Room for one more?
It’s been quite the fall season for video game fans. The last few weeks have seen a ton of great, acclaimed titles hit the market, including Marvel’s Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Soulcalibur VI, Super Mario Party. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, alongside various sporting titles and mid-tier titles like Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and Starlink: Battle for Atlas.
But the year isn’t over yet, and Electronic Arts are yet to release their next entry in the tank-toting Battlefield series, which will finally launch in late-November. It would be easy to suggest that the market is already filling up the backlogs of many players, and that and AAA games between now and the Holidays might not get a look-in. But EA CEO Andrew Wilson is confident that Battlefield V will have its day in the spotlight.
“In terms of our confidence in the Battlefield V launch, with respect to other things that have happened in the industry, I think the industry is vibrant and growing and we couldn’t be more excited for our Battlefield V launch,” said Wilson during a quarterly financial call.
“We’ve still got over 10 million players in our existing Battlefield games that we are in direct communication with as we go into launch. Battlefield has a tremendously rich and robust community who love those ‘only in Battlefield‘ moments. We’re coming out with strong multiplayer, strong single-player, but also a tremendous live service with content that’s free for all players in the months and years to come. So I think we feel good about that even in the context of what have been some other strong launches and I think that’s additive to what we’re going to do there.”
Battlefield V is also eschewing the popular battle royale trend on launch, with their take on the genre, Firestorm, launching in March 2019. Battlefield is nothing if not a stalwart series, however, with a strong, dedicated following and its own personality when it comes to campaign and multiplayer modes. Time will tell if brand prestige and its loyal battalion of followers will see it through to topple some of the giants currently dominating the charts.
Battlefield V launches on November 20 for PS4, PC and Xbox One.