Top 5 Things EA's New Owners Should Do First

Electronic Arts will soon have new owners - here's what the incoming corporate overlords should focus on when the deal closes in 2026

As most gamers have, I've spent plenty of time over the past decade(s) hating on EA and their management.

Electronic Arts and their subsidiaries have alienated gamers countless times over the years, from launching incomplete titles rife with game-breaking bugs and performance issues to forcing soul-sucking microtransactions onto players and cratering beloved franchises thanks to incompetent executive meddling.

There's even the not-so-mythical EA Cemetery, made by gamers to remember various beloved studios that after being bought by the publisher, were quickly run into the ground and shuttered, often with their IP being put on the shelf indefinitely to add insult to injury.

Despite a ton of mismanagement, EA still retains plenty of valuable franchises and gaming rights along with a slew of talented developers, and their executives have even managed to prove somewhat capable at times, as proven with Battlefield's return to greatness.

Once the most hated company in America (actually, twice, as polls by the Consumerist in 2012/13 would indicate), EA has managed to somewhat mitigate that view not by way of notable improvement, but moreso by virtue of the rest of the field becoming increasingly terrible, as we discussed not long ago.

Electronic Arts does however have a chance not only to ride the wave of goodwill and success that Battlefield 6 has just brought them, but to permanently improve and become an even bigger fish in the crowded videogame publisher industry, courtesy of its impending $55 billion US acquisition.

A consortium of investors led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) alongside private equity firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners ponied up for the second largest buyout in gaming history, second only to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard just two years ago; unlike Microsoft's acquisition however, EA's takeover is a leveraged buyout, with roughly $20 billion of the all-cash deal financed via bank loan.

Even outside of the gaming industry, this deal, assuming it gets approved, is making waves as it will be the largest leveraged buyout in history.

The deal still needs to get through regulatory hurdles before being finalized, which is expected to come at some point in 2026, so we're a ways away from the new ownership actually being able to swoop in and implement their vision for the company, but already there's plenty of panic to go around.

Leveraged buyouts have understandably garnered plenty of bad publicity in the past few years as shady private equity firms have come in and gutted their acquired companies, stripping them for parts and then filing bankruptcy after defaulting on their loans, something that should land plenty of white-collar criminals behind bars but never does.

With the videogame industry already reeling from years of mass layoffs and the fears of increasing AI use, despite this buyout and the new vision for the company not being complete or revealed, it hasn't stopped plenty of industry insiders from sounding the alarm.

Setting virtue-signalling cries from media outlets over Saudi Arabia's involvement in the deal aside, the PIF's involvement is actually a good sign for gaming fans and fans of EA's biggest franchises.

With the Saudis being the main financial backers of the deal, fears over EA being stripped for parts and cannibalized are greatly assuaged given their history - the PIF is far more interested in long-term, steady revenue streams and promoting their country in international sectors than it is making quick cash. The bad publicity alone that would come from such a tactic all-but guarantees this buyout has a long-term focus in mind and EA won't be another private equity firesale victim.

It also should get some particular developers back to focusing on making great games rather than promoting their political ideologies.

As one former BioWare (a developer owned by EA) employee, who was laid off earlier this year, stated regarding the new owners, "football and guns are in, gay stuff is out". While the vocal social media crowd may say otherwise, the vast majority of gamers worldwide welcomes such a thing like a breath of fresh air.

The old adage "get woke, go broke" has proven remarkably true over time, and in the gaming industry one need only look at Ubisoft's incredible fall from grace over the past decade thanks to their obsession with DEI and insistence on shoehorning in "social issues" across their studios.

Gamers, and consumers in general, have made it clear they're tired of woke politics being injected into their entertainment, so such a change will be welcome for the non-Karen crowd.

It doesn't take a genius to realize there are plenty of problems with the management of EA's various operations, so having new ownership (along with the Saudi's trillion-dollar war chest to back them up) with the resources and will to excise the cancer that's plagued EA for years should come as a welcome sight for gamers.

