Battlefield 2042 didn’t meet expectations but EA hopes DICE can turn it around

This week, DICE announced that the first season of post-launch content for Battlefield 2042 has been delayed by months, giving planned new content a Summer 2022 release window. This was followed by EA's quarterly earnings call, during which executives admitted the game did not meet expectations.

Speaking on the call, EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, maintained that they were confident that the game was ready for players hands, but as the game expanded to introduce more players, a number of unforeseen issues arose:

“Through our processes for testing and preparation, we believed the experience was ready to be put in our players' hands. We launched with strong stability, however, as more players experienced the full game, it became clear there were unanticipated performance issues that we would need to address.”

Wilson added that “some of the design choices” made with Battlefield 2042 did not resonate with a number of fans. Despite all of this, EA's financials are still in very good shape. EA expected Battlefield 2042 to account for less than 10% of its earnings during the current fiscal year, so even though the game underperformed somewhat, titles like FIFA, Apex Legends and others picked up the slack.

Wilson also expressed confidence that DICE would be able to go back and rework the game to meet expectations in the long run, acknowledging that this is something the studio has pulled off with previous Battlefield titles. With that in mind, while launch quarter sales weren't as high as anticipated, Battlefield 2042 could have a long sales tail.

KitGuru Says: Given the lengthy delay for post-launch content, it seems that Battlefield 2042 perhaps should have perhaps been planned for 2022 instead. Have many of you played Battlefield 2042 since launch? Or are you waiting for DICE to finish rolling out fixes and move on to DLCs?

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