Firestorm is the big blip on the Battlefield 5 radar screen, but Electronic Arts has plans for the game beyond battle royale. It laid out the basics of what’s coming this year in a 2019 roadmap covering the next two chapters of the ongoing “Tides of War,” and teasing the third.
Chapter 3, Trial By Fire, gets underway on March 25—that’s Monday—and will include new Combined Arms missions, a new Mediterranean map based on the German airborne invasion of Crete, a Hardcore mode, and of course the battle royale mode Firestorm. In June, Defying the Odds will launch with a new multiplayer mode and map—an “urban design [that] has been sought after by the community and should feel both familiar and fresh at the same time”—and the Marita map based on the 1940 invasion of Greece.
Chapter 5, Awakening the Giant, is slated for the fall, and will feature “a land, air, and sea invasion in a completely new theater of war.” No details were provided but it’s reasonable to assume it will see Japan’s entry into the war: The title of the chapter is almost certainly a reference to a famous quote attributed to Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who reportedly said after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
(It’s probably apocryphal—it apparently originated in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!)
EA warned that the plan could change “as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content,” but for now, this is what you’ve got to look forward to. More information will be revealed in June at the EA Play event.
