Battlefield game director Marcus Letho leaves EA and Ridgeline Games

Halo co-creator and Battlefield game director Marcus Letho has left EA.

Letho – who had been heading up Seattle-based Ridgeline Games, an EA studio dedicated to the Battlefield franchise – has seemingly scrubbed all mentions of Battlefield and EA from their social media bio, as well as updated their LinkedIn to state they’ve now left EA.

As spotted by “Battlefield connoisseur” DANNYonPC and Insider Gaming, Ridgeline Games currently has no job openings on its careers site, and Ridgeline’s co-founder and art director, Chris Matthews, also left the studio in January 2024 to join Destiny developer Bungie as studio art director.

Lehto has not formally announced their departure nor commented on their next steps, but their exit has Battlefield fans wondering about the future of the shooter franchise. Lehto was widely thought to have been brought on to guide the series following Battlefield 2042’s lacklustre performance. Similarly, EA has not formally commented on Lehto’s departure, either.

We’ve reached out to EA and will update if/when we hear back.

“For all its breadth and scope, Battlefield 2042 feels like the most muddled, compromised and confused entry in the series yet – a more existential problem than faced by the likes of Battlefield 4 through its similarly troubled launch,” the Eurogamer-editor-formerly-known-as-Martin wrote of Battlefield 2042 back in 2021.

“There’s a chance, though, that DICE can do what it’s proven to do so well in the past, with Battlefield 4 and then Battlefront 2 which faced controversies of its own. In Battlefield 2042 there are enough moments of that old magic – matched by some smart if unrefined new ideas – to suggest that, with a bit of finessing and focus, it might yet have a promising future.”