EA EXPECTS BATTLEFIELD 2042 TO “CONTINUE TO GROW” FOR YEARS TO COME
May 11, 2022
Electronic Art’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, has said that the company remains committed to Battlefield 2042 as the company faced tough questions during the publisher’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday.
Despite a poor critical and commercial response to the game since its delayed release last November, EA bosses appeared to suggest that it expects Battlefield 2042 to “continue to grow” and be a “really important part” of its portfolio moving forward.
In a series of statements originally transcribed by VGC, Wilson told investors that “we take the long view here” before adding that the game represented “one of the great franchises of our industry, built by one of the great teams in the industry”.
At the start of April the developer released update 4.0 which introduced over 400 fixes and improvements to a game that’s been marred by problems since launching.
In addition to this, the DICE general manager Oscar Gabrielson left EA replaced by Respawn and Infinity Ward co-founder Vince Zampella who is taking on a new role overseeing the entire Battlefield franchise. Zampella was later joined by Halo designer Marcus Lehto who is leaving a new studio tasked with creating a more meaningful narrative to the Battlefield series.
“We’ve got incredible leadership of that team now,” Wilson said on Tuesday. “They’re rethinking the development process from the ground up, and really using kind of the Vince Zampella/Respawn model of ‘get to the fun as quickly as possible’.
“They’ve been doing thousands of updates for the community, working on quality of life, and really getting the core game right. I think there’s still more work for us to do there and the team is committed to doing that work for the community.
“Beyond that, once we get to a place where we feel like we’re in the right place with the core experience, and with the core game, then you should expect us to invest and grow beyond where the game is at today.”
One way EA might be looking to grow is by adding the game to Xbox Game Pass, which would hopefully boost the stagnating player count. Earlier this month XGP (Via NME) noticed that the games store page had been updated with a Xbox Game Pass logo, so an announcement might be forthcoming pretty soon.
Last month Tom Henderson released a report which suggested a new Battlefield game is already in development.
Supposedly DICE and EA have learned “valuable lessons” from the rocky release of Battlefield 2042, which internally is being described “as a miss.”
The new game will supposedly be some way out from releasing, but Henderson’s sources have suggested that pre-production is underway with a ‘large portion’ of DICE’s staff now working on the title. Likewise, it’s expected that the next title in the series will adopt a “modern/near-future setting”.
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