Player reception of Battlefield 2042 is about as low as it can get for the shooter franchise. But according to one report, Publisher EA reportedly attributed some of the blame to the surprise release of Halo Infinite. Or more specifically, its free multiplayer component.
Tom Henderson, in a report for Xfire, claims that Laura Miele, EA Chief Studios Officer, highlighted a number of factors that could have caused the “disappointing launch” of Battlefield 2042. One was the Frostbite engine by the internal studio DICE. The engine needed an upgrade, and by the end of the process “it was basically a new engine”, which cost up to 18 months of development time. Then there’s the expected work from home environment, which is understandable to some degree.
Then came the mention of Halo Infinite. Miele reportedly said that DICE rolled out its Day 1 and Day 0 patches, which meant that Battlefield 2042 “was stable” and “the early critical reception was good”. Until the Halo Infinite multiplayer component got released as a free-to-play mode. Comparisons were made, and was not in favour of Battlefield 2042 because it wasn’t as polished, and was buggier.
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In a statement to PC Gamer though, EA Vice President of Global Communications John Reseburg said that the town hall was “about key learnings and actions we are taking, not blaming external factors”. He also said that the Xfire’s account of the town hall meeting is “not accurately capturing the discussion and the context”.
Either way, the fact remains that, as far as gameplay goes, Battlefield 2042 is the more poorly received game of the two. Whether EA is blaming its competitor for its own game’s poor performance, or noting areas of improvement, doesn’t change that.
