Battlefield 2042 is finally set to be the game fans want: “We’re on a good point”

Battlefield 2042 was the subject of great and sometimes devastating criticism right from the release. Now the developers are optimistic and still want to convince players of the shooter.

A little over a year ago, on November 19, 2021, Battlefield 2042 launched as the latest spin-off. But the start went wrong, numerous mistakes and unpopular decisions led to a lot of criticism.

The game has only been able to recover from this to a limited extent. Recently, at least the number of players on Steam has been on the rise, and the ratings are also somewhat more positive. On Steam, the “all reviews” (121,133) feedback is still mostly negative, with 32% negative ratings. But at least the “recent reviews” for the last 30 days (4,038) are balanced, with 59% positive reviews.

In addition, Season 3 started with new content, the more popular class system returns, the game joins Game Pass and EA Play, and a first look at Season 4 and 5, content for the coming year, was also given. The game should therefore continue to be improved and supplied with content.

The situation seems to make the team behind Battlefield 2042 optimistic a year after launch.

“We want this game to be better”

What developers say: In interviews with “PC gamers‘ several people from the team behind the game spoke up. Apparently you see Battlefield 2042 in a much better state than it was at launch and immediately after.

We took the game and the quality to a point where the team needed more players: we weren’t there initially. We didn’t think it was fair to bring new players into a game where the experience isn’t what it should be.

explained senior producer Ryan McArthur PC gamers

McArthur describes the current status as a “good point” to build on: “From a live service perspective, we want to do more. We want this game to be better.”

Among other things, Dice announced in the roadmap update that Season 4 will appear in early 2023, with a new specialist, a map, and a new Battle Pass and probably new weapons. Season 5 should then appear with another map, which should represent a location from Battlefield 4.

“We have a very good feeling about the direction in which the game is developing,” Associate Producer Alexia Christofi told PC Gamer optimistically.

In retrospect, the company is self-critical: According to McArthur, the focus during development was on being particularly “innovative”. But in the end, that meant the “core essence” of a Battlefield game was missing.

“We aimed for the moon, but just missed it,” says Christofi in reference to the launch of the game. Season 1 was pushed back, which Christofi describes as “difficult”: “But the team realized that we were doing it for the right reasons and that we needed to focus on the question, ‘How can we make sure that the community feedback more into our work?’”

McArthur explains that there’s a bit of “translation work” involved: “A lot of the feedback we got was negative in the sense that it was very aggressively negative, but that doesn’t make it wrong. The key for us was to sort through it and say, ‘If you take out the emotions, what did they say? What are you missing?’” In the meantime, the feedback has become even more constructive and attempts are being made to implement it.

Christofi further explains, “We’re very interested in receiving this feedback and we recognize that our players love Battlefield, have always loved Battlefield, and that we can learn a lot from them.”

The coming months should show exactly how this will ultimately turn out. But Battlefield 2042 seems to want to be more of the game that players wanted from the start.

What do you think of Battlefield 2042 right now? Do you give the game another chance or are you done with the shooter? Tell us in the comments!

Are you looking for an alternative? Meanwhile, the second part of the Warzone has started in the Call of Duty shooter competition. The DMZ mode was also released – and caused a lot of enthusiasm with MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller.