From San Francisco's Media and Telecom Conference, EA's chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen has revealed the release windows for three of the massive publisher's biggest franchises. Speaking to a crowd of business people who aren't necessarily gamers, Jorgensen had the following to say:
We’ve got a great year ahead. We’ve got our Battlefield first-person shooter game coming in the third quarter, and our third-party title that Respawn, our partner, built. It’s called Titanfall, it’s the second title that they brought into that brand. Both of those are first-person shooters and will be targeted around the fast, action-driven shooter market, as well as the strategy-driven market in that quarter[…]and then we have Mass Effect, which is a sci-fi action game, in our fourth quarter. So big year ahead and we’re pretty excited.
EA's third quarter runs from September 30th through to the end of 2016, putting the next Battlefield and Titanfall games, neither of which has officially been revealed yet, within that window. Their fourth quarter runs from News Years Day until the end of March which means that Mass Effect Andromeda is aiming for an early 2017 release. The publisher had previously targeted the end of 2016 as a potential window for Andromeda, but never ruled out early 2017 either, so this isn't exactly a delay. It's interesting to note that the two first-person shooters that were mentioned seem to both be headed for the coveted pre-Black Friday release despite existing within the same general genre and under the same publishing umbrella. It's probably safe to say that the next Battlefield won't take place in a future time period, and maybe the rumors of a WWI shooter will prove true.
All three of these games look to feature prominently at EA's conference during their "EA Play" event that's taking place alongside E3 this June. Look for more on each of these massive titles as we build toward their respective launches.