EA recently held its annual company earnings call on 29 October 2019, revealing several details about the publisher’s near-future plans for its existing video game IPs. According to Niko Partners games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, there won’t be a new Battlefield title in 2020.

It’s been confirmed that EA will only be releasing a new Battlefield instalment in the fiscal year of 2022, which actually takes place between April 2021 and March 2022. This marks the first time since 2008’s Battlefield: Bad Company that the publisher won’t be following its usual one-and-a-half or two-year cycle for the military FPS franchise.

EA notes that Apex Legends will be the main service shooter that they focus on next year. The game is planned for mobile, new platforms, China and esports scene.

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 29, 2019

The reason for this is because EA would prefer to shift its focus onto Apex Legends for the FPS genre. The battle royale game has reached 70 million players, with the recently-started Season 3 the best performing one yet since the game’s initial launch in February 2019. The publisher is also planning to release Apex Legends to mobile and other platforms in the future.

The most recent instalment in the Battlefield franchise was 2018’s Battlefield V, which returned the game to its roots of World War 2 after years of modern settings and World War 1 in 2016’s Battlefield 1.

It remains to be seen if this will ultimately be a good decision, especially with the next gaming console generation to arrive in 2020, which means that the Battlefield franchise will be missing out as a potential launch title for either the PS5 or Xbox Scarlett.