‘Trust continues to be tampered with’: A thread about SBMM in the upcoming Battlefield game is the final straw as an EA community manager lets loose on leakers

2025-04-14 10:52:00
www.pcgamer.com

The next Battlefield game has been in an early playtest for a while now, with EA deciding to take a new angle on community testing by introducing its Battlefield Labs initiative, a new way for players to test out potential features for the upcoming game. The only problem being that, despite an NDA, participants have been leaking footage of the untitled game all over the place, to the disdain of EA.

This has been a recurring problem, but it seems like we found the final straw: Players openly discussing potential SBMM features. Rumours about the next Battlefield having SBMM started to spread like wildfire, with most players responding negatively, saying that it’s either not needed or it makes matches worse. In a Reddit post, one player shares a PSA from David Sirland, Battlefield’s lead producer, trying to calm tensions by effectively saying that all of this is temporary and being done with a light touch. But when grumpy commenters take to the replies to complain, the community manager steps in.

“Okay enough,” community manager T0TALfps says. “Battlefield Labs is about building and collaborating on the future of Battlefield, and we want to do that in the correct way. I want to remind everyone that things that are taking place in Battlefield Labs may or may not make their way to the final finish line. This is the greatest thing about this program.

“It allows us the ability to get creative, see what works with those involved, gain educated and informed feedback from those who are participating and potentially spot bugs around the features too. We’ve long wanted to implement this program, responding to your requests for greater involvement and a return to this type of reactivity around all things Battlefield.”

They also inflict a light telling off, highlighting how “there is a specific time and place for the wider community to learn about new features and functionalities, and this is not it.” All these leaks accomplish is stirring up unnecessary unrest and arguments as people debate features that may not even make it into the final game.

PSA from David Sirland in BF Labs surrounding the controversy of SBMM. from r/Battlefield

“Information and content that gets shared is out of context and often with a narrative wrapped around it that is doing damage to the trust and transparency we want to establish,” T0TALfps continues. “Things simply are not the same when it comes to hearing about something out of context versus actually experiencing it, or reading about it in detail with the correct descriptions around it.

“While the allure of brief internet fame might be tempting, it undermines our efforts to remain open and communicative. And quite honestly, if that is your intention, then I question where this aligns with the interests of our, THIS, community.”

It is only official when we share it and we are comfortable with the topic at hand.
T0TALfps, community manager

All we really know about the next Battlefield so far is that it’s set in the modern day, it’ll bring back traditional classes and focused maps, and it’ll release before April 2026. That’s not a lot to go off of, but alongside a short gameplay trailer, the only other thing of note is that it looks a bit like Battlefield 3.

So with the lack of information going around at the moment about the next game, it may seem tempting to search for leaks or rise to temporary internet fame for providing new information, but that’s not what’s best for the game’s development or the devs working hard on it.

“We all can agree that we wanted to have an environment that allowed for testing and collaborating once again,” T0TALfps says. “We want to be as transparent as we can be. You have seen us return to the values you once recognised in us. We all want to make Battlefield play like Battlefield, but we cannot do it if the trust continues to be tampered with. We must be allowed the ability to do it right, alongside you all and in the correct way.”

So in the future, before getting mad or excited at Battlefield leaks, it’s probably best to keep this little titbit from T0TALfps in mind: “When it comes to features, content, functionality, and more, it is only official when we share it and we are comfortable with the topic at hand.”

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