The CEO of Electronic Arts says the company feels better about the upcoming release of its next Battlefield game, now that Grand Theft Auto 6 has been delayed.
Andrew Wilson confirmed during the company’s financial results that the next Battlefield will release by March 2026, with a full public reveal due to take place this summer.
This came just days after Rockstar announced that its planned 2025 release for Grand Theft Auto 6 had now been delayed, with a new release date of May 26, 2026.
In an investor Q&A following EA‘s financial presentation, one caller asked how EA saw the rest of the games industry positioning its potential releases over the next few months now that GTA 6 is now a year away, and how the company now felt about “the competitive landscape of the Battlefield launch window and subsequent performance expectations” following Rockstar’s announcement.
Wilson replied that he didn’t see many companies rushing to get games out earlier than anticipated following GTA 6’s delay, because it’s not that easy to move a release date forward.
“I’m not sure I can comment on the rest of the industry and their launches or launch timings, other than to say typically today games take many years to build and develop, and it’s unlikely that if you weren’t already ready for launch in this window, it may be hard to get ready and take advantage of which might be otherwise a less competitive window than we may have anticipated earlier,” he explained.
Despite this, Wilson said Battlefield is ready to release in March 2026 as announcement, giving it at least two clear months before GTA 6 is released.
“Relative to Battlefield, what we have said all along is we’ve been building towards a window that we thought made the most sense for Battlefield, but we wouldn’t launch into a window that we thought truncated the value that we’ve invested into the franchise, or the value that we think our players will derive from it once they jump in and start playing,” he said.
“I think now, without going too far, we believe that window is clearer than it was before and we feel very good about launching Battlefield in [financial year] 2026.”
Rockstar released a statement on Friday, apologising to players for the delay of GTA 6. “With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception,” it said. “We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.”
