It's no secret that Battlefield 2042 has been a bit of a disaster. Many unpopular changes to the tried-and-tested Battlefield formula have led to a mass exodus from the game, made worse by EA's admission that Season 1 content is delayed to the summer.
The community's displeasure with the game has spilled over into a Change.org petition, which as of writing, is about to hit the 5000 mark. The petition calls for EA to offer unequivocal refunds, in a similar fashion to what occurred with Cyberpunk 2077 after its similarly disastrous launch period.
"EA's release of Battlefield 2042 was a mockery of every customer who purchased this video game for $70 (USD) due to EA's false advertising of this video game.""Battlefield 2042 has costed consumers millions of dollars in damages and upset hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.""Many promises made at launch were not kept, and Battlefield 2042 launched as unplayable according to many consumer reports. Even today, Battlefield 2042 has bugs which drastically changes the in-game experience so much that it's deemed as a clearly unfinished release."
Change.org petitions of this nature rarely produce tangible results, but it adds further pressure on EA and DICE to turn the game around. Battlefield 2042 has dropped quite rapidly out of every "most played" and "most viewed" games list, including Twitch, Steam, and Xbox.
Since the game launched, Vince Zampella who came in from Respawn Entertainment is now known to be heading up the direction of both DICE and the Battlefield franchise into the future. Zampella and Respawn are of course known for the Titanfall and Apex Legends titles, the latter of which has supplanted Battlefield as EA's most important pillar shooter.
As a Battlefield fan, it's undoubtedly disappointing to see the franchise gradually slip over the years. Battlefield 1 was utterly incredible in my view, but fans have long been yearning for a return to a more modern theatre of war, as seen in titles like Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and 4. It seems unlikely that EA will be able to turn Battlefield 2042's fortunes around, but I'd say they succeeded with Battlefront II, which suffered a similarly controversial launch, but later emerged as a truly incredible game. I suppose only time will tell.
Will Battlefield survive?
Battlefield 2042 has been a notoriously rocky launch for the famous shooter franchise, but can EA turn it around?
