It’s no secret that Battlefield 2042 is something of a worry for Electronic Arts. The game appeared last year, but many things were not in order and updates are regularly postponed. In fact, even the first season has been postponed because the developer wants to fix the existing problems first.
That in itself is a good mindset, were it not for the fact that the game should have just been finished when it was released. Yet this is something that continues to haunt the Battlefield franchise, because we have seen this happen in the past. So logically there is a lot of criticism of the game and the approach of DICE.
David Goldfarb was lead designer of Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which has now lashed out at DICE about the game’s state. He particularly criticizes the size of certain maps, as well as the control of quality on the final product. Like this writes he the following:
“Really trying to understand why some of these design calls were made. Why are there no smaller infantry maps? Why was 128 player count a thing that didnt seemingly have any accommodation for infantry? why are whole maps shipping without any detail art?
Was no one in control of quality over there? Who thought this experience honored the BF sandbox experience and took it forward? I’m astonished that there were this many missteps even knowing the obstacles from higher up.”
Goldfarb isn’t alone in criticizing the state of Battlefield 2042 in which it came out. Former DICE producer Jaqub Ajmal also lets himself to belong† For example, he states that the weekly missions and their duration have not been considered. His comment is as follows:
“I won’t finish the 2042 weekly mission. The first one since launch. It just takes too long to do it when I play normally and with that they lost me. Imo it’s really important to design things so it’s reasonable for people that don’t have a lot of time, specially when it’s fomo.”
It’s not a good sign when even former Battlefield developers are lashing out. After all, this happens rarely, but it is indicative of the state of the game and it is therefore not very surprising that there has been an idle on the servers. Time will tell whether Battlefield 2042 can still be saved.
–
