EA Insists Iron Man Game ‘Remains an Important Priority’ as Developer Motive Joins Battlefield

09.04.2024 - 14:53 / ign.com / Patrick Klaus / Connie Booth / Philippe Ducharme

EA has insisted its Iron Man game is still in the works after adding developer Motive to the list of owned studios working on the Battlefield franchise.

Motive studio general manager Patrick Klaus said a “group” of developers from the Montreal-based Motive are joining Criterion, DICE, and Ripple Effect “to continue unlocking the full potential of Battlefield.” This group includes the directors who worked on Motive’s 2023 Dead Space remake: Philippe Ducharme (Executive Producer) and Roman Campos-Oriola (Creative Director). The pair will build a team to work on what’s coming next for Battlefield.

Meanwhile, work on Iron Man continues, Klaus said in a blog post. “In parallel, development continues to move forward on our Iron Man project, led by Olivier Proulx (Executive Producer) and Ian Frazier (Creative Director),” said Klaus. “The team made excellent progress this year, hitting a major internal milestone and laying a robust foundation for the journey ahead. Iron Man remains an important priority for Motive, and I’m very proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far.”

Klaus did not offer any new assets of the Iron Man game or a release window. The Iron Man game was announced in September 2022 as "an all-new single-player, action-adventure" game and the first of three Marvel video games coming from publisher EA. Then, in October 2023, Motive confirmed it was developing Iron Man using Unreal Engine 5. At the time, Iron Man was said to be Motive’s focus after the well-received Dead Space Remake came out earlier that year. "We're still early in pre-production and taking our time to make sure we set the best possible foundation for development" EA Motive said at the time. "But already, we’re finding so many opportunities to explore story, design and gameplay with Iron Man, and it’s exciting to see the fantasy start coming alive."

However, in February this year, EA announced plans to lay off around 670 workers, cancel or close games, and move away from future licensed intellectual property, calling into question the status of the Iron Man game among others. EA currently has several confirmed Star Wars and Marvel games in development, including a third Jedi game, Black Panther, and Iron Man. But EA canceled Respawn's Star Wars first person shooter before it was even properly revealed. The Star Wars strategy game in development at Bit Reactor and produced by Respawn survived.

In March, former PlayStation executive Connie Booth, one of the chief architects of PlayStation's first-party strategy before her unexpected departure in 2023, joined EA to help lead its studios amid its ongoing restructure. Booth's title is Group General Manager, Action RPG, with a portfolio that includes Motive (Iron Man and now Battlefield),