Re: Marcus Lehto left EA?

---

@AngrySquid270 wrote:

Ridgeline is/was the studio that EA setup in Seattle to focus on the 'storytelling' side of Battlefield.  I take that to mean single player.

As a Seattle native it was exciting to have a Battlefield studio in town, but single player Battlefield doesn't move the needle for me.  Despite ~1000hr in BF1 and BF5 I never played those campaigns.

I thought a dedicated studio for Battlefield singleplayer was a strange move.  I'm guessing EA came to the same conclusion and shut it down.  If so I hope they double down on multiplayer and redirect that money to DICE Sweden.

---

I do agree with you on the campaigns. However, I don't know if Lehto leaving (without a message or announcement) is how they would go about shutting down the studio. I could be wrong, but he posted a picture of the team eating breakfast together just a few weeks ago and now magically he is gone, but only on social media. Either way, it looks bad on him and on EA. When a senior rep leaves in good standing, traditionally there is an announcement of some kind. 

So either he quit or got fired. We will find out soon enough. I don't know if this move alone tells us about the entire studio, but if you are in the area, it wouldn't hurt to drive by every day for the next week between 9am-12pm to see if there are any moving trucks there, then report back here. Pictures and videos would help.

DICE said 2042 doesn't have single player so they could focus all their resources on multiplayer instead.

---

@OskooI_007 wrote:

DICE said 2042 doesn't have single player so they could focus all their resources on multiplayer instead.

---

Yet they still managed to make it a zero sum game by wasting resources for Hazard zone

---

@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:

---

@OskooI_007 wrote:

DICE said 2042 doesn't have single player so they could focus all their resources on multiplayer instead.

---

Yet they still managed to make it a zero sum game by wasting resources for Hazard zone

---

This is true. Battlefield 2042 lacked a campaign mode, because EA implemented the portal mode. In reality the portal mode failed and was a mistake and done completely all wrong.

---

@D-Man3847 wrote:

---

@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:

---

@OskooI_007 wrote:

DICE said 2042 doesn't have single player so they could focus all their resources on multiplayer instead.

---

Yet they still managed to make it a zero sum game by wasting resources for Hazard zone

---

This is true. Battlefield 2042 lacked a campaign mode, because EA implemented the portal mode. In reality the portal mode failed and was a mistake and done completely all wrong.

---

Portal mode from the ways I see it, uses nowhere enough resources to cost us the campaign.

Portal is just few remastered legacy maps + a server browser + some of the tools DICE can use to configure their official modes

@Lancelot_du_Lac   But they need to STOP all this point and XP reducing stuff now in Portal. More than two years in and they still cap points and reduce XP FFS.

---

@Lancelot_du_Lac wrote:
@UP_HawxxeyeAgree. Portal was the 'love letter' to fans when it became clear in the development process that Hazard Zone wouldn't cut it with players.
If done well, Portal could be the saviour of the franchise!

---

But nooooooo

they had to sabotage portal by panicking  too much about people farming bots and putting a lot of restrictions + not providing enough filters for us to filter out the type of portal gameplay we  want

Maybe to get back to topic I would throw in my 2 Euro-Cents:

I think we need to know why Marcus left EA to judge if it is good/bad/neutral. Until we know the reason, there is nothing we can base our judgement of the situation on, right?

• If he left because of health reasons, family reason or if he was involved in some kind of 'scandal' and was forced to resign, the this would be 'good' (judging only!!! when it comes to the BF franchise of course)
• If he was let go because EA decided to close the studio as they do not want a singleplayer campaign for the next title, I would rate this as neutral. I personally don't care for the singleplayer part and if they have to cut costs for some reason, the part where the ACTUAL game would suffer least from is single player. At least if they did not intend to add another BR/extraction shooter part as this would be even more superfluous than SP.
• If he left because he could not realize his vision for what he and the studio wanted for the next title, then this would indeed be BAD as he was asking the right questions on Twitter and also got the right/expected feedback IIRC and the wishes of the community were clear.

But all is speculation until we know the reasons why he left (or was made to leave).

---

@ForumUser wrote:

Maybe to get back to topic I would throw in my 2 Euro-Cents:

I think we need to know why Marcus left EA to judge if it is good/bad/neutral. Until we know the reason, there is nothing we can base our judgement of the situation on, right?

• If he left because of health reasons, family reason or if he was involved in some kind of 'scandal' and was forced to resign, the this would be 'good' (judging only!!! when it comes to the BF franchise of course)
• If he was let go because EA decided to close the studio as they do not want a singleplayer campaign for the next title, I would rate this as neutral. I personally don't care for the singleplayer part and if they have to cut costs for some reason, the part where the ACTUAL game would suffer least from is single player. At least if they did not intend to add another BR/extraction shooter part as this would be even more superfluous than SP.
• If he left because he could not realize his vision for what he and the studio wanted for the next title, then this would indeed be BAD as he was asking the right questions on Twitter and also got the right/expected feedback IIRC and the wishes of the community were clear.

But all is speculation until we know the reasons why he left (or was made to leave).

---

1. If someone leaves for health/family reasons, I doubt they are worried about their social media profiles. I could be wrong, but if something is that significant, I don't know many people hopping onto all those platforms to scrub their profiles.

2. Most of the time when high-level employees get hired or leave, there is an announcement. Just like when he was hired. The fact that this did not occur and there was no "thank you" from EA means he left on less-than-favorable terms. EA, like other public companies, are super risk averse due to their stock price. If this was positive, like the campaign being complete or something along those lines, it would be announced. This has bad news written all over it, thus no word from EA. If it was nothing big even, they would want to put something out to quell the speculation and outline their plan moving forward. 

Interestingly, ‘Ridgeline’’s profile on X still mentions ‘Battlefield’. So Lehto left the venture but the company is still engaged in the work, apparently.

I have to go with that he left on less than good terms. Like some have said there would have been an announcement. In any terms this is not good!

@Adamonic 

True, all the signs tell 'did not leave on good terms'. But I don't want to jump to any conclusions just yet. I am confident that some day in the not too distant future the real reason for Marcus leaving EA will be made public. One way or another.

If I had to bet I would speculate about an announcement of EA closing down the studio and Marcus in his position was informed first and was a bit too fast with updating his profile before EA officially announced the studio will be closed. But as I mentioned, this is just a guess. Maybe I will bookmark this post to see if I was correct on that one.

can't we just wait for an official announcement before we start speculating? give them a few days before shaking your magic eight-balls *