EA and DICE have largely made a royal mess of things with Battlefield 5– the game actually looks to be great, and like more of the Battlefield that fans enjoy, while incorporating things like a battle royale mode, and more inclusivity by letting players pick women characters in multiplayer games. However, EA hasn’t marketed it well, and the whole messaging strategy surrounding the title so far has been a bit of a limp dick, with minimal footage or trailers having been shown to generate the hype.
The result? Pre-orders for the game are reportedly weak, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Sarah Needleman, citing a report by Cowen. This may or may not be linked to EA COO Patrick Soderland’s abrupt departure from the company earlier this week, after working with them for nearly 20 years. However, the turbulence is hardly bound to help the game, which is seeing weak pre-orders, and launches right in the middle of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, contest it is hardly going to win- something other analysts also agree on.
Hopefully, EA actually starts marketing the game properly again, because at this point, this could be one of the more high profile underperforming games we’ve seen from the company in a while (which is saying something).