A truly disappointing financial quarter for EA
Following the cancelation of Apex Legends Mobile and the unreleased Battlefield Mobile, anonymous sources have told Bloomberg that a third title set in a shared universe between Apex Legends and Titan Fall was canceled by EA.
The canceled project, code-named TFL or Titanfall Legends, was reportedly in development at Respawn Entertainment but not publicly announced. Last Tuesday, EA gave a disappointing outlook for revenue in its current financial quarter, which led to the cancelation of the two aforementioned games and the shutting down of Industrial Toys (which was behind Battlefield Mobile). Another repercussion was the delay of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, another anticipated title in development at Respawn.
The unnamed team of 50 developers who were working on the game will be relegated to other positions within EA, and those who can’t be placed anywhere will be given severance packages and laid off, according to Bloomberg sources who are familiar with the matter. The game was to be directed by Mohammad Alavi, an Iranian-American developer who is known for his work on the Call of Duty series, until he left Respawn in early 2022. He is renowned for creating the iconic Call of Duty Missions: “Crew Expendable”, “All Ghillied Up”, and “No Russian” in the Modern Warfare series.
EA has also experienced a more than 10% plunge in stocks amidst the cancelations, and chief financial officer Chris Suh admitted that the Apex franchise sold below expectations due to the challenging market dynamics. According to Shu, the company is now focused on helping employees through the transition process of the canceled projects, and redirecting investments to where it can have the most positive impact on players and growth.
This is not the first Titanfall project to be canceled from Respawn. Back in 2016, Respawn tried to create a collectible card game based on Titanfall in partnership with Nexon, and it had a soft-launch in mid-September that year but was canceled in 2017 before it became publicly available. An online version of Titanfall targeting Asian markets was also in development at Nexon, but it never made it past the beta, and was canceled in 2018.
