EA Laid Off Battlefield 6 Devs After the Biggest Launch in Franchise History. Let That Sink In.

How do you make the best-selling game in America, dethrone Call of Duty for the first time in 23 years, sell 7 million copies in three days, and then wake up five months later to find out your job is gone?

That's exactly what happened today at Battlefield Studios. EA has laid off an unknown number of developers across all four studios that built Battlefield 6. DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive. Every single one of them hit. And EA's explanation? They've made "select changes" to "better align our teams around what matters most to our community."

I'm going to need a minute with that one.

The Receipts Don't Lie

Let me walk you through just how absurd this is.

Battlefield 6 launched on October 10, 2025. Within three days, it sold 7 million copies. EA themselves put out a press release bragging about "the biggest launch in franchise history." The game went on to become the best-selling premium game of 2025 according to Circana. It dethroned Call of Duty in annual US sales for the first time in 23 years. Twenty-three years. That is a generational accomplishment for any franchise, let alone one that was coming off the absolute disaster that was Battlefield 2042.

And here's the thing. These developers didn't just make a game that sold well. They made a game that critics and players both praised at launch. They brought back traditional classes. They ditched the Specialist system that nearly killed the franchise. They listened to what players wanted and actually delivered it. For a brief, shining moment, Battlefield was back.

Five months later, those same people are updating their LinkedIn profiles.

That tells you everything you need to know about how the AAA industry values the people who actually make the games.

The $400 Million Elephant in the Room

Here's where this story goes from bad to genuinely insane. Reports from Ars Technica last year revealed that EA spent over $400 million developing Battlefield 6. That's already an astronomical number. But the real kicker is what EA apparently expected in return. According to developers who spoke to Ars Technica, EA wanted Battlefield 6 to reach 100 million players.

One hundred million players.

Let me put that into perspective. Battlefield 1, which is widely considered the most successful entry in the entire franchise before BF6, topped out at around 30 million players. So EA's target wasn't just ambitious. It was more than three times the highest peak the franchise had ever reached. Developers at the studio described these expectations as "unreasonable and near impossible."

And they were right. Because even though BF6 was a massive commercial success by every reasonable metric, it apparently wasn't a big enough success for EA. The game's Steam player count peaked at around 747,000 concurrent players at launch. Today? It's hovering around 60,000 on a good day. That's a significant drop, sure, but that's also just how live-service games work. Every single game in the genre follows this pattern. Every one.

But when you set an impossible target, anything short of a miracle looks like a failure. And that's exactly what happened here. EA built a $400 million game, set expectations that no Battlefield title could ever realistically meet, and when the numbers inevitably came in below that fantasy, the developers paid the price. Not the executives. Not the people who set those ridiculous targets. The developers.

The Post-Launch Problem EA Created

Now, I want to be fair here. Battlefield 6's post-launch support has not been smooth. And I'll be the first to tell you that. Season 2 was delayed. The maps have been a consistent source of frustration for players who want the large-scale warfare that Battlefield is supposed to be known for. The game's Steam reviews have shifted to Mixed, largely driven by complaints about monetization, AI-generated cosmetics, and the feeling that the game was moving in a direction players didn't ask for.

And then there's Battlefield REDSEC.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you REDSEC was a good launch. The free-to-play battle royale spinoff currently sits at Mostly Negative on Steam. Recent reviews are at 26% positive. Players hated that their weekly challenges in BF6 were being tied to a mode they didn't want to play. They hated that the REDSEC map was bigger and more destructible than anything in the base game they paid $70 for. And they hated the feeling that EA was prioritizing a free-to-play cash grab over the premium product they already bought.

But here's what drives me up the wall. These are all decisions that were made above the developer level. The people getting laid off today aren't the ones who decided to tie BF6 challenges to REDSEC. They aren't the ones who set a 100 million player target. They aren't the ones who decided to ship AI-generated cosmetics. They aren't the ones who greenlit a free-to-play battle royale while the base game was still starving for content.

Those decisions came from the top. And the top is doing just fine.

$30.5 Million and a Realignment

Let's talk about Andrew Wilson for a second. EA's CEO made $30.5 million in total compensation for fiscal year 2025. That's a 19% raise from the year before. His pay is now 260 times the median EA employee salary. And while Wilson's compensation went up by nearly $5 million, the median worker's pay actually dropped by 21%.

I'm going to say that again as clearly as possible. The CEO got a $5 million raise. The average employee's pay went down by 21%. And now, developers who built the company's most successful Battlefield game ever are being shown the door.

This is not complicated math. This is not a "realignment." This is a wealth transfer. Money flowing up while the people doing the actual work get squeezed out. And it happens over and over and over again in this industry, and somehow we're still supposed to act surprised.

