Battlefield 2042 – What went wrong?

After the vastly popular releases of Battlefield 1 and V, the developers of this franchise (DICE) had a major let-down with Battlefield 2042. During its early release days, being the most anticipated game at the time, it was ranking in the low 200s in Steam charts- behind Call of Duty games released over 5 years ago. It was an embarrassing performance, to say the least. Here are the main reasons for this flop.

Battlefield 2042 not meeting the industry standards

Considering Battlefield 2042 was released at the same time as Halo infinite, fans had expectations of something on par. However, DICE seemed to have just released an unfinished game. There were tremendous amounts of glitch reports and bugs that players experienced worldwide.

Battlefield is known for its well-thought-out campaigns that immerse players into war. For an unknown reason, Battlefield 2042 disregarded that tradition and didn’t include any sort of campaign. Being a strictly multiplayer game, it should be better than Halo infinite’s multiplayer game, right? Sadly, this isn’t the case. DICE released a barely functioning mediocre premium FPS (first-person shooter). Battlefield 2042 seemed like a cash grab riding on the vast anticipation before the game’s release.

Lack of innovation

There were no notable features added that separated Battlefield 2042 from the rest. At the end of the day, it just seemed like any other game on the market. Players hated it so much that there was a petition demanding a refund for all Battlefield 2042 owners- which received over 200,000 signatures; this shows how much of a failure Battlefield 2042 was.

Even as the game matured, the developers simply patched the bugs and glitches without progressing the game and giving something new to players. They spent all their time launching updates that made the game playable instead of inviting players. Hopefully, this was a test game for DICE. Although it was an unstable game, it had features that Battlefield never explored, such as using futuristic gadgets. If the developers learn from their mistakes in this game, the next game could be a hit for the Battlefield franchise if the futuristic aspects are matured and integrated smoothly.

Closing thoughts

This game was a flop. There’s no going around that fact. It’s clear that there wasn’t much effort spent on developing the game. That is no excuse since there was no obvious effort spent on innovating the game. There has been a semi-official announcement from a trusted source that a new Battlefield game is in development and we can expect further information in 2023. The release may be in late 2023 or 2024. We have high hopes for this game since it cannot be any worse than Battlefield 2042.