Following its near unplayable launch in November 2021, DICE and EA have kept their promise to support Battlefield 2042 throughout its lifecycle and it appears that the hard work has paid off in spectacular fashion with the playerbase skyrocketing.
Following its free-to-play weekend on Steam, which officially concluded on October 16, Battlefield 2042 has managed to retain a massive amount of paid players. At the time of writing, on a Wednesday afternoon at 2PM BST, the game has 91,000 concurrent players and is in 10th place on Steam – putting it ahead of games including Call of Duty.
The free weekend strategically coincided with Battlefield 2042 Season 6 ‘Dark Creations’, which implemented new content, balance changes, and bug fixes. Although it’s difficult to gauge how much of an impact the season had on retaining players, it’s clear that significant improvements across the board that have been made to the game since launch have worked.
Battlefield 2042 launched in a terrible state and its lack of financial success prompted huge changes at DICE and to the Battlefield franchise as a whole. A new leadership team is now in place, with Respawn Entertainment’s Vince Zampella now taking the Battlefield franchise under his wing.
Former Call of Duty boss Byron Beede has taken the role of Battlefield General Manager, in addition to Rebecka Coutaz heading Swedish studio DICE, with Christian Grass leading the studio at Ripple Effect. Halo veteran Marcus Lehto will also head Ridgeline Games, a new studio building the future of a Battlefield single-player campaign.
I’ll be the first to admit I was skeptical of EA’s commitment to supporting Battlefield 2042 through its life cycle, but the numbers don’t lie, and in my opinion, much-needed credit is warranted. I’m going to assume Battlefield 2042 is still a monetary loss for EA, but the green light being given to support the game gives me some confidence in the franchise moving forward with its new leadership team.
While I’ll always be cautious moving forward with a Battlefield launch and Battlefield 2042’s launch was a shambles, the impressive turnaround of Battlefield 2042 does have me intrigued about the future of the franchise.
So, well done, Battlefield team, and continue the good work.
