Electronic Arts announced a new studio dedicated to developing single-player narrative campaigns for the Battlefield franchise. Located in Kirkland, Washington, the studio is called Ridgeline Games and is led by game director and Halo-co-creator Marcus Lehto.
“It is a great honor to have the opportunity to collaborate with DICE and Ripple Effect and lead the charge on expanding the narrative, storytelling, and character development opportunities in the Battlefield series,” says Lehto in a statement.
Vince Zampella, founder of Respawn Games and head of the Battlefield franchise adds, “We’re continuing to invest in the future of the franchise by bringing in new talent and perspectives … With Marcus and his team at Ridgeline Games joining the world-class global team we have already in place, Battlefield is in the strongest position to succeed.”
We're all in on the future of Battlefield! We're continuing to support #BF2042, and welcome our new studio, @RidgelineGames, who will be focusing on a narrative campaign.
Read more from GM Byron Beede 👇https://t.co/RHcHYe0opc pic.twitter.com/fO7eCHNDAB
— Battlefield (@Battlefield) September 8, 2022
The founding of Ridgeline Games is notable as the latest entry, Battlefield 2042, didn’t have a single-player campaign. Hopefully, this means that it returns as a staple component in future games. In general, Battlefield 2042 has struggled since its launch last year. In addition to being criticized for not having a campaign, support for some of the game’s multiplayer modes has been cut. It’s faced persistent bugs and been late in adding key features like scoreboards and voice chat.
On PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, the game’s Breakthrough mode allowed 128 players to simultaneously face each other in the same match. In May, however, the mode was permanently scaled back to only include half as many players.
Last year, Zampella also mentioned that EA is looking to expand the franchise and create a “connected Battlefield universe.”
Remember when transparent gadgets were the coolest things you could own? Sony is bringing that late '90s aesthetic back with its new PS5 Prism Collection. The gorgeous lineup gives your DualSense controller and PS5 console a glossy, see-through makeover in three eye-catching colors.
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/2115459064981512662?s=19
For years, Call of Duty’s campaign mode has used big, scripted set pieces to tell the overarching story amid all the adrenaline-pumping action. The 2023 Modern Warfare 3 tried to shake up the established formula by introducing a handful of short open combat missions, and I genuinely liked the idea, but the game's overall negative reception seeped into how those missions were received.
I feared the next iteration might abandon the idea because of the backlash, but I am glad it didn't. MW4’s “Stranded” mission uses the same approach, but instead of fragmenting it across the campaign, it puts it all in a single large-scale open-world mission.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.