The Shift in Battlefield Strategy Is a Major Gamble For EA

by Staff & Contributors on December 13, 2021

in Gaming

Electronic Arts (EA) has taken a huge gamble on the long-running Battlefield series with the release of Battlefield 2042, a risk that does not look like paying off. EA launched Battlefield 2042 on November 19 and quickly became one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam, receiving almost 30,000 negative reviews in the first two days.

Battlefield 1942, the original Battlefield first-person shooter, came out in September 2002. It was a massive success and received the coveted PC Game of the Year awards. Other hit titles include Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Battlefield 1, and Battlefield V. The titles mentioned above ended their lifecycles as great games, but the last three had difficult launches, much like Battlefield 2042.

During Battlefield 2042’s development, EA made noises that it wanted the game to enter the lucrative esports world. The company’s free-to-play Apex Legends hero shooter already has a foothold in esports tournaments. However, Activision’s Call of Duty, Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege, and Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) are the dominant forces in this genre. Check out the esports betting markets at bet365 online sportsbook, and FIFA is the only major EA game you find listed.

 

Insider makes Major Claims About Battlefield 2042

Industry insider Tom Henderson has tweeted several claims about the development of Battlefield 2042. Henderson claims EA and developer DICE planned Battlefield 2042 to be a battle royale game, pitching it against Apex Legends and the ever-popular Fortnite. Battlefield V ended its life cycle with a battle royale mode, but it was a massive flop.

According to Henderson, Battlefield 2042 started life as a battle royale, but a change of strategy late into its development put the brakes on that idea. This left DICE with only 18-months to create the game we have now, which is frighteningly short for a AAA title. The lack of development time goes some way to explain the strangely short beta phase, a lack of information about the game pre-launch, and the sheer amount of bugs players are experiencing.

The new Hazard Zone extraction mode is the remnants of the older format, again, according to Henderson. Neither EA nor DICE have commented on these claims.

 

What Changes Do Players Not Like?

Players of modern video games expect the games to have bugs at launch. Most publishers and developers launch their games knowing there will be bugs but often release a Day One patch to eradicate most of them when the game goes public. DICE has already released three patches since November 19, such is the dire state the game was in.

Hit registers were highly erratic, with video evidence of people standing a couple of meters away from opponents and bullets not hitting their intended target despite the cross-hair being in the middle of the character.

Other bugs include being able to fly through some buildings, players being unable to select their loadouts, and game-breaking bugs such as games of the Breakthrough mode never ending when they should.

Bugs aside, the different feel to Battlefield 2042 is what has seasoned players hot under the collar. Battlefield is known for being a gritty, semi-realistic FPS game with epic destructible environments. This latest incarnation of the game has genuinely terrible, lazy, unfinished maps with masses of empty space.

Furthermore, gone are the serious characters who look like actual soldiers, and in come “specialists” who have cartoon-like appearances and who say cheesy comments at the end of each round.

EA and DICE rushed out Battlefield 2042 and wanted to attract the Call of Duty crowd to their game. All they have done is produce an unfinished product that has alienated its loyal fanbase and is so broken that no COD fan in their right mind would consider swapping sides.

The gamble does not look like paying off; this could be the end of the Battlefield genre.

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