Battlefield 5‘s pre-release buzz doesn’t seem to be that hot. The game is apparently expected to underperform, as per analysts, and reports claim that pre-orders are simply not living up to EA’s own estimates (which also happens to coincide with EA CDO Patrick Soderlund’s abrupt departure from EA a few weeks ago).
Now, we have an idea of just how much worse the game’s pre-orders may be compared to its long time rival Call of Duty. Cowen, the same folks who first projected that the game’s pre-orders are falling short, have revealed (via CNBC) that pre-orders for Battlefield 5 are lagging behind pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 by 85%. Just for context, Battlefield 3 and 4 lagged behind Modern Warfare 3 and Ghosts by 20-40 per cent, while Battlefield 1 was tracking ahead of Infinite Warfare. So this is unusually bad for the series.
EA has begun ratcheting up the marketing for the game, so hopefully things pick up for it. It looks nice, and it is great to see a multiplayer shooter embracing diversity, so just for that, I hope it does well. Battlefield 5 launches on October 11 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
