EA suggests Dragon Age: The Veilguard might have sold better if it was live-service - so what does this mean for Mass Effect 5? - Related to what, battlefield, better, have, next

Destiny 2: Heresy launching with missing voice lines due to SAG-AFTRA strike

Destiny 2's Light and Darkness Saga is poised to wrap up yet again this week, as part of a "final epilogue" developer Bungie is calling Heresy. Notably, though, the studio has warned it won't be an all-singing, all-dancing finale - or an all-talking one, at least - given the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike means it's releasing with some of its voice lines missing.

Video game performers within the US actors union SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) voted to go on strike last July, after negotiations with major game companies over the use of AI failed to result in a deal. And with the strike still ongoing, Bungie has confirmed "certain" lines of dialogue in Heresy won't be voiced.

"With this being our final epilogue entry for the Light and Darkness Saga, our teams have been taking great care to deliver delightful narrative beats and story content for players to enjoy," it wrote in a blog post shared on its website. "Due to the on-going SAG-AFTRA strike, you may notice certain voice lines being silent in-game."

To ensure narrative content can still be followed by players, Bungie says it's enabled subtitles in the Heresy revision by default. All activities with missing voice lines will feature a warning beforehand, and the studio points players toward Destiny 2's subtitle customisation and accessibility options so they can "prepare for introductory sequences impacted by this change."

It's unclear if Bungie intends to patch in Heresy's missing voice lines at a later date if an agreement is reached with SAG-AFTRA.

Back in January, SAG-AFTRA confirmed over 130 games had signed to its Interim Interactive Media Agreement, giving companies "access to [its] members under fair and equitable conditions." However, as voice actor Jennifer Hale told Eurogamer at the time, there were still hold-outs. "There are a couple of entities who want to protect their potential profits in the future and leave lots of doors open," she explained, "and those doors could potentially hurt us a lot."

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EA says next Battlefield "expected" to release before April 2026

We might not have seen a whole lot of EA's next Battlefield game beyond the few seconds of pre-alpha footage shared this week, but it turns out it's probably not all that far away. The publisher has confirmed it expect the series' latest instalment to arrive before April next year.

EA shared the news as part of its third-quarter financial earnings research, saying its new Battlefield is "expected fiscal year 2026 release". That means the game should - all being well - arrive sometime between 1st April this year and 31st of March 2026.

Specifics remain limited, but EA last year confirmed the long-running multiplayer shooter series would be returning to the modern era for its next outing, and that it'd feature traditional classes and more focused maps - a clear indication it would be revisiting a tried-and-tested formula after shaking things up in 2021's poorly received Battlefield 2042.

Last year's announcement also revealed EA was planning a series of playtests for Battlefield's next instalment, in order to "get the community back on [its] side" - and that initiative, now known as Battlefield Labs, was officially unveiled this week alongside brief early gameplay.

The next Battlefield game is being developed by a huge group spread across four major EA teams, now working under the umbrella name of Battlefield Studios. That includes series creator DICE, splinter studio Ripple Effect, Dead Space Remake developer Motive, and Criterion - the veteran UK studio, which, as Eurogamer reported earlier this week, has now paused work on its next Need for Speed game in order to pitch in with the new Battlefield.

EA will be wanting to hit the ground running with the next Battlefield entry after it was forced to admit 2042 "did not meet expectations". The publisher also had a difficult 2024, and last month expressed EA Sports FC 25 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard "underperformed" as it lowered its financial forecast for the year.

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EA suggests Dragon Age: The Veilguard might have sold better if it was live-service - so what does this mean for Mass Effect 5?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard might have sold more copies and made more money for EA if it had been a live-service game, the publisher's top brass appear to have suggested.

Speaking to investors last night following the release of EA's latest quarterly results, both EA boss Andrew Wilson and the corporation's chief financial officer suggested the game's offline, one-and-done nature was to blame for it not meeting the publisher's sales expectations.

"In order to break out beyond the core audience, games need to directly connect to the evolving demand of players who increasingly seek shared world capabilities and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives in this beloved category," Wilson revealed.

"Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well reviewed by critics and those who played. However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market."

After a long and bumpy development, Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally emerged last year as a single-player game. But, of course, an earlier iteration of the project had been intended to include online play and live-service aspects.

The length of the project's development is in large part due to the fact that EA flip-flopped on the game initially being single-player, then live-service, then single-player again - a decision taken after the high-profile flop of BioWare's actual live-service effort Anthem.

Now, EA appears to be suggesting the game should have stayed as a live-service after all.

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed icing the competitive dynamics of the single-player RPG market," EA's chief financial officer Stuart Canfield mentioned - leaving little wiggle room for how EA sees the genre's future.

"Historically, blockbuster storytelling has been the primary way our industry bought beloved IP to the players," Canfield continued. "The game's financial performance highlights [the] evolving industry landscape and reinforces the importance of our actions to reallocate resources towards our most significant and highest potential opportunities."

The big, unspoken question here now, of course, is what this means for Mass Effect 5. Currently, BioWare has given no indication that the game will be a live-service. But these fresh comments by EA execs certainly raise the question of whether it is going to bankroll another single-player BioWare game once more.

Alternatively, perhaps we've seen the evidence that EA will support a single-player Mass Effect - albeit via the newly slimmed-down BioWare that has emerged this month after many staff were moved elsewhere, and some sadly lost their jobs.

Mass Effect 5 lacks a release date, of course, and appears to still be several years away.

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