Eh stylized assets aren’t necessarily easier or less time consuming than PBR. It’s not difficult to make a game look realistic these days at least to a reasonable amount of scrutiny. Also this is a large developer with a lot of funding so EA isn’t going to cut corners in the art department with one of their flagship IPs. You also can’t just reallocate artists to work on mechanics, these are entirely different departments and the process of hiring/firing workers dynamically doesn’t gel well with a production pipeline.