Rather than relying on annual FIFA (or EA FC as it's called now thanks to FIFA's money demands) rehashes to prop up the balance sheet while their studios bleed talent and major IPs gather dust, the new ownership has a great opportunity to transform EA into a creative powerhouse and unlock the potential that gamers have always known was there, yet rarely got to experience.

For the first time in a long time, EA's smelling like a winner again thanks to Battlefield 6 - if the new owners want to keep the ball rolling, here are the five biggest moves they should make once the deal clears and the new regime is made official.

5. Prepare for Titanfall

Sure, DICE is currently basking in Battlefield 6's success as it seeks to claim the throne of military FPS supremacy from Call of Duty, but when it comes to reliably delivering high-quality hit after hit without controversy, Respawn Entertainment remains the crown jewel in EA's empire.

From Titanfall to Apex Legends to the Star Wars Jedi games, former Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella's Respawn have proven to be an incredible development house and one that has brought in billions for EA since their first game hit the market in 2014.

Unfortunately for fans of their brilliant Titanfall series, EA on the other hand has been nothing but a disappointment.

Titanfall 2, which came out in 2016, added a single-player campaign to the series that fans of the original desperately asked for, and to this day it ranks as one of the best FPS campaigns ever made.

Respawn's blend of fast-paced, smooth FPS mechanics with a surprisingly heartfelt story, time-bending levels, and epic set-pieces throughout the game's carefully crafted missions truly made Titanfall 2 a masterpiece. Its multiplayer component was just as good thanks to its unique blend of high-octane FPS action with its signature mech warfare, with plenty of great additions to the series, like the addicting grappling hook.

What should have been a major success was instead entirely underwhelming financially thanks to some horrendous decision-making by EA.

On October 18, 2016, Battlefield 1 released, with the series making a triumphant trip backward in time to the rarely explored World War I frontier that reinvigorated the series as it sought to topple Call of Duty from its perch atop the FPS market.

Just a few weeks later, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare would debut on November 4, with Activision's flagship shooter exploring a futuristic setting (that in truth had a highly underrated campaign itself, though its multiplayer was largely underwhelming).

The gaming world was enthralled at the battle between Battlefield and Call of Duty; at the time, COD initially outsold EA's juggernaut thanks to the shrewd move to bundle a remaster of the beloved Modern Warfare with copies of the new game, but ultimately Battlefield 1 would shift more copies and was largely seen as the better product between the two by FPS fans.

Of course, Battlefield wouldn't be able to sustain that success with subsequent outings, but nearly a decade later, the gaming world is once more enthralled by the battle between the two military FPS giants, with Battlefield 6 finally looking to secure a clear win over Activision's (now Microsoft's) flagship franchise, which has seemingly counted on Call of Duty being "too big to fail" and is now panicking as gamers flock to a series which is delivering what players have been asking for while they've focused on making silly cosmetics for the streaming crowd.

Now imagine launching a major militaristic FPS title, with far less marketing, right in between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

That would be mind-blowingly stupid and financially irresponsible, right?

Well that's exactly what EA did back in 2016 with Titanfall 2.

Just 10 days after they released Battlefield 1, EA rolled out Titanfall 2, with Infinite Warfare launching just a week later.

EA's marketing bucks went predominantly to Battlefield as it waged war with Activision, while Respawn's gem was given the scraps and treated like an afterthought.

The strategy (or lack thereof) resulted in predictably lukewarm sales despite critical praise - it was a miracle that Titanfall 2 was able to turn a profit at all with such a sabotaged launch, even though it was certainly a superior futuristic shooter than Infinite Warfare, and had it been Battlefield's marketing push, could very well have gone head to head with it.

Fast-forward to 2019; Respawn, largely using assets from its Titanfall series while it simultaneously worked on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (a great game in its own right that proved the studio could make more than just shooters), launched Apex Legends, EA's attempt to get in on the battle royale craze.

The free-to-play title was a major hit, racking up tens of millions of players and generating over $3.4 billion in revenue to date.

That success, unfortunately, caused Titanfall 3 to become an afterthought, much to the dismay of fans.

