Frostbite 1 and 1.5 '' on Frostbite 1 The first iteration of the Frostbite game engine made its debut in the 2008 video game
Battlefield: Bad Company. The engine was developed with an
HDR Audio and Destruction 1.0. HDR Audio allowed differing sound levels to be perceived by the player whilst Destruction 1.0 allowed players to destroy the environment. A newer version of Frostbite would later be employed in
Battlefield 1943 (2009) and
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2010), which would come to be known as Frostbite 1.5. In the upgraded game engine, it was now possible for players to cause enough destruction to entirely demolish structures. This version was also employed in the multiplayer aspect of
Medal of Honor (2010), becoming the first video game outside of the
Battlefield series to run on Frostbite.
Frostbite 2 On 25 October 2011, Frostbite 2 made its debut in
Battlefield 3. Frostbite 2 has upgrades such as deferred rendering and real-time radiosity and Destruction 3.0, which made falling debris potentially lethal to the player. Further changes to the engine included the addition of
suppressive fire and disabling vehicles before destroying them. For the first time in a game that was not a shooter nor developed by DICE, Frostbite was brought to the
Need for Speed series with 2011's
Need for Speed: The Run, which was released on 15 November. It took a year for
EA Black Box, the developer of
Need for Speed: The Run, to re-purpose the game engine for driving instead of shooting. On 21 May 2012, DICE rendering architect Johan Andersson said that future
personal computer video games running on Frostbite would have to be played on
64-bit operating systems. On 23 October,
Medal of Honor: Warfighter became the first game of its series to feature Frostbite in both single and multiplayer. On 26 March 2013, ''
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel'' became the first
third-person shooter and last video game to employ Frostbite 2.
Frostbite 3 In March 2013,
Battlefield executive producer Patrick Bach announced that Frostbite 3 would not support the
Wii U, saying that "the Wii U is not a part of our focus right now." The third generation of Frostbite made its debut in
Battlefield 4 on 29 October. In the updated engine, the environments became much more dynamic upon the actions of the players and Destruction 4.0, which was known as
Levolution in
Battlefield 4. On one map of
Battlefield 4, it was possible for players to destroy a dam, causing the entire map to be flooded by water. a low-overhead rendering API co-developed by
AMD and DICE. However, due to lack of interest and support, Mantle was phased out, with 2015's
Battlefield Hardline being the last game to implement it. On 15 November,
Need for Speed Rivals became the second game of its
series to use the game engine and the first since the upgrade to Frostbite 3. A game in the
Command & Conquer series, provisionally titled
Command & Conquer: Generals 2, underwent development challenges; originally developed as a sequel to the
2003 title, the game underwent numerous changes and would be cancelled in 2013 following fan outcry over the multiplayer-oriented experience. Similarly,
Shadow Realms, a
BioWare title, met a similar fate, being cancelled due to the developers choosing to shift their focus to future titles, including
Mass Effect: Andromeda. First released on 25 February 2014,
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare became the first game in the
Plants vs. Zombies series to run on Frostbite. On 18 November, the game engine made its debut in the
action role-playing genre of video games with
Dragon Age: Inquisition. On 17 March 2015,
Battlefield Hardline became the second game of its series to run on Frostbite 3, and the last to release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In November,
Need for Speed and
Star Wars Battlefront were both released under Frostbite, the 2016
Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission expansion for the latter game exclusive to the
PlayStation VR and being the first VR title to use the engine. On 23 February 2016,
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 was released, being developed with the game engine. On 7 June, ''
Mirror's Edge Catalyst became the first action-adventure game to run on Frostbite. On 21 October, Battlefield 1'' became the third title of its series to be released under the third generation of the game engine. On 21 March 2017,
Mass Effect: Andromeda was released on Frostbite. On 10 November,
Need for Speed Payback was released, running on the game engine; a week later on November 17,
Star Wars Battlefront II was the last game of 2017 to be released on Frostbite. 2018's
Battlefield V runs on the Frostbite 3 engine. In 2019,
Anthem,
Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, and
Need for Speed Heat were all released running Frostbite. In 2020,
Star Wars: Squadrons became the second VR-compatible game to run on Frostbite, with the PC version of the game bringing VR support on PC to the engine (following its use un the aforementioned
Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission expansion). On Xbox Series X and S, the game received support for high frame rates and 4K resolution, alongside visual improvements. In February 2021, a
Nintendo Switch version of
Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville was announced, marking the first Frostbite title on a Nintendo console.
