Battlefield 5's release date is being delayed to November
EA and DICE want to spend an extra month ensuring that the newest Battlefield game is up to snuff (and to possibly avoid a Red Dead-shaped Death Star).
The big return of EA’s cornerstone shooter franchise to World War 2 will take a little longer to arrive than originally planned. The company made a blog post this morning explaining that the development team needed some additional time to ensure that everything was ready for launch and up to the fans’ standards for a Battlefield title. Battlefield 5 was originally scheduled to launch on October 19, but has been delayed a month to its new November 20 release date.
While EA laid out their reasoning for the delay in the previously mentioned blog post, there is some speculation that the delay was agreed upon for other reasons. A few weeks ago, there were reports online that the game was failing to reach its expected pre-order numbers. At the same time, EA’s Chief Design Officer Patrick Soderlund left the company. Soderlund had long been the public face of the Battlefield series and had spent twenty years working with Battlefield developer DICE in Sweden. His departure came after a small, but vocal minority of fans criticized the new game’s design and marketing strategy. In response to the backlash against the prominent placement of women in the game and its promo materials, Soderlund said that the disgruntled fans could, “either accept it or don't buy the game.”
Another reason that EA may have wanted to move Battlefield 5’s release date back is due to the impending release of Take Two and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. The highly anticipated western action game is expected to sell more copies than the Bible and any games that launch within its orbit could be negatively affected.
EA and DICE have not changed plans to start the Battlefield 5 Open Beta next week on September 6. If you want to stay informed of all the biggest releases coming through the end of the year, refer to our 2018 release date guide.
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replyChris Jarrard posted a new article, Battlefield 5's release date is being delayed to November
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Depends on how elastic 'normal' is. Delaying a month gets them out of the way of Red Dead and COD, but can't address any of the more fundamental issues. The series is tired and they haven't done enough to refresh it. The mishandling of Battlefront 2 (not only the loot boxes but the anemic post-launch support) is discouraging. And Dice's representation of the conflict - the theaters and battles and combatants - muddles the play-war escapism some (I think not insignificant) number of players want. Add a dash of corporate condescension in response to these concerns and it's not looking great: I say lifetime sales will trail BF1 by 25% or so.
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