Announced with a terrific trailer, Battlefield 2042, released on November 19, 2021, unfortunately failed to meet any expectations. The last member of the Battlefield series, which was released with almost no content and many bugs and optimization problems, garnered negative comments from almost all of the players.
The biggest complaint of the players was that DICE, the developer of the game, left Battlefield 2042 really dry compared to the previous games in the series. While there has been no public voice given to players who have been voicing their problems for a long time, that voice was given for the first time today. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson made statements stating that the game was a disappointment.
The game’s bad turnout was attributed to COVID-19 restrictions
Sharing the reports for the third quarter of Electronic Arts’ fiscal year, Andrew Wilson explained that Battlefield 2042 has always been a “passionate game” for EA. Wilson attributed the game’s current state to the fact that almost all of the game was developed during the COVID-19 restrictions. Wilson continued his explanation as follows:
“Developing this game with our teams working from home for nearly two years has been challenging. Throughout our testing and preparation process, we believed the experience was ready to fall into the hands of our players. We set out with strong stability; however, as more players experienced the full game, it became clear that there were unexpected performance issues that we needed to address. Some of the design choices we made in the game also didn’t appeal to everyone in our community.”
While it is not known how Battlefield 2042 affects EA’s profitability, the call also included statements that could give an idea about this issue. In the earnings call, it was stated that EA’s sales expectations were balanced by FIFA and Apex Legends, while it was announced that FIFA 22 was the strongest FIFA game so far. Despite the Battlefield 2042 debacle, EA earned $1.79 billion in net income in the last three months.
In addition to all this, DICE announced yesterday that the new content update to Battlefield 2042 has been delayed for a few months to focus on improvements.
What were the shortcomings of Battlefield 2042?
Battlefield 2042’s shortcomings were so many that players even started a list that brought them all together and a poll that they wanted to be fixed first in the game. The missing list included 18 items, including the lack of a story mode and class system as the main features of the game. Titles that listed dozens of shortcomings in each included pedestrian gameplay, vehicles, score system, team and teamwork, map, UI, and audio titles.
According to the survey prepared and answered by the players, the top 5 things that needed to be fixed in the game were map design, hit registration, weapon response, UI clutter, and general bugs in animation and interface. Also, 75% of players thought the class system was much better.
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