Frostbite (2021–present) In November 2021,
Battlefield 2042 was released for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One,
Xbox Series X/S, and
PlayStation 5, using a new version of Frostbite rebranded simply as "Frostbite". The new engine version, developed specifically for
2042, took 18 months of development time. In October 2022,
Need for Speed Unbound was announced to be using the Frostbite engine, marking developer
Criterion Games' first game using the engine. The game was released on 2 December 2022 utilizing the
Battlefield 2042 version of Frostbite. The release of
Unbound also marked a shift to dropping support for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on mainline EA titles, excluding most EA Sports titles. The 2023 remake of
Dead Space also utilizes Frostbite. In December 2023, a new logo for the engine was unveiled, and Electronic Arts announced it would retract its original strategy of developing every game under its label in Frostbite.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which uses another version of Frostbite, was released in 2024. The studio head of Ridgeline Games, Marcus Lehto, confirmed that the next installment of the
Battlefield franchise will be developed on an upgraded version of Frostbite. This installment was later revealed to be
Battlefield 6. A majority of Frostbite was rebuilt for the game, which introduced enhancements including a new movement system called the "Kinesthetic Combat System". The engine's environmental destruction system was also revamped.
Battlefield 6 shipped on October 10, 2025, with a free-to-play battle royale mode which released on October 28, 2025 with optimizations for the Xbox Series S, which applied to the entire game. The reboot of
Skate shipped on Frostbite, which marks the engine's first appearance on
macOS and mobile platforms. Despite the company shifting their focus to the current-generation consoles, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, the title was released on the previous-generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
EA Sports titles Since the release of
Rory McIlroy PGA Tour in 2015, Frostbite has seen use in
EA Sports' annual
sports titles, which previously used the
Ignite engine. Following the introduction of the engine to the
FIFA with the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions of
FIFA 17 in 2016, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and
Nintendo Switch releases (the latter beginning with 2017's
FIFA 18) were dubbed "Legacy Editions", instead using the last-generation Impact engine last innovated on in the console versions of
FIFA 14 and excluding new features in later titles, such as
The Journey campaign and new features like the
UEFA Champions League mode (introduced in
FIFA 19) from those editions. The Nintendo Switch versions of the titles would receive feature parity, offering an experience similar to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with the release of
EA Sports FC 24 in 2023, with the only exclusion being the lack of
cross-platform play with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Following the
FIFA transition, more EA Sports franchises transitioned to the engine. With the release of
Madden NFL 18 in 2017, the
Madden NFL series transitioned to Frostbite; 2021's
NHL 22 marked that
series' transition to Frostbite; the 2023 reboot of the
PGA series,
EA Sports PGA Tour, uses the engine; and the
EA Sports College Football series transitioned to the engine with
EA Sports College Football 25 in 2024. Enhancements for the
PlayStation 5 and
Xbox Series X/S began in 2020 with the release of
FIFA 21. Improvements featured graphical enhancements to take advantage of the newer hardware. Notably, the PC versions of
FIFA did not receive these enhancements until
FIFA 23 in 2022. As the new version of Frostbite was implemented into these titles, the
UFC,
NHL,
PGA Tour and
College Football franchises do not have PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions, with
Madden NFL following suit with
Madden NFL 26. EA has committed to bringing both
EA Sports FC and
Madden NFL, which both run on Frostbite, to the
Nintendo Switch 2. The first titles from said franchises to release on the platform were
EA Sports FC 26 and
Madden NFL 26.
Madden in particular runs at 40 frames per second on the Switch 2, while
EA Sports FC 26 introduced HyperMotion V on the Switch 2. Not all EA Sports franchises have transitioned to Frostbite. As of 2025, the only EA Sports franchises to not run on the engine are the
NBA Live (the last installment used the Ignite engine),
Super Mega Baseball series and
Codemasters'
F1 racing game series, the latter franchise using Codemasters' proprietary
Ego engine. The only EA-published title in the
WRC series,
EA Sports WRC, used
Unreal Engine 4. Additionally,
EA Sports FC Mobile (formerly
FIFA Mobile) for
Android and
iOS still utilize the last-generation Impact engine due to the limitations of mobile devices, and
EA Sports FC Online (formerly
FIFA Online 4) for
Microsoft Windows still use the Ignite engine because of hardware requirements. Similar to FC Mobile,
Madden NFL Mobile (also titled
Madden NFL Overdrive from 2018 to 2019) still utilize a custom engine for the game instead of Frostbite also due to the limitations of mobile devices. == Frostbite Labs ==