Following his departure and Ridgeline Games' shuttering last month, Marcus Lehto says he has nothing "positive to say about EA"

After leaving the company last month, former Battlefield director Marcus Lehto has said he doesn't have "anything positive to say about EA."

At the end of February, it became apparent that Lehto had left Ridgeline Games, the studio he co-founded that was specifically made to work on the Battlefield franchise. It wasn't particularly clear why he left at the time, though considering days later EA announced that it was laying off 5% of its staff, with Ridgeline Games winding down as a standalone studio. Lehto's presence on Twitter has been noticeably quiet since his departure, but earlier this week he did comment on the layoffs with an understandably scathing comment directed at EA.

"Not been saying much here since I don’t have anything positive to say about EA," Lehto said, continuing on to say, "my recent departure, and how so many, including my team, are suffering due to the industry sweeping layoffs." Given that that 5% of staff accounts for around 670 people, I think Lehto's comment is pretty reasonable - especially when you take into consideration EA had already made 6% of its staff redundant in March 2023.

Following Lehto's departure from Ridgeline in February, the Halo co-creator said "I left EA on my own accord. This was very a tough decision for me to make. I want to thank the Battlefield community for allowing me to listen to you while I was able. Your feedback will help make Battlefield stronger. I wish the teams at EA all the best moving forward." Lehto hasn't confirmed what's next for him in the industry, but he did say that "in the meantime, I will be taking time away from games to see what, if anything, I want to do next," so it's entirely possible he'll leave the industry completely.

EA's layoffs have hit the company quite hard, hitting teams at various developers the publisher owns, even resulting in the rumoured Mandalorian game being cancelled. For a bit of positive news, though, Bit Reactor and Respawns' Star Wars tactics game has survived at least.