Slap in the face for EA: Battlefield 5 currently has more players on Steam than the new Battlefield 2042

There’s a strange gift for EA this Christmas. Their new Battlefield, Battlefield 2042, is running so slowly a few weeks after its release that Battlefield V will have more players on Steam for Christmas 2021 – and this is a game from 2018.

This is the news: on reddit a strange anomaly was discussed on Christmas Eve that 3-year-old Battlefield V managed to reach more players at peak time in the US than the new Battlefield 2042 (release November 19, 2021):

• On Friday, December 24th Battlefield V had more players on Steam for 7 hours than Battlefield 2042, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. German time.
• The trend then reappeared on Saturday, December 25th: Since 7:00 a.m. German time, Battlefield V is back in the player numbers before Battlefield 2042.

What about Halo Infinite? The statistics also list Halo Infinite as a comparative value, but here many note that Halo Infinite as an “Xbox title” is often played outside of Steam.

Players take statistics as evidence of their harsh criticism of Battlefield 2042

Why is it discussed like that? Battlefield player counts were a huge topic on gaming reddit with over 1000 comments.

The statistics are put in the foreground because there are some criticisms of Battlefield 2042 among the core fans of Battlefield that are still circulating:

• Battlefield 2042 only received a moderate 68% (PC) on Metacritic, the PS5 version came off even worse with 61% – but that’s only the professional criticism.
• The user scores are significantly lower and range from 22% (PC) to 29% (PS5).

Among other things, the game is accused of:

• Too few weapons to offer
• The cards are not very good
• It is the “greatest disappointment in 2021”
• Battlefield 2042 is also assumed to be “too commercial” and to have removed many standard features from old Battlefields

The statistics are apparently supposed to prove that Battlefield 2042 is such a flop that people would rather play a 3-year-old game than the new supposed crown jewel on offer from EA.

Battlefield 5 just 75 euros cheaper than Battlefield 2042 in the “best edition”

What does Battlefield 5 help? For the statistics it is also important that Battlefield V is 75% discounted in the current Steam sale:

• The game is currently available for € 14.99 in the Definite Edition.
• Battlefield 2042 costs € 39.59 in the normal edition and € 89.09 in the ultimate edition.

Apparently, a few things went wrong in Battlefield 2042:

What went wrong with Battlefield 2042? Insider gives insights into development chaos