To say that Battlefield 2042 turned out to be a massive disappointment would be a big understatement, and sure enough, the state of the game both at launch and in the months following it has led to poor critical and commercial reception. Recently, Season 1: Zero Hour finally went live for the multiplayer shooter nearly seven months after it launched, adding some new content to a game that’s been starved of it. Fans haven’t been happy about how little it’s added though- and it looks like they’re going to continue to be dissatisfied with future post-launch updates.
Recently, journalist Jeff Grubb said in an episode of his Giant Bomb show GrubbSnax (which you can view below) that it’s apparently “abandon ship time” when it comes to Battlefield 2042 at DICE, even though EA has said time and again that it’ll look to fix Battlefield 2042 over the long-term. That said, one only needs to look at Anthem to get an idea of how games with messy launches get treated by the publisher.
DICE allegedly just has a small “skeleton crew” working on pushing out the four seasons of content it promised to those who bought the game’s Gold and Ultimate Editions, and it’s looking to do that “the fastest and cheapest way it possibly can”, according to Grubb. And the reason for that? So that the entire team can move on and give its full attention to the next Battlefield game.
“This game is basically down to a skeleton crew,” Grubb said. “It’s down to like the barebones, and those people are specifically just working the promised additional seasons that the game needs to get to meet the requirements of the high-end version that it sold. They sold the high-priced version saying, ‘you will get four seasons of content’ or something like that.”
“The skeleton crew is working to pump that stuff out the fastest and cheapest way it possibly can,” Grubb continued. “There’s no other way to say it. Set your expectations very low for this content, they’re just gonna get it out fast and dirty. The reason they’re doing this is to move everyone to the next Battlefield as quickly as possible. It’s abandon ship time.”
EA, for its part, has responded to Grubb’s claim. The company said in a statement (shared by Grubb on Twitter) that it has “a significant team across studios focused on evolving and improving” of Battlefield 2042, and is “committed” to its future.
As for what that next Battlefield game is, there have been some rumblings regarding that over the last few months. It’s been claimed that the game could have hero shooter elements and might end up reverting lot of the changes introduced in Battlefield 2042, and that it’s targeting 2024 launch.
In December, EA announced that it was completely overhauling its Battlefield strategy, and was shifting to a multi-studio development model centered around DICE, Ripple Effect Studios, and Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto’s newly-established studio in Seattle, with Vince Zampella at the helm of it all. Read more on that through here.