The Saudi Deal Looming Over Everything

There's another massive piece of this puzzle that we can't ignore. EA is currently in the process of being acquired by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, alongside Silver Lake Partners and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners. A $55 billion deal announced back in September 2025.

EA is telling employees these layoffs are "unrelated" to the acquisition. And look, maybe that's technically true on paper. But come on. When a $55 billion buyout is on the table, every single cost-cutting measure is about making the books look better for the incoming owners. Every single one. That's how these deals work. You trim the fat, boost the margins, and present a leaner, more profitable company to the people writing the checks.

And who gets classified as "fat" in this scenario? Not the CEO making $30.5 million. Not the executives. The developers. The people who actually made the thing that's being sold for $55 billion.

This is also the second round of layoffs at EA in just two months. In February, they cut staff at Full Circle, the studio working on Skate. The pattern is clear.

Three Months Without Vince

And I'd be wrong not to mention this. Vince Zampella, the man who was leading the Battlefield franchise, the co-creator of Call of Duty, the founder of Respawn Entertainment, died in a car crash on December 21, 2025. Just three months ago. The man who was steering this ship, who had been brought in specifically to get Battlefield back on track, is gone. And now, three months later, the studios he was overseeing are being gutted.

I don't know what Battlefield's leadership structure looks like right now without him. But I do know that losing someone of Zampella's stature creates a vacuum. And instead of filling that vacuum with stability and support for the teams, EA is filling it with layoffs and corporate restructuring language. That's a choice. And it's a choice that says everything about what this company values.

Meanwhile, Four Guys in the Netherlands...

You want to know what the alternative looks like? Let me tell you about Over the Top: WWI.

This game launched three days ago. Three days. It was made by Flying Squirrel Entertainment, a studio of four developers based in the Netherlands. Four people. It's a WW1 shooter with 100v100 battles, fully destructible environments, trenches you can dig yourself, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and persistent battlefield destruction that stays for the entire match. It costs $19.

It's sitting at 91% positive on Steam with nearly 1,500 reviews. Players are losing their minds over it. One review that stuck with me said something like, "After modern game developers have written tweets to gaslight the fanbase on why it's just not possible to have 100v100 battles or persistent servers or deformable terrain, these devs have researched the technology."

Four developers. $19. 91% positive. No layoffs. No "realignment." No Saudi billion-dollar buyout. No AI-generated cosmetics. No forced battle royale challenges.

Is it as polished as BF6? Of course not. It's an indie game from four people. But is it fun? Is it cool? Yes. Absolutely yes. And those two questions are apparently the hardest ones for AAA studios to answer right now.

That's the pendulum swinging. That's what it looks like when a studio asks "what do players actually want?" instead of "how do we hit 100 million users for the earnings call?"

This Is the Industry They Built

I keep coming back to the same thought. EA spent $400 million on Battlefield 6. They set a 100 million player target that their own developers called impossible. They launched a free-to-play BR mode that tanked on Steam. They tied progression systems together in ways that frustrated their paying customers. They delayed Season 2 and shipped content that didn't meet expectations. They let cosmetics and monetization creep into a game that was supposed to be the franchise's redemption arc.

And when the consequences of those decisions arrived, they fired the developers.

Not the strategists. Not the market analysts. Not the executives who set those targets. The people who actually coded, designed, modeled, animated, tested, and shipped the game. The people who did what they were told and delivered a product that broke every record in the franchise's history.

This is the industry they built. One where you can make the best-selling game in America and still lose your job before the first year is over. One where the CEO's raise is worth more than most of the people he just laid off will make in a decade. One where "realignment" is a word that means "we need to cut costs before the Saudis sign the final check."

What Happens Next

Battlefield 6 isn't dead. The game still has a sizable player base, and all four studios are reportedly staying open. But fewer people means fewer resources, which means slower updates, which means more player frustration, which means more players leaving. We've seen this cycle before. It's a death spiral that starts with layoffs and ends with a franchise on life support.

The real question is whether the people making decisions at EA understand that the developers they just cut are the same people who would have been responsible for keeping BF6 alive long enough to actually reach those player count goals. You can't gut a live-service team and then wonder why the live service deteriorates. That's not how any of this works.

But I don't think EA is thinking about that. I think EA is thinking about margins. I think EA is thinking about the buyout. And I think the people who actually care about making Battlefield a great game are the ones cleaning out their desks right now.

To every developer affected by today's layoffs, you made the best-selling game for them in BF history. Nobody can take that from you. The failure here isn't yours. It never was.

And to EA? We see you. We know what this is. You're not fooling anybody.