Legendary Battlefield director leaves EA after 2042 failure

Marcus Lehto, a legendary figure in the gaming space known for his role as a co-creator for Halo and the Game Director for Battlefield, has left EA.

While no official announcements were made, it appears Marcus Lehto has quietly scrubbed off all mentions of working at EA and Battlefield from his social media profiles. Furthermore, they've updated their LinkedIn with an end date for their role at EA. Finally, official confirmation came through Facebook, where Lehto announced that he had left his job at EA.

He was onboarded at EA as a Creative Director after the lacklustre debut of Battlefield 2042, which was unable to generate the buzz EA had hoped. While this seemed like a perfect match, as Marcus Lehto would be able to make use of his FPS expertise, he was later relocated to Ridgeline Games.

Lehto had formerly been heading the Ridgeline Games studio in Seattle. Ridgeline Games was in charge of developing some FPS titles, but Marcus Lehto's role here revolved around creating a story and injecting more lore into the Battlefield universe.

While Lehto has officially announced his departure, we have yet to hear a word from EA. EA has recently announced the new Battlefield title in an earnings call and claims that it will be a “reimagination of Battlefield”. With the departure of Marcus Lehto, fans are only left wondering if this marks a red flag for the upcoming title.

We've seen previous cases of prominent game directors jumping ship right before a massive launch they assume will be unsuccessful. Jeff Kaplan from the Overwatch team is a prime example. The user who first noted this, DannyonPC, also noted that Ridgeline's art director, Chris Matthews, had also left the company last month for 343 Industries.

Whatever the case, this change in management can only mean more trouble for the launch of the new Battlefield title. There are currently no job openings listed at Ridgeline Games, and we'll likely have to wait for EA to make an official statement.