Is Battlefield 2042 even a real game anymore?

 Are we real?

If a tree falls down in the middle of the deep woods with no one around to here it, did it really fall at all? An asinine and feebleminded thought experiment digging at some nascent shadow of solipsism and determinism; besides I've got a better one. If you release an online focused live service designed to last several years full of regular players, content update drops and consistent community, but the game falls far enough of the map to have no more than 1 player at a point in time, then is there really anything live about the service you're providing? That example I just gave wasn't any hypothetical, although it wasn't actually about Battlefield 2042 either. In actuality that was a distant cousin of Battlefield called Babylon's Fall, another game that evacuated in the bedsheets and will never live it down, but we can definitely predict 2042 is going that direction given EA's apparent desire to just sweep this new mistake under the rug and forget about it.

But before we look at what's up with the biggest embarrassment of 2021, I want to talk about the biggest embarrassment of 2022, Babylon's Fall. All because of some wildly firing neurons that have convinced me that this  Battlefield and Babylon's Fall  futures are linked in a downwards spiral of destruction. That 'Single player' thing? Didn't last for very long. And it was also tracked through Steam tracking charts, which means there was probably another console player someone who's activity went invisible and unnoticed, ruining the poetry of the moment. Still, even with those stipulations this is a horrifying achievement for any game to hit so soon after launch. And do you know what the game's creators are doing about it? (Aside from looking about nervously at the all the recently cleared office space within the Square Enix HQ.) They're trucking along making future chapters of content for the game. 'The spice must flow', sure; but into the machines of an average of 20 to 30 computers a day? I mean I suppose those players have to feel pretty special having an entire game studio tirelessly making content solely for their exclusive group; but I can't imagine the Platinum Games account is going to be having fun book keeping come the end of the quarter.

Things aren't that bad for Battlefield yet, Steam charts even have it's numbers seeing average daily users of around 1,800 people! (That's four whole digits!) Although that's pretty shameful against Battlefield V's 4500 and Battlefield 1's 3800. In it's 'hey day' this would be the sort of series that would average tens of thousands for it's active title, compete with the likes of Call of Duty for series activity and remain forever on the front of the public stage for the robust quality of it's gameplay. But this year even COD, which was considerably better, turned out to be a mess and all the normies got forcibly displaced into the new lands of a game that didn't care or babysit for them. They ended up refugees for Elden Ring instead. So in that sense I guess I can say that Battlefield's failure did provide some positivity for the world: it made casuals play a game absolutely not made for them and make a lot of them realise that they liked it. And it even made one certain TV reviewer out himself as a total weirdo! (It's seems like Battlefield is good at everything except being a game.)

And DICE haven't jumped ship or anything either. (Nor have they entered hibernation in order rustle together tiny 6-month long hiatuses like 343 have been trying out recently in Halo Infinite.) We've had promises from the team ensuring that they know they done goofed and are 'pretty please' hoping the audience can make enough suggestions to fix it. Of course, writing the check is one thing, but actually cashing it when we're talking about an online game that some self-respect-free people are actively playing, is another. DICE had to start adding in revamps to the map one badly placed ship-container at a time rather than just taking the whole game offline for a day and going to town. And that's probably because DICE wisely knows that the second people are reminded that there are literally any other games in the world right now, just by having Battlefield not load up for even a single day, DICE will likely have lost that active number forever. This game has no retention value. (Damn tiny gamer attention spans, the bane of enterprising grifters everywhere!)

Recently we got a great example of how little EA consider Battlefield 2042 a viable avenue for their business during a communication with investors where the game was not only completely absent from the topic list, but was also mysteriously absent from EA's list of active titles. (In it's place, they stuck 2018's Battlefield V, which makes a little sense given the numbers.) Reports say that the game is considered a 'miss' and despite lip service that the team are devoted to bringing back the "core Experience", (that was literally the sales pitch for 2042 during marketing, don't pretend you even know what that means!) it's clear that the company is really moving to just wipe that game from their memory and put their hopes on the next one. The next couple of years are just casualties of this launch, Battlefield as a franchise is hitting the mattresses. 

So what future is there for Battlefield 2042 on it's own? How is it going to serve as the apparently not-featured, non-active, face of the franchise until 2024 at the earliest? Cyberpunk 2077 is another game that fell like a comet on launch and even after all that time fans are still splitting hairs about whether the patched and improved current game worth their time right now, or if it ever will be, considering the grand unachievable dreams that we all were sold on. The question is whether the game is even ready for new content yet, and think 2042 is in much the same state. It's clear that the community have outright rejected the direction that DICE took for the game, and the company have responded by actively trying to rewrite their mistakes as quickly as they can. But in haphazardly rewiring this Battle Royale wannabe into a traditional tactical multiplayer shooter, they're burning up the precious honey moon months of a live service where the player base are smothered with enough content to reassure them that this will be their home for next two years or so.

If I were to purpose a 'worst case sceanrio' supposition: we might have to ask ourselves if its in DICE's best interests to continue with Battlefield at all. I say this because despite the growth in talents, software capabilities and player hardware, the Battlefield games of the last 7 years have been several steps down from what Battlefield 3 and 4 offered. Of course, the games themselves look prettier; but what is that worth when there's no core progression angles to encourage me to grind, no plethora of viable gunplay options to keep match-ups exciting and no distinct level-to-level gimmicks even on the same stratosphere as Battlefield 4's Leveloutions? Know that these criticisms aren't at all exclusive to Battlefield 2042, which was such a mess it hardly functioned as a game at all. Even the finished iterations of Battlefield 1 and V don't hold a candle to DICE's heyday, and I think there's enough precedent to challenge the wisdom of leaving DICE in charge of a franchise they seem increasingly incapable of keeping on top of.

Now of course I'm not suggesting scrapping Battlefield or anything. Despite recent attempts to kill it off, I think the multiplayer gaming landscape would be worse of if COD became the undisputed champions of their field. Turbulence in contested waters always leads to rising tides. But I wouldn't be distraught if EA bought someone else on board to just change up what this worn and tired series has been doing recently. I don't know exactly who that someone could be per se, but if insider reports are to be believed than Vince Zampella is a name going around a lot in the offices right now. The mind behind Respawn Entertainment's recent success with Apex Legends (Still haven't forgiven them) and Jedi: Fallen Order. Maybe Respawn can bring their Titanfall talents into Battlefield and make the franchise great again. And where exactly would that leave DICE? Well Star Wars Battlefront 2 could do with some more content...