Most recently, leaks have revealed that Respawn has had three untitled projects cancelled in recent times - in 2024, a Star Wars FPS was axed by EA (which is a tragedy; I have long called for Respawn to reboot the classic Republic Commando game, but any shooter Respawn is involved with would be welcome), while this year two unnamed projects were canned, with one of them supposedly being set in the Titanfall universe.

With Respawn's track record and the stellar duology that currently exists, gaming as a whole is missing out on greatness for as long as Titanfall 3 fails to exist.

Battlefield is already taking on Call of Duty for holiday season supremacy - if EA simply gives a Titanfall sequel breathing room (ie. just release it in the spring or summer), it will certainly be able to bring in profit.

Not to mention a proper Titanfall-integrated version of Apex Legends could also make a splash, adding the titular mechs to the battle royale fray (and a whole plethora of new cosmetic options for the microtransaction-loving executives) to once again separate itself from its battle royale competitors.

Given Call of Duty's yearly release cycle, depending on timing, EA could simply tag in Titanfall to compete with COD for that year's holiday bucks. The market has shown there's clearly room for two big shooters to scrap it out for that cold-hard Christmas cash, both in 2016 and now in 2025, but three is likely pushing it.

Basically, let Respawn cook, and don't spoil it by launching it in the middle of a Battlefield-COD fist fight. Simple, right? If only the brilliant executives at EA had thought of that...

4. Revamp the UFC Series

We're now five entries into their version of UFC videogames - five! - and EA still can't figure out how to make a good mixed martial arts game.

It's been over a decade since EA UFC first hit consoles, yet MMA fans haven't had a good UFC game in 13 years.

That title was THQ's UFC Undisputed 3, shortly before the struggling publisher sold the videogame rights for one of their few profitable series over to EA.

Despite having a clear blueprint available in the form of THQ's Undisputed titles, EA has utterly failed to even come close to reaching the bar that THQ set.

After five attempts, the physics are still wonky, the animations still look goofy and clunky, the controls keep getting more and more convoluted, and the grappling is so bad, the majority of players refuse to even engage in it.

Hell, the ragdoll physics regularly turn knockouts into slapstick comedy - how is it that a game from 2012 still has far better knockout animations than the latest EA UFC entry from 2023?

The series continuously fails to improve on issues present a decade ago, and even all these years later, they still haven't even added the fan-favourite PRIDE mode from Undisputed 3 which fans have begged for since EA first launched a UFC game.

With their last entry, UFC 5, EA finally changed engines from EA Sport's Ignite, to Frostbite, DICE's engine which powers the Battlefield series.

Given the issues with the series' clunky physics and floaty animations, not to mention its oddly unimpressive graphics, an engine change seemed like it could drastically improve things - switching over to Frostbite, however, was an odd choice.

DICE has regularly proven their engine is capable of amazing things, but it was designed for vast battlefields and destructible environments, not a fighting game. EA's insistence many years ago on using their own engines even when better (and now, less costly) alternatives were available continues to plague the publisher, though in some cases they have allowed developers some leeway (Respawn for instance has used the Unreal Engine for their Star Wars Jedi games to great effect).

The engine switch tacked on an extra year of development time, and yet when UFC 5 came out...the exact same issues persisted, and the game somehow felt almost identical to EA's UFC 4.

The graphics really didn't look any better, the physics saw no real improvement, and the animations are the exact same - the developers seemingly grafted on the animations and physics they used for previous games into the Frostbite engine, and the exact same issues prior titles faced, from inconsistent hit detection to rampant clipping and visual glitches, all remain in the game regardless of what engine's name is slapped on the box.

Unfortunately, the same developers are undoubtedly still making the same mistakes with UFC 6, which although it hasn't been announced, should be set for release in 2026.

While new ownership will be too late to right the ship in time for that release, once UFC 6 is out the door, it's time for a major shakeup.

What's especially frustrating is that the EA Vancouver team that makes the UFC games is the same team that made the beloved Fight Night series, yet even in the striking realm, the UFC games can't hold a candle to that series' fluidity or animations.

The passion and polish from Fight Night is nowhere to be found in the EA UFC games.

