrative campaign set in the Battlefield universe.
Ridgeline Games is the newest studio within EA, having been founded in late 2021 with Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto leading the team.
“It is a great honor to have the opportunity to collaborate with DICE and Ripple Effect and lead the charge on expanding the narrative, storytelling and character development opportunities in the Battlefield series,” Lehto said, while Vince Zampella, who is head of the Battlefield franchise said, ““We’re continuing to invest in the future of the franchise by bringing in new talent and perspectives. With Marcus and his team at Ridgeline Games joining the world-class global team we have already in place, Battlefield is in the strongest position to succeed.”
While the Battlefield franchise is predominantly known for its 64-player multiplayer, a number of games in the series have also featured single player campaigns. They were a mainstay of the series since the first Battlefield Bad Company, with Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 1 seen as the real highlights of the campaigns created by DICE.
However, with the negative reaction to Battlefield V’s single player and the struggles to build a first live service Battlefield, EA and DICE decided to ditch the solo campaign for Battlefield 2042. That… didn’t exactly help the game avoid a stereotypically scrappy launch, which it is still trying to recover from.
Ridgeline Games will be able to come at this with a clean slate, but considering that they were only founded last year. Lehto had previously led V1 Interactive through the development of strategy shooter hybrid Disintegration. It always takes time to build up a new team, and even accepting that they might be at the head of a globalised game development effort, it will likely be a few years before we see the fruits of their labour.
Still, for many fans, the only way is up for the Battlefield series. In our Battlefield 2042 review we scored it a fair 6 out of 10, knocking points off for clunky design features, yet praising parts of the core tactical gameplay and the genius Battlefield Portal:
“There’s a good game to be found within the Battlefield 2042 and fun to be had as the spectacle of Battlefield’s signature gameplay is taken to new, more expansive heights, but it’s marred by a handful of unsuccessful gameplay design changes, hurriedly implemented features and bugs at launch.”
Source: EA
