Moving 7 million copies in three days of its launch, Battlefield 6 took advantage of a year where Call of Duty fell flat and topped the charts not only for military shooters, but as one of the best-selling games of 2025. EA must have been happy, including its shareholders, that a series that has often sat in COD‘s shadow finally found success critically both with users and in the market. Of course, that’d be too simple a story, and now, we find via reporting at IGN that EA isn’t celebrating the win with a massive push to capitalize on this success, but with layoffs across the Battlefield studios instead.

IGN is reporting that EA has laid off staff across the Battlefield development studios, including Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios. Despite these initial reports, we don’t know how many people are actually laid off. Per the article, an EA spokesperson told IGN: “We’ve made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we’re continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs.”

We’re used to layoffs, however unfortunate and often misdirected, for games that don’t find the success they need to sustain themselves. However, this isn’t the case for the teams central to the latest entry in the Battlefield series. Circana’s Mat Piscatella reported at the end of last year that Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game of 2025. So, what sort of industry lays off essential creators and creatives after a project tops the sales charts for an entertainment medium that brings in billions and billions of dollars? That’s the games industry in 2026, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better, if that’s even possible at this point.

There’s likely an argument coming from EA that all of the staff let go from the Battlefield teams is no longer necessary to sustain the game. In another age, we’d see those folks not fired, but transitioned to a new project to follow Battlefield 6. Now, we see staff purged at the drop of a hat, especially if it can highlight profits in a way that shows operations costs are down significantly, thanks to strategic layoffs. It’s sick, sick stuff that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Let us know in the comments what you make of these trends in gaming developer layoffs.

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