Just compare the story modes - in Fight Night Champion, players got to experience an epic, cinematic campaign with a production quality that rivalled big-budget movies; in even the latest UFC game, players get to sleepwalk through a generic, soulless "story" with horrendous cutscenes that is devoid of any real effort in terms of presentation.

Step one should be to find another studio in EA's extensive arsenal to take a crack at the UFC series.

Use the Unreal Engine which is far easier to work with for this kind of a game and plenty capable, and the template for what they should be aiming for gameplay-wise is already right in front of them with Undisputed 3.

Hell, just copy THQ's work in a modern engine, add the UFC's current roster, and voila, you've got a game that's easily 10x better than anything EA has churned out with a UFC in the title.

EA Vancouver can still be utilized for support thanks to their world-class athlete-scanning and mo-cap technologies, but that's as close as they should come to making the UFC games moving forward.

As for what the UFC team at EA Vancouver should work on instead...

3. Bring Back Fight Night

It's been nearly fifteen years since we've gotten a great boxing game.

Fight Night Champion was released way back in 2011 and remains the pinnacle of boxing games to this day.

Undisputed, formerly named eSports Boxing Club, and not to be confused with the now-defunct UFC Undisputed series, was seen as a possible saving grace for starving boxing fans when it officially launched last year and attempted to fill the void.

Unfortunately, while Undisputed boasts an impressive roster with both modern stars and past legends alike, it comes nowhere close to capturing Fight Night's magic. Controls lack real crunch, animations look floaty, the presentation is lacking, there's nothing close to Champion's career mode - one can applaud the effort that a small studio took to make the game, but it pales in comparison to Fight Night.

When EA was given the UFC's virtual reigns in 2012, boxing's star power was on the way out and the UFC was the hottest thing since sliced bread - today, while the UFC remains popular, boxing has experienced a resurgence of its own, and, ironically, it has been largely thanks to an influx of capital courtesy of one Saudi Arabia.

That makes it the perfect time to bring AAA virtual boxing back to the masses.

Send EA Vancouver back to their roots and give the fans the game they've been waiting over a decade for.

Return to the brilliant combination system that made Fight Night 3 and its successors such a revelation, polished to near-perfection in Champion; give us another great story mode that was clearly crafted by a passionate team, unlike the soulless corporate schlock that EA's UFC games have churned out; and give us a solid roster of both current fighters and legends alike.

With the PIF now calling the shots, given their love of the sweet science, it's a no-brainer. Toss in Saudi Arabian venues, integrate Riyadh Season into a promotional package, whatever needs to be done to stroke the new bosses' egos - just give us Fight Night back.

2. Make BioWare Great Again

When it comes to the woke plague, EA has largely managed to stay out of trouble - save for one of its once-beloved developers, BioWare.

The Edmonton-based BioWare is RPG royalty, having crafted the likes of Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect.

Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017 really set the fall of the once-mighty studio in motion, as the series looked to launch a new storyline following the huge success of their epic trilogy.

The potential to explore an entirely new galaxy was immediately marred by the deliverance of a bug-riddled mess, with horrendous facial animations in particular becoming meme-fuel for gamers the world over.

The gameplay itself offered some genuinely great additions like jetpack-oriented combat, but the abundant glitches and visual hitches not to mention the lackluster writing and the absence of new alien races made the game a highly disappointing flop.

Some of that jank was attributed to moving to the Frostbite engine, which was certainly not designed for a third-person RPG (though that certainly wouldn't have caused the dip in writing quality), but then came Anthem in 2019, BioWare's first new IP in over a decade.

The game certainly had a lot of hype before it launched; the visuals largely impressed and flying in the "Javelins" (essentially Iron Man-esque suits of armor) was good fun, but the game was crippled by a hollow and uninteresting story, a grinding live-service model, and once again an infestation of bugs.

It was a major flop and what was expected to put BioWare back into the good graces of fans ended up killing much of the hope gamers had for ever getting another good BioWare action-RPG.

