EA Announces Playtest Program Battlefield Labs, Signups Available Now
In a new video, EA announced Battlefield Labs, an initiative where players can sign up to playtest a pre-alpha version of the next Battlefield game.
Today, EA announced Battlefield Labs, a program in which players will be able to play and test a pre-alpha version of the next Battlefield game. This will be a new initiative for all future Battlefield games and will be utilized by developers to get critical feedback on the game from players. The announcement came at the end of a five-minute video talking about the future of the Battlefield franchise. There was no mention of what the next game would be called, but ten seconds of gameplay was shown. Sign ups to be a part of Battlefield Labs are available now.
Battlefield Labs invites players to playtest pre-alpha versions of EA’s next game to help with development
Battlefield has long been trying to catch up with industry titan, Call of Duty. So far, they have not quite been able to do it. The series latest entry, Battlefield 2042 currently sits at 68/100 on MetaCritic, making it the lowest rated Battlefield game in the series. The series’ publisher, EA, has been under criticism lately for its handling of Dragon Age and Mass Effect studio, BioWare, leaving many developers looking for work. The huge publisher could certainly use a win right now.
The next game in the Battlefield series will be a collaboration between four studios. DICE, who has been working on Battlefield games since 2002, will focus on multiplayer and core systems. Criterion Games will focus on the singleplayer campaign, Motive will work on multiplayer maps and singleplayer missions, while Ripple Effect is working on something new and mysterious. These four studios will be collectively branded as Battlefield Studios.
General Manager Byron Beede said that these four studios “combine twenty years of franchise experience with emerging talent.” The mention of “emerging talent” could hint at truth behind a former DICE dev claiming that 98% of developers working on the next Battlefield are new to the series. Thankfully, these studios are not exclusively working on Battlefield. EA clarified to PC Gamer that Criterion Games is still working on Need For Speed, and Motive on an Iron Man game.
The player-focused initiative, Battlefield Labs, was described by EA to PC Gamer as a test of “the core pillars of Battlefield: core combat, destruction, vehicles, weapons” in familiar modes like Breakthrough and Rush, as well as “new concepts.” Players are encouraged to sign up now, though at the time of writing, the queue to sign up has more than an hour-long wait time with nearly 200,000 players ahead of me in line.
This all sounds exciting for fans of Battlefield, and it may be if you manage to join the lab, but playtesters won’t be able to share their experience. Anyone that signs up will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement with EA. So don’t expect any news or gameplay about the next Battlefield anytime soon.
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