Battlefield 5 has been at the centre of some controversy or the other ever since its announcement, and apparently, the bad press has affected its commercial performances negatively. Its launch sales in the UK, for example, were over 60 per cent down from the launch sales of Battlefield 1, while in the US as well, in spite of debuting in third place in the NPD charts for the month of November, its sales have been less than satisfactory.
All major retailers are currently selling Battlefield 5 at discounts between 33 per cent to 50 per cent, which isn’t a good sign either. EA hasn’t been pleased with how Battlefield 5 has been performing on the market (via Seeking Alpha), while its lower than expected sales have even resulted in the publisher lowering its revenue projections for the financial year of 2019 from $5.55 billion to $5.20 billion.
Apparently, EA and DICE’s decision to launch the first person shooter with significant content missing and instead choosing to release it in fragments post-launch has been one of the primary reasons for its disappointing sales, in spite of positive reviews. At launch, Battlefield 5 was missing an entire War Story episode (which was recently released as part of the first chapter of Tides of War), the co-op mode Combined Arms, and the battle royale mode Firestorm, both of which arrive in March of 2019.