Electronic Arts has been in the headlines for all sorts of reasons over the years, but Hazelight Studios founder and director Josef Fares (who is known for expressing his honest opinion) can't help but feel the third-party video game giant is still "getting more s**t" than it deserves.
His team's award-winning games (including It Takes Two and more recently Split Fiction) have been backed by EA and during the same CES 2026 interview with Christopher Dring at The Game Business, Fares took a moment to defend the company - acknowledging how it's actually been a "super good collaboration" between the two parties, even if it hasn't been completely perfect at all times.
He goes on to state how every publisher has its moments, while calling out Nintendo and the other two major players in the console industry:
Josef Fares: “Let’s be honest, there’s not a publisher in the world that hasn’t f*****d up now and then. Sometimes I feel that EA is getting more s**t than they deserve. I mean, come on, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, everybody’s done something that’s not good. But for some reason, EA has become this bad guy."
Despite EA being labelled a "bad guy", Fares insists there are still "a lot of great people at EA" and they know how Hazelight operates and respects this. He adds how he's "surrounded" by people at EA who "love games" and it doesn't feel like he's with a bunch of corporate suits. And if the situation does ever change, Fares says he's got no worries because Hazelight will always do "what it wants".
If you want to read more about the Hazelight founder's thoughts, he's also shared his opinion on the future of AI in games. And as for his work, his studio's latest release Split Fiction was one of the Switch 2's launch titles last year.