In its latest quarterly earnings call, EA said it hasn't forgotten about the Titanfall franchise. Though nothing is currently in the pipeline, the dream of one day seeing Titanfall 3 is not yet dead. "We really want to keep the team hyper-focused on [Apex Legends] because we see there's so much opportunity there, so I can't give you a sense of if and when [Titanfall 3] will come, but it's still a great brand and we certainly won't forget about it down the road," EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said on the earnings call. In the meantime, EA seems more than content to rely on the Titanfall spin-off, Apex Legends, to fulfill the publisher's annual shooter quota--at least for the immediate future. "We view [Apex Legends] as an annual shooter franchise effectively and we're trying to build that as a 10-year business," Jorgensen said. "We're very excited about the roadmap that the Respawn team has put in place." EA expressed interest in providing further support to Apex Legends in 2020, citing the game reached a playerbase of 70 million in the last quarter. A new Titanfall game isn't the only sequel to an EA shooter franchise that's not currently scheduled for 2020. DICE is getting pulled off the annual track it has been on since 2013's Battlefield 4, so the studio will not be focusing on Battlefield 6 or a new Star Wars Battlefront in 2020. Instead, over the next year, DICE will develop additional content and provide further support for Battlefield V and Star Wars Battlefront II. "The strong results this quarter illustrate the power of our live services and our core franchises," Jorgensen said in a press release. "Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations. Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises. We're investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond."
|