So I have been putting off writing this blog post for a while but now that "things" are coming out into the public about Battlefield 2042, particularly from Tom Henderson, I feel like if I don't rant, my head is going to explode from all the rage/bullshit that DICE/EA are putting out there or saying internally.
So if you're a Battlefield fan, by now you have most likely heard about industry insider Tom Henderson's article on Xfire.com, EXCLUSIVE: EA acknowledges Battlefield 2042 failure with Town Hall post-mortem.
In the article, Tom reported that on February 15th, EA had an internal "Town Hall" meeting call where at one point, Laura Miele, EA's Chief Studios Officer, talked about Battlefield 2042. I recommend you give the full article a read, the link is above, but I pulled a few quotes from it and wanted to give my reaction to them, which you can read below.
Tom: "...one factor was the Frostbite engine and, due to its old tech, the massive update it went through in order to power Battlefield 2042. From my own reports, this alone took over 18 months of development time."
Laura: "All new tech, it was basically a new engine. They went back. The Frostbite version they were on was so old they had to go back and update. So it was basically putting the game on a new engine."
My reaction: So DICE developers had to spend over 18 months to work on updating Frostbite. Here's another reason to push for delaying BF 2042 but nope.
According to Miele, after the Battlefield Beta last summer, EA received a lot of feedback concerning bugs and unpolished areas of the experience, however there was also a substantial amount of positive feedback from players. "Players saying this feels like Battlefield, Battlefield is back, this is my Battlefield, so we had to embolden the team," it was said.
Laura: "It was then revealed that Battlefield 2042's bug count ratio got to "historic levels for a DICE game."
Miele continued and said that Battlefield 2042's launch and patches meant "the game was stable" and "the early critical reception was good"
My reaction: What players would say things like "this feels like Battlefield", "this is my Battlefield", etc after playing the Beta? Was it regarding a certain aspect of the game? Maybe it was because there were vehicles in the game? Now I did see comments like that for the official reveal trailer, so maybe Laura was reading comments on that video and got mixed up? (That was obvious sarcasm from me.)
Next, the comment about the historic level of bugs for a DICE game, this also didn't make you realize that the game should be delayed? As all Battlefield players know, BF games always have bugs at launch, but they (DICE) knew there were more than usual and they still launched it, just wow. Next, the comment about the game being stable and early critical reception was good, that is all complete bullshit and lies. Go back and read the comments anywhere about 2042's launch.
Tom: ...according to EA, things took a turn, and that turn was the surprise release of Halo: Infinite multiplayer
Tom: 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.
My reaction: Blaming the failure of your game because another game released more polished is just sad and pathetic. What a joke.
So from all of the quotes above, I came away from it thinking that EA thinks its players, its investors, anyone who buys their products are just fucking stupid and you will believe anything they say. What fucking bullshit. If you're a Battlefield player and you're not pissed about BF 2042 pass me whatever you're smoking. I apologize for the language used in this blog post but I am pissed about the whole Battlefield 2042 situation.
Do you agree with anything I stated here? Or maybe you disagree with my opinion and think I have "brutal expectations," let me know.
I found the below video by The Act Man about Battlefield 2042 and I recommend you give it a watch.