Besides the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition which was a well-remastered collection of the original trilogy, BioWare was quiet until last year's release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

It may not have suffered the bug-ladden launch that the last few BioWare titles did, but its clunky combat, uninspired puzzles, and mediocre writing led it to flop nonetheless, selling even fewer copies than Anthem did.

The once-praised narratives of BioWare's past classics are long gone, with The Veilguard ushering in agenda-driven writing as the studio clearly prioritized DEI checkboxes over actual quality.

The result was preachy dialogue, forced "inclusivity" that included incredibly painful-to-watch scenes with "non-binary" characters explaining their pronouns that went viral on social media, and the loss of the mature, choice-driven storylines that used to define BioWare.

Layoffs unsurprisingly hit the studio hard as a result, with the developer reportedly operating with a skeleton crew as the focus shifts to Mass Effect 5.

The solution is simple, and should be a day one directive for the new ownership: purge the rot at BioWare.

Ditch the ideologues, revert to merit-based hiring as it should always have been, and recruit talent that is passionate about BioWare's roots.

Invest in the best writing talent they can find, particularly writers that are fans of BioWare's classic games - ideally, reel in some of the writers that worked on the original Mass Effect trilogy if they can.

The priorities for BioWare and the next Mass Effect should be made clear - crafting an expansive, player-choice driven narrative with memorable characters and environments, paired with polished action-RPG mechanics. Woke slop, like shoehorned-in "diversity" and LGBTQ junk, has no place in its stories going forward.

Anyone on the current BioWare crew that doesn't like it, should be shown the door and replaced by those that are able to deliver what fans have been begging for.

Of course, the lessons learned and demonstrated with Battlefield 6 should also be made clear to every developer under EA's umbrella from day one, and those are to ensure stable and bug-free (as much as possible) launches and to deliver a fully-featured, polished product to fans on day one.

Mass Effect was one of the biggest franchises in gaming and has all the potential to return to the top - but changes certainly need to be made in order to realize that potential.

1. Star Wars Battlefront III

An adjacent point that no one seems to be recognizing about Battlefield 6's triumph is how perfectly it sets the stage for another beloved series to return - Star Wars Battlefront.

EA's reboot of the beloved Battlefront games was already largely just a Battlefield game in a Star Wars skin with some minor additions to DICE's typical formula to incorporate the classic Battlefront game's modes.

Their 2015 entry nailed the spectacle fans were expecting with epic ground wars and vehicular mayhem, but stumbled with its shallow modes and lack of any single-player campaign, with a severe lack of content hurting its longevity; its sequel in 2017 delivered with a short-but-sweet campaign and more refined multiplayer offering, but was undone by a clusterfuck of a launch that butchered what should have been a blockbuster release.

Unlike a typical DICE launch, Battlefront II wasn't a bug-filled mess - instead, it was the incredibly predatory progression and loot box scheme that undid the developer's great work.

The loot box-filled multiplayer unlocks effectively crammed microtransactions down player's throats, practically forcing gamers to pry open their wallets if they wanted to unlock anything given the glacially slow standard progression the game featured, despite the fact it was a fully-paid release and not a free-to-play title.

Not only that, but it wasn't just cosmetics that were part of the microtransaction scheme - weapons, gadgets and perks were all included, making it a "pay to win" game in the worst way.

After the monumental backlash EA suffered to the news of its systems even before the game officially released, EA yanked the pay-to-win scheme just 24-hours before release, later shifting it entirely to cosmetics; though players couldn't pay to unlock things and gain an advantage when it officially released to the masses, until later updates the unlocks were still glacially slow for all thanks to their botched vision of progression.

Despite their last-minute "change of heart", the damage was already done - their microtransaction scheme sparked global outrage and even caused governments in various countries to scrutinize loot boxes in games, which were viewed as a form of gambling and would later be regulated in many countries.

The game itself, outside of the stunted progression, was genuinely great and an awesome experience for Star Wars fans especially as DICE added improvements and additional content as time went on, but the controversy tanked sales and left a third installment on the backburner as a result.

