Battlefield 6's quartet of studios hit with layoffs by EA, despite it being one of 2025's top-selling games

EA says that Battlefield Studios, the coalition of studios behind Battlefield 6, will undergo "changes" that will seemingly lead to layoffs. To compete with the huge resource power of the series' biggest rival, Call of Duty, EA merged former Battlefield developers DICE and Ripple Effect together with Motive Studios (Dead Space remake, Star Wars Battlefront 2) and Criterion Games (Burnout, Need For Speed Most Wanted) to make Battlefield 6. This quartet became known as Battlefield Studios, and each separate team focuses on different elements of the experience.

Initially, this multi-studio plan appeared to have worked brilliantly. Battlefield 6 was a huge success at launch, achieving a peak player count on Steam of 747,000 people; Battlefield Labs was touted as an excellent, player-driven initiative to swiftly implement feedback to avoid future grumbles; it was the best-selling game of 2025 in the United States, beating Call of Duty's Black Ops 7 in a surprise scalp, with seven million units sold in just three days; and it was widely labeled a return to form for the series.

However, despite seeming like it would go on to become one of the best FPS games in the series' history, it began to take some knocks thanks to complaints about map sizes, progression problems, concerns about assets seemingly being AI-generated, and more. Despite the ambitious release of free-to-play spinoff Battlefield Redsec - a battle royale clearly designed to rival Call of Duty Warzone - the post-launch offering of content for Battlefield 6 has also failed to inspire players. Even the delayed Season 2, which launched just a couple of weeks ago, missed the mark when it came to the kind of content players expected to get.

Despite those struggles, Battlefield 6's enormous sales numbers made it seem like a pretty stable proposition. There's surely no way the best-selling game of the year in the US - a premium, $70 game at that - would be in the position where it lays off staff less than six months later? Well, unfortunately, I appear to have been proven wrong.

IGN was first to report that EA is informing employees of a "realignment" across Battlefield Studios, which will result in layoffs. Currently, there's no word on how large this wave of cuts could be.

IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine claims that "all four studios will remain operational, though the layoffs seem to be impacting a variety of teams across multiple studios and offices." When PCGamesN contacted EA for comment and clarification, it received the following statement: "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs."

For a game that was one of last year's biggest commercial successes, hearing about layoffs is very surprising, no matter how many roles end up being affected. Should this turn out to be a really significant round of cuts impacting a large percentage of Battlefield Studios staff, then that will suggest either some ridiculously high revenue targets post-launch for Battlefield 6, a severe decline in player spending throughout Seasons 1 and 2, or both. Sure, its typical peak on Steam these days is well below the dizzying numbers we saw at launch (we're talking between 50,000 and 70,000 people now), but that's still a fairly strong daily audience.