Remember Battlefield 1, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst? 2016–2019 was peak DICE.
BFV’s Pacific update was, in my opinion, the final swan song of peak-era DICE.
Iwo Jima. Pacific Storm. Wake Island. The Solomon Islands.
When you look back at that period, it really feels like the end of an era.
From 2016 to 2019, DICE gave us Battlefield 1, Star Wars Battlefront II, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Battlefield V, and then the Pacific content for BFV. For me, that was DICE at its absolute peak.
And then, a huge amount of DICE’s core talent started leaving.
Ever since then, I feel like you can see the decline everywhere. Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield 6 just don’t have the same level of polish as BF1 and BFV — performance, visual quality, lighting, map design, UI, atmosphere, little details, pretty much everything.
And honestly, when I compare 2042 and 6 with BF1 and BFV, I struggle to find areas where the newer games represent a clear step forward. In quite a few areas, they actually feel like a step backward.
Obviously, that’s my personal opinion, but I think the loss of talent at DICE is a huge part of the story.
There’s also something almost ironic about what happened to EA.
In September 2025, EA agreed to be acquired by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, alongside Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, in a roughly $55 billion deal. The acquisition was completed in August 2026.
From the outside, the whole thing almost feels like:
“Here’s the mess. You guys deal with it now. I’m done. I’m going to enjoy the next chapter of my life.”
Again, that’s obviously my interpretation, not some inside information. But the timing and the direction of EA over the years make it hard not to look at it that way.
And this is why I think there is only one real way for Battlefield to truly regain what it lost:
Bring back the people who made DICE special in the first place.
The problem is that this is probably almost impossible.
A huge number of former DICE veterans went on to join or help build Embark Studios. Embark was founded in 2018 by industry veterans including Patrick Söderlund and Johan Andersson, and the studio has a strong connection to the old DICE talent pool.
Just look at their games.
Doesn’t THE FINALS feel like a spiritual successor to some of the ideas and technical ambition behind Mirror’s Edge Catalyst?
And doesn’t ARC Raiders remind you of some of the things that made Star Wars Battlefront II so impressive?
Maybe I’m biased, but it’s hard for me not to see the connection.
It feels like the talent didn’t disappear.
The talent just moved somewhere else.
And then there’s Tencent.
Back in August 2024, Nexon and Embark signed agreements with Tencent to bring localized versions of THE FINALS and ARC Raiders to China. Tencent would work with Embark and Nexon on localization, content, and features tailored to Chinese players.
THE FINALS eventually entered the Chinese market in 2025, while ARC Raiders started its first Chinese server test in 2026 and is still being developed for the Chinese market.
And this is the part that really makes me curious.
Tencent obviously knows how influential Battlefield 1, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst were. They also know that a lot of the people behind those games eventually ended up at Embark.
So when you see Tencent working this closely with Embark on two major FPS titles, it’s hard not to wonder whether there is more going on than simple publishing and localization.
Maybe Tencent is also interested in learning from the technology, workflows, and development experience that these former DICE veterans bring to the table.
After all, Frostbite itself originated at DICE, and that technology became one of the defining pieces of the Battlefield identity.
That’s what makes the whole situation so strange to me.
The people who once made DICE great are still making ambitious, technically impressive games.
They’re just no longer making Battlefield.
And meanwhile, Battlefield is trying to recreate what it used to have without the same people who originally built that identity.
Maybe that’s why the series feels like it’s stuck in a loop.
Maybe Battlefield can still come back someday.
But at this point, I honestly wonder whether the original DICE era is simply something we’ll never get back.
Maybe this is just the fate of Battlefield.