EA’s Battlefield franchise is entering a new era with the announcement of Battlefield Labs, a new community testing program that EA has come up with to give players a chance to try the game out before its full release. The current Battlefield game, Battlefield 2042, launched with much fanfare but it wasn’t long before most players were unhappy with the game due to several issues.
It has since been fixed up and improved but for many fans, it was too little too late for them to come back. EA is hoping to avoid a similar situation with its next Battlefield game, and that’s where Battlefield Labs comes in. Battlefield Labs is a community testing program that EA says will allow players to help “play a key role in the future of Battlefield.” Players will, among other things, get to test unfinished builds of the game before its release.
Battlefield Labs community testing signups are now open
It’s now possible to sign up for Battlefield Labs at the official website. It’s worth mentioning that EA is using an online queue to get in. I’ve been on the signup page for nearly four hours so far, and my wait time is still listed as over an hour, with more than 47,800 people ahead of me in line. This is all to say that it’s possible you may not be accepted. EA is only starting with a few thousand participants in the US and the EU. Over time, the company says, it’ll be expanding to tens of thousands more and in more regions.
It’s not likely that EA is only selecting the first few thousand people to sign up. More likely, participant selection will be random. Just know that the large number of signups is going to limit your chances of getting into the program. Players must also sign an NDA to ensure they don’t talk about the experiences.
EA says that it will be testing (almost) everything in the game. However, not all of it will be complete as this version of the game is pre-alpha. EA doesn’t mention a whole lot about the game yet. It does say that Battlefield Labs will be including tests of Conquest and Breakthrough.
A dev diary reveals a brief glimpse at the gameplay
Along with EA’s official announcement, it has also released a dev diary. The video serves as a way to introduce Battlefield Labs, but it also includes clips of gameplay. These are brief glimpses of pre-alpha footage, so nothing is finished. That also means things are subject to change. With that being said, anything that is shown is likely to be similar to what players experience in the initial tests.
Since those will also be in a pre-alpha state. Gameplay is, as you’d expect, fast-paced and hectic. Jets and planes are flying overhead. Tanks are rolling by. Buildings are being destroyed. EA has several of its studios working on the next Battlefield including Dice, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion. EA also confirms that the single-player campaign is returning to Battlefield with this next game, hyping up its cinematic quality.
“We’re driving a cinematic experience to the level that’s never been done on Battlefield before,” said Philippe Ducharme, Executive Producer at Motive. At the end of this dev diary, you get a small clip of the gameplay in action. So if you want to skip ahead to just that, it’s at the very end. The whole video is about 5 minutes long, though, and it’s a good watch.
The next Battlefield game is expected to launch this year, but there’s still no confirmed date. It’s also entirely possible the launch will be pushed into 2026 or beyond. Given that it’s currently in a pre-alpha state. It should also be released for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC when it launches. As for the tests, EA doesn’t mention which platforms will be included.
2025-02-04 15:08:35