EA prepares community tests for new Battlefield game as it follows Skate’s lead

February 3, 2025, 08:30 PST The community testing initiative Battlefield Labs has now been confirmed and a short gameplay montage of the new Battlefield game has been revealed.

We’ve been waiting eagerly for news on the next Battlefield game for quite some time now, but that’s just changed. Back in September, EA’s Vince Zampella, who took charge of the series following his work with Respawn Entertainment on Titanfall and Apex Legends, revealed some initial details. Along with the confirmation that the currently untitled new Battlefield game will return to a modern setting after the yo-yo back and forth between Battlefield 1 and V’s World War I setting and the near future of Battlefield 2042, he also mentioned plans for a community testing program. Now, the publisher has revealed a short snippet of early gameplay and fully unveiled Battlefield Labs, its huge pre-launch playtesting initiative.

While we don’t yet know what the follow-up to Battlefield 2042 will be called, Zampella also noted last year that the controversial Specialist system “will not be coming back” and that the focus is on more concentrated 64-player maps after the negative response to the overwhelming scale of 2042’s 128-player battles. He also teased that the intent was to follow in the footsteps of fellow upcoming PC game Skate with a community testing program.

That program has now been confirmed to be Battlefield Labs. Described as a “new development initiative where players will get to test specific focus areas in the game” ahead of launch, Labs will be a closed environment. While the Battlefield series has conducted pre-release testing in the past, this is its biggest push yet that’ll feature more content then ever. Marketing Labs in this way should also help alleviate concerns that the game will launch in a rough state, or with features the community disagrees with – valid concerns to have, given 2042’s disastrous launch.

While Labs probably won’t run for quite as long, the initiative resembles the community testing program EA has been running for the next game in the Skate series. This was announced back in June 2022, and it’s still ongoing.

Battlefield Labs is going to get underway in “the coming weeks,” according to an EA press release. However, you can sign up right now if you want to be in with a chance of testing the next Battlefield game.

Back in April 2024, Battlefield general manager Byron Beede confirmed that Motive, the EA studio behind the Dead Space remake, had joined with DICE, Criterion, and Ripple Effect “in building a Battlefield universe across connected multiplayer experiences and single-player.” Today’s Labs reveal explains more about what the studios are working on under the unified Battlefield Studios banner.

DICE remains multiplayer focused, building all of the core systems. Motive is making multiplayer maps and creating some single-player content too. Criterion is also working on single-player content, confirming explicitly that the next Battlefield will have a campaign. Finally, Ripple Effect appears to be working on some mysterious side mode, cryptically saying: “We’re working on experience that is really going to open Battlefield up to a whole group of new players, but really still exciting that core audience that has made this franchise so successful.”

As a final treat, we also get to see a short montage of gameplay for the new Battlefield game. It’s pre-alpha at this stage, but it is unmistakably Battlefield – tanks, screaming soldiers, lots of environmental destruction. Lovely stuff.

For now, you can put your skills to the test in the best multiplayer games on PC, or embrace digital conflict in all its many forms with the best war games.

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