After nearly two decades working between Electronic Arts and DICE, Patrick Söderlund will be leaving the company. Söderlund only started as chief design officer at EA in April this year, but he’s been a part of the company in prominent roles since 2010, and previously served as CEO of DICE ever since the studio was founded in 2000.
EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson shared the news on the publisher’s website today. He calls Söderlund, “a trusted business partner and a great friend,” “an agent of change and transformation,” and says that “his inspiring leadership has had an outstanding impact on EA.” Gosh.
Söderlund was the main advocate behind the push to make the Battlefield Frostbite engine the basis of all EA properties, which Wilson says “has now become a cornerstone for our technology strategy.”
“He has been unwavering in his commitment to building our pipeline of amazing new games to come, and his fingerprints will be on the experiences that we bring to players well into the future. We wish Patrick the very best in his next life adventure, and we thank him for his many significant contributions.”
Söderlund has been a leading figure in the company and a familiar face of EA in the news for many years. Most recently he worked with EA vice president of strategic growth Matt Bilbey to develop a “moral compass” for the company’s monetisation practices, in order to give their game teams “the right guidance.” He acknowledged that the publisher made mistakes with the way they handled Star Wars: Battlefront II, and noted that when it came to Anthem or Battlefield V, “we can’t afford to make similar mistakes. And we won’t.”
Less happily, he also became the face of EA’s shutdown of Visceral and Amy Hennig’s Star Wars game, stating at the time that “to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design.” We haven’t heard anything on the game since.
He will be leaving EA later this year. His replacement has not been named.