Beyond BioWare: EA's memo reveals Project Gridiron, a Respawn and DICE team-up, and a paused Sims project

BioWare wasn’t the only news in that memo. EA’s staff letter, Building EA’s Next Chapter, is the same one that closed BioWare and ended work on the next Mass Effect earlier today. Read past that part and it also lays out what EA is betting on next, including a couple of projects nobody knew about.

Project Gridiron. EA Sports says it has “a brand-new, social-first open-world experience for our American Football team that we call ‘Project Gridiron.‘” That’s every detail EA has given. There’s no release date, no platforms and no gameplay yet, and EA says you’ll hear more “over the next few months.” As Shacknews points out, it sounds separate from Madden and College Football, and EA calling it an “experience” instead of a game is worth keeping an eye on.

Fight Night, officially. The same paragraph confirms EA is “in pre-production to bring back a beloved, fan-favorite in Fight Night,” using its simulation fighting team (Twisted Voxel).

Respawn and DICE, together. On the shooter side, EA calls Battlefield 6 “a great success” and says it will bring “our Respawn and DICE studios together to collaborate on a future project,” alongside future Battlefield games. It’s also promising to keep “investing heavily” in Apex Legends over the next few years with new multiplayer modes.

Fewer big action games. Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game are still coming. After those, EA says it will “concentrate our efforts on fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects” in action-adventure.

The Sims and skate. get trimmed. EA is prioritizing “Project Evergreen,” its next big Sims project, and “pausing development on ‘Project Lotus’” to make room for it. skate. is getting “a more focused, smaller team” with a set roadmap, which means changes at that studio too.

What’s next. EA says staff will hear more at its next Global Town Hall in November, and fans should get Gridiron and Fight Night details in the coming months (Insider Gaming).

PPR take: On a day EA shut down the studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, the projects it chose to talk up are a football “experience,” a boxing revival and a shooter. That tells you exactly where EA’s money is going. A Respawn and DICE shooter could be great, but it’s hard to get excited about it right now.