The launch of a new Battlefield title has rarely gone smoothly for EA and DICE, but the latest entry in the series has arguably been the most controversial, given all the headlines it managed to create up till now. Unsurprisingly, the disappointment was also reflected in EA’s most recent earnings call, where CEO Andrew Wilson revealed that the game’s launch had not met expectations. Citing challenging work-from-home conditions during development, Wilson said the game had strong stability at launch but ran into unanticipated performance issues as more players came on board. Also to blame were “some of the design choices,” that in other words were a myriad of missing features from previous Battlefield games, resulting in this entry quickly becoming one of Steam’s worst-rated games of all time.
Nevertheless, fans who still had some hope left for the game were eagerly awaiting its first major content drop as part of the Season One update. However, that’s now been delayed to early summer, with DICE revealing plans to fix core issues of the game in the coming months. The first of these updates will arrive in early March, consisting of a refreshed in-round scoreboard, alongside a few goodies for Gold and Ultimate Edition owners, while subsequent updates will bring VoIP, better gunplay and other feedback-based improvements. Being a live service title, it’ll be an uphill task for EA and DICE to retain BF2042’s declining playerbase that’s frustrated by the lack of basic features and post-launch content. “We are fully committed to realizing the full potential of this game and fully committed to our Battlefield fans,” noted Wilson. Whether that involves going free-to-play remains to be seen.
