It’s no secret that Battlefield 2042 has been one of EA’s biggest disappointments in recent memory. In addition to performing mostly unfavourably on the critical front, players and even former developers have continually lambasted the game for lack of features and lack of polish– which has led to underwhelming commercial performance as well.
However, as reported by reputable industry insider Tom Henderson via an XFire report, EA’s Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele recently told staff that the game’s poor performance can also be attributed to the surprise release of Halo Infinite‘s free-to-play multiplayer. As soon as 343 Industries’ latest game dropped, players quickly flocked to the inarguably more polished title, to the detriment of Battlefield 2042.
“Following the game’s launch, DICE rolled out its Day 1 and Day 0 patches to get the bug count down further,” Henderson wrote. “On this, Miele continued and said that Battlefield 2042‘s launch and patches meant ‘the game was stable’ and ‘the early critical reception was good’. However, according to EA, things took a turn, and that turn was the surprise release of Halo Infinite multiplayer.
“According to Miele, the comparison between both games was not favourable because Halo Infinite was a very polished title whereas Battlefield 2042 contained bugs and wasn’t as polished.”
Of course, these statements are unconfirmed at the moment, so you should take it all with a grain of salt. That doesn’t undermine the poor performance of DICE’s shooter, of course, and EA is still trying to somehow regain player interest. Henderson himself believes that a part of the game’s Portal mode could go free-to-play in the near future- read more on that through here.
