During the recent earnings call for EA, CEO Andrew Wilson revealed that he was more optimistic about the critical and commercial reception of the next Battlefield game now that Grand Theft Auto 6 has been delayed to May 26, 2026. As caught by VGC, Wilson spoke about the release of Battlefield 6 later this year in response to an investor’s question about the landscape of the gaming market in light of Rockstar’s announcement.
In his response, Wilson spoke about how, while he could talk for the rest of the industry, the announcement has definitely made him more optimistic about the performance of Battlefield 6 in the market. He also brought up the fact that, since games tend to take several years to develop, it is difficult for developers and publishers to plan for every contingency regarding other games that might compete for an audience’s attention.
“I’m not sure I can comment on the rest of the industry and their launches or launch timings, other than to say typically today games take many years to build and develop, and it’s unlikely that if you weren’t already ready for launch in this window, it may be hard to get ready and take advantage of which might be otherwise a less competitive window than we may have anticipated earlier,” he said.
When it comes to Battlefield 6, Wilson spoke about how the studio had always planned for the same launch window for the game. He described the launch window as one “that we thought made the most sense for Battlefield.” However, the window could have been changed if there were a chance that another game’s release might adversely affect Battlefield’s chances at success.
“Relative to Battlefield, what we have said all along is we’ve been building towards a window that we thought made the most sense for Battlefield, but we wouldn’t launch into a window that we thought truncated the value that we’ve invested into the franchise, or the value that we think our players will derive from it once they jump in and start playing,” he said. “I think now, without going too far, we believe that window is clearer than it was before and we feel very good about launching Battlefield in [financial year] 2026.”
Interestingly, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella has expressed an opinion that the delay of Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t benefit the market much in 2025. This comes down to the fact that GTA 6, as hotly anticipated as it is, would have brought in a much larger audience to the market, potentially even helping drive console hardware sales.
“I don’t think anyone benefits in 2025 from this push. It wasn’t looming over the holiday season,” said Piscatella. “It was going to be a big driver of what success potential the holiday season had.” Piscatella believes total video game spending in the United States will “fall in the mid-single-digit percentage range, with spending falling to the lowest level since before the pandemic. Due to further uncertainties around pricing and product availability, there is also the potential for significant downside from there.”
The next Battlefield is currently undergoing playtests through the Battlefield Labs system. For more details about the playtests, check out the latest update released by EA.
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