Battlefield as a series has often had rough launches over the years, but Battlefield 2042’s launch last year was particularly rough even by those standards. The game was met with less-than-stellar reception from critics, while the response from the player base was overwhelmingly negatively. Then there’s the fact that necessary fixes and updates have been far too slow in coming, and that the multiplayer shooter’s first season isn’t going to begin until March. Given all that, it’s not surprised to see Battlefield 2042’s player base dwindling drastically as well.
As spotted over on ResetEra, as per Microsoft’s charts for the most players games on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, EA’s shooter isn’t doing too well on the platforms. In the US, Battlefield 2042 has completely fallen out of the top 50 most played Xbox games, while in the UK, it’s faring only marginally better at #44.
In the US, five Call of Duty games are featured in the top 50 (including 2015’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3), while DICE and EA’s own Star Wars Battlefront 2 is featured at #43 (though that’s also available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate via EA Play). Similarly, in the UK, there are four Call of Duty games above Battlefield 2042, with the aforementioned Battlefront 2 at #38.
Battlefield 2042 isn’t faring so well on Steam either. It currently has a 24-hour peak concurrent player count of just over 5,700 players. Its average player count over the last 30 day-period has been over 9,700 players, down from over 20,000 in December, which itself was down from over 51,000 in November.
Recent reports have claimed that EA has been less than satisfied with Battlefield 2042’s performance since its launch and that it’s currently “looking at all the options” in terms of bringing the game back on track- including potentially going free-to-play. It’s also been claimed that EA might offer up portal of the Battlefield Portal mode for free. Read more on that through here.
Battlefield 2042 is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.