Electronic Arts is set to cut 5% of its workforce and has canceled multiple games in development.
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson announced that the developer and publisher will lay off around 670 employees, or 5% of its workforce. As part of these massive layoffs, EA has also canceled several projects, including a much-anticipated Star Wars FPS.
They also shut down an entire studio, Ridgeline Games, which was working on a singleplayer campaign for Battlefield.
EA Cancels Star Wars FPS & Shuts Down Battlefield Singleplayer Studio
The Star Wars shooter was one of three games in development at Respawn Entertainment (Apex Legends, Titanfall) set in the popular Sci-Fi franchise, which also includes a Star Wars Jedi sequel and a new strategy game.
According to recent leaks, the game was supposed to put you in the role of a Mandalorian and was going to focus on fast-paced action and extensive movement tech, similar to Respawn’s previous FPS hits.
And that sounds awesome, but we’ll unfortunately never see it. In an announcement on the topic, EA's entertainment and technology president Laura Miele gave the supposed reason behind this decision:
"As we've looked at Respawn's portfolio over the last few months, what's clear is the games our players are most excited about are Jedi and Respawn's rich library of owned brands. Knowing this, we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games."
EA have struggled to get good and successful Star Wars games out the door, with Respawn’s Jedi series probably being the one exception. Focusing on a sequel to that makes sense, but canning a shooter by the people who made Apex Legends and Titanfall? It’s hard to see the reasoning behind that decision.
But hey, EA still has Battlefield, right? Their previous shooter king has fallen on hard times after the disastrous release of Battlefield 2042. Ridgeline Studios was founded just a few years ago in 2021 to bolster up the next Battlefield with a new singleplayer campaign. EA will now be “winding down Ridgeline” after director Marcus Lehto, who worked on Halo and Destiny with Bungie before joining EA to work on Battlefield, has decided to leave the studio.
According to Miele, “the project is making meaningful progress” and will now be overseen by Criterion. Whether you believe this messaging or not, changing leadership and teams mid-development is definitely not going to make getting this game out any easier.
It’s a tough time for the video game industry, which is seeing massive rounds of layoffs across the board. According to Kotaku, over 6,000 jobs were terminated in 2023. This year it’s even worse, with over 8,177 layoffs already announced by February 28.