EA delays Battlefield 5 to November

Dice has announced that Battlefield 5 is getting a new release date. In a news post on their website, General Manager of Dice, developer of the Battlefield games, explains the studios decision to postpone their newest game’s release by a month, to November 20th.

Originally, Battlefield 5 was set to launch on October 19 but Dice wants to take an extra month in favor of polishing their game and release the best version of Battlefield V possible.

And that’s why we’re moving our launch date. We’re going to take the time to continue to make some final adjustments to core gameplay, and to ensure we really deliver on the potential of Tides of War. – Dice

One month is not really a drastically long delay, so the reasoning by the developer makes absolute sense. However, it’s unavoidable that cynical rumors arise. Is Battlefield 5 having development issues Dice doesn’t want to share? Or did publisher EA learn through market research that an October launch wasn’t going to be successful?

After all, just recently news emerged by an investment analyst that Battlefield 5’s pre-order numbers were “weak”, especially in comparison to the two other major game releases Battlefield 5 was wedged in between, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Call of Duty may have become the butt of jokes in recent years for being unimaginative and by-the-numbers but one has to remember that each entry to the series still regularly becomes one of the best-selling games of the year. Put on top of that Rockstar Games’ newest game release which is receiving insane amounts of media and fan attention and Battlefield 5 does appear in danger of vanishing among those two other giants.

It’s impossible to say how much the competition played a role in the delay of Battlefield 5 and EA is hardly going to admit even if it did. The silver lining here is that the delay is merely a month and those who are interested in Battlefield 5 won’t have to wait that much longer after all.