Ironically, the original Battlefront series ended at two installments as well after their release in 2004 and 2005; their developer, Pandemic Games (also ironic: Pandemic Games was purchased by one Electronic Arts in 2008, only to be shuttered a year later) made the massive hits for LucasArts, only for LucasArts to task another development studio, Free Radical Design (famous for creating the Timesplitters series), with creating the third installment.

News on the game was scarce, as was any indication as to why LucasArts would have another studio make the next installment when the two Battlefront games by Pandemic were so well received; by the end of 2008, Free Radical Design announced they lost the rights to develop the game.

Years later, the co-founder of Free Radical Design claimed that the game was "pretty much done" development at the end of 2008, but that LucasArts couldn't commit to "spend big" on the game's marketing; an unnamed LucasArts employee at the time meanwhile claimed Free Radical regularly missed deadlines, alluding to that being the cause of the cancellation.

As years have gone by, leaks would show working gameplay that delivered on the promise of one cohesive environment where players could engage in combat on a planet's surface then take to space for starfighter dogfights and to board starships, leaving fans to mourn what could have been.

Eight years after EA's second Battlefront game, fans of the series have once again waited patiently for another entry, only to be disappointed by mismanaged publishers.

Battlefield 6's stellar foundations however, now provide the perfect opportunity for DICE and EA to deliver on the promise of the Battlefront series.

The Frostbite engine already has the polished, beautiful large-scale infantry combat and vehicular mayhem that Battlefront requires - DICE just needs to take a page from the modder's playbook and get to swapping out textures, models, and sound files to get started on the next Battlefront.

Of course it isn't that easy to make a new Battlefront, but DICE already has the core of the game accounted for, which will save on a massive amount of development time.

My proposal would be to lean into the "re-skinned Battlefield" comparisons a bit and eschew the "hero" units present in Battlefront, to instead focus on the vehicular carnage and destruction that Battlefield is known for.

The escalating units and vehicle call-ins would still be present (so players for instance can deploy as more specialized droids or clone units, for example, as the game progresses), but the hero units cause too many headaches with balancing, not to mention that it's only fun for the extremely few who get to use the hero units in a game, considering they need to be heavily restricted yet there are up to 40 players in a match (64 if they keep to Battlefield's scale).

Instead, focus on the feature that fans were so excited about from the original, scrapped third game - full, ground-to-space warfare.

EA's second entry delivered the ship-to-ship battles that fans missed from the original games, which enabled players to engage in dogfights in space and even board enemy starships - the ultimate progression of this kind of game mode is of course engaging in a ground war while all of this is going on.

Imagine taking part as a rebel in a massive, Battlefield-style ground battle on the surface of a Star Wars planet like Hoth, firing your blaster at a squad of Stormtroopers hunkered down in a trench to defend a landing pad as an AT-AT's massive footsteps shake the icy surface all around you; after taking out the squad with your mates, you commandeer a TIE Fighter and barrel into the sky, boosting through the atmosphere toward two massive starships parked in orbit.

As you exit the atmosphere and enter the darkness of space, you're met with streaking beams of light as swarms of starfighters engage each other and the massive starships exchange heavy weapon fire. After sending an Interceptor to a fiery grave, you execute a hard landing in the bay of the Star Destroyer, wiping out a parked TIE Bomber in the process before lighting up a confused Stormtrooper pilot as he tries to make sense of the carnage. You join several companions in their assault on the enemy ship, clearing hallways and fighting your way to capture points deep in the starship in your quest to destroy the vessel entirely, as waves of Stormtroopers desperately attempt to fend off the boarding action at all costs.

It may be a lot to ask, but if DICE can deliver, they'd have an absolutely massive hit on their hands.

They may even be able to "cheat" to largely achieve the same effect (essentially, have two separate battlegrounds, one on the ground and one in space, transitioning players between the two with canned transition sequences between space/atmosphere and vice versa, so that only one is actually loaded at once) - so long as it doesn't come with a clearly visible loading time, trickery would certainly be acceptable if it can pull off the effect.

So long as they don't botch the landing by trying to cram in some new form of microtransaction scheme, now is the perfect time for EA to build off of the stellar core Battlefield 6 provides and deliver the Star Wars Battlefront III gamers have been waiting two decades for.