New Battlefield 2042 Report Is the Final Nail in the Coffin

A new Battlefield 2042 report, if true, is the final nail in the coffin of the PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X game. Last November, EA and DICE released the first Battlefield game in three years, and failed miserably in the process. While the game once had considerable hype, it all evaporated when the final product was released plagued with bugs, weighed down by performance issues, and missing content. Months later, the game is in a better state, but there’s still a huge lack of new content. And there are no signs of this changing. If a new report is accurate, this is because it’s not going to change. 

According to reliable industry insider Jeff Grubb — via Giant Bomb — DICE has a “skeleton crew” working on the game “to meet the barebones of their obligations.” In other words, unless something drastically changes and the game gains considerable popularity in the coming months, it’s done. 

Grubb doesn’t say how big exactly this skeleton crew is, but this term is only ever used as a negative. If accurate, it means the bulk of the team that worked on the game has moved on to a new project, which would presumably be the next installment in the series. 

If Battlefield 2042 was going to be revived, it would take more than a skeleton crew to make it happen. A skeleton crew can hardly support the game as is, let alone build upon it. That said, while this is a tough pill to swallow for Battlefield fans, it’s probably the right call as the game probably can’t be saved without considerable investment and lots of good fortune at this point. 

“Battlefield 2042 has brought me to my breaking point with troublesome live-service multiplayer releases,” reads the opening of our review of the game. “Over the past few years, there have been a plethora of multiplayer titles that seem to launch in a rough state with the promise of getting better over time. While some of those games have indeed become much improved in due time, this trend as a whole is one that I’m growing sick of. Battlefield 2042, the latest entry in the long-running shooter franchise, clearly wasn’t ready to launch at the end of 2021 but publisher Electronic Arts felt for one reason or another that it needed to hit store shelves right at this moment. As such, the game’s current quality absolutely leaves something to be desired. But even beyond these promises to improve, it’s the core of Battlefield 2042 that is fundamentally just not good.”