My guess is that many of you have already forgotten that a game such as Battlefield 2042 has appeared on the market. the assumptions of the creators. Anyway, at one of the internal meetings, the executive producer suggested that the culprit of this state of affairs is … Hello Infinite. Which, by the way, has probably the worst support among online games released in the last dozen or so years. Fortunately, in terms of the mechanics used and the gameplay itself, it is great, which, unfortunately, cannot be said about the latest “battlefield”. Another reason for the whole drama is the pandemic that forced the authors to work remotely and delayed a number of works.
Battlefield 2042 currently gathers just over 2,000 players on Steam a day
I’ve looked through most of the stats and I’m ready to bet Battlefield has never been so bad. At the moment, it is played by just over 2,400 people on PC. At the end of February, the number rarely exceeded 3,500. For a great brand with a rich history from a well-known publisher, this is a terrible result. For comparison of the scale alone, Destiny 2 regularly gathers nearly 140,000 players on desktop computers only. Over 1.5 million people played on all platforms in February 2022. Battlefield 2042 on a monthly basis did not come close to this result. Even Battlefield V gathers more volunteers – now over 3,000 people are involved in the skirmishes. It only shows how many wrong decisions the developers made during the production of the last Battlefield.
The game for the premiere was terribly underdeveloped, full of errors and shortcomings. On YouTube you can easily find dozens of compilations that brutally indicate why it is not worth reaching for these views. The biggest problem is the gigantic empty maps where nothing is happening at all. Players have to look for at least one target for a long time. Unfortunately, the respawn system has also been broken, because you can hit right under the wheels of an approaching tank. There is no save time, no death lock, or anything else that makes it possible to evade somehow. We just die again. The worst thing is that the situation can repeat itself and we do not have much influence on it. Besides, killing itself does not bring any satisfaction. It is also poorly marked. The outdated Frostbite engine is also a big brake on the development. Developers from EA are now facing a difficult task, because they have to match their technology with what Epic Games showed when the beta version of Unreal Engine 5 was released, and it will not be that simple and fast.
Obviously, this is one of the many problems. Players also point to not very inventive game modes, a number of problems related to collision detection, no recoil of weapons, horribly realized sound effects, an average driving model, boring scenery, terrible location design and, finally, poor graphics and gigantic flaws compared to previous editions. We are talking here, for example, about the effects of moving on a variety of terrain. Even in Battlefield 1, it was important when we entered the water, crossed the sand of the desert or fell into the mud up to our knees. Each situation was accompanied by a different animation, which built immersion. There are none of these things in Battlefield 2042. Players even complained about the unintuitive and inconvenient preview of the results table (patch 3.3 came out today, which fortunately improves it) while playing or the lack of a classic server search engine. Many people have experienced problems with matchmaking. The list of things that have been sparted since the premiere is enormous and has dozens of pages. In fact, the only light in the tunnel is Portal mode, which was rated very well from the start.
How did this even happen? What went wrong?
In my opinion, the biggest problem with Battlefield 2042 is the lack of its own identity. From the beginning, the creators did not know what this version was really supposed to be. They wanted to go into battle-royale, then gave up hastily. They finally created a mix that is neither a typical “battlefield”, no cool modes or mechanics, and no incentive to play like Fortnite or even Apex: Legends. Maps or weapons look like they’ve been taken out of some sort of automatic generator. Although the whole thing is set in a future that gives unlimited possibilities, the idea for the plot is really banal. There is nothing exciting about it. Besides, the latest version of Battlefield does not include any single player mode. It’s only a multiplayer for the full amount. It’s good that there have been significant promotions in recent months, but now, if I want to buy this version in official stores, I have to continue to pay at least PLN 269. Some absurdity.
Although the game is supported by the developers, there is currently a lack of fresh content. The earliest one will appear around June, which gives another 3 months of boredom and drought, which will discourage another hundreds of people. I assume there is no way that players who quit a month or two after release will decide to come back in a while. There are much more interesting productions on the market, and in Battlefield 2042 there is literally everything to be exchanged. The creators, however, did not lay down their weapons and announce a number of amendments and changes. They are in constant contact with the community, which clearly indicates what needs to be improved first (creators of Halo: Infinite, here you can follow DICE / EA). The developers have already tried to repair their huge and nightmarish maps.
The primary goal is to reduce the time needed to travel from one point to another (without a vehicle, we could run in empty spaces for several minutes and nothing happened). Players have already assumed that Battlefield 2042 is not an inviting walking simulator. The changes will also affect the 128-person breakthrough system to eliminate the problem of ubiquitous chaos that was impossible to control. I keep my fingers crossed that patch 3.4 will be a harbinger of choosing the right path (because patch 3.3 rather disappointed most expectations), although I do not believe that Battlefield 2042 can still be saved. There were too many mishaps, mistakes and understatements here. Are you playing the latest installment? Share your experiences in the comments. Speak soon!
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