Electronic Arts has laid off an undisclosed number of people from across all of the studios that fall under the Battlefield Studios umbrella. Developers have been let go from Criterion, DICE, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studio.
According to what IGN reports, employees are being laid off due to a "realignment" within Battlefield Studios. IGN's reporting says that all four of these individual studios will continue to remain operational despite the layoffs which "seem to be impacting a variety of teams across multiple studios and offices."
These layoffs come just a few months after Battlefield 6 was named the best-selling game of 2025 in the United States. Battlefield 6 sold over 7 million copies in its first three days of availability, which is an all-time franchise record. And while the game's single player campaign has been universally panned, the multiplayer component has been generally well received by most players. Of course, a lot of the Battlefield fanbase still has a myriad of issues that they have with Battlefield 6. These issues range everywhere from some perceived issues with player movement (still?), possible use of generative AI for cosmetics, fewer new map releases than desired, maps that are too small and linear, and even people just angry that women exist and that they are in Battlefield 6.
Battlefield 6 saw a peak CCU on Steam of 747,440 players when the game released on October 10, 2025. More recently, the peak CCU each day ranges from about 60K to over 90K. Battlefield 6 doesn't just exist on Steam though. Taking into account the people also playing through the EA app, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, the player numbers are certainly far from terrible.
Really, all that these layoffs show is that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't in the gaming industry. You can be fired or laid off for not shipping a game or you can be fired and laid off if you ship a game that breaks franchise sales records.
