Battlefield 2042 has been widely criticized by fans and critics alike for its lackluster gameplay, technical issues, and lack of content. The game, which was released in November 2021, currently has a score of 68 for its PC version on Metacritic.
However, according to a former Dice employee, the game was doomed from the start due to its troubled development process. Joakim Bodin, who worked as a senior software engineer at Dice for 12 years before joining Epic Games in May 2022, revealed on Twitter that Battlefield 2042 had many iterations and the deadline never changed much, so it never stood a chance of being great at launch.
Bodin was participating in a Twitter trend where game developers shared the lowest-rated games they had worked on and what they liked about them. He said that he was proud of pushing hard for the game to have full cross-play, progression, and commerce features and that its online systems will serve future titles well.
Bodin’s tweet echoes the reports of insider sources and journalists who have detailed the development woes of Battlefield 2042. Most of the original Dice staff who created the Frostbite engine had left the studio due to clashes with EA over their desire to replicate Call of Duty’s success by matching them year after year.
Battlefield 2042 went through several pitches before EA’s ambitions would stifle Dice’s creativity. The main challenges that Dice faced were updating to the new Frostbite engine and the pandemic. Without the original staff who knew how to work with Frostbite, Dice struggled to update Battlefield 2042 to the new game engine. The pandemic also made it difficult for developers to work remotely and share computers and consoles.
Mismanagement within the company was also a factor in Battlefield 2042’s poor state, as revealed by other former and current Dice employees. Developers accused team leaders of closing themselves off to constructive criticism, making ill-considered decisions and sticking to them, or manipulating data.
If you're interested in the stats or leaderboard information for Battlefield 2042, then check out our official tracker page for the game!
Comments