Battlefield 2042 fell victim to extreme irrelevancy due to the constantly changing gaming industry of modern times. Since its release in 2021, numerous other first-person shooter titles have been released, and amid the dynamic video game landscape of today, the twelfth main instalment in the once popular series failed to maintain its place among gamers.
However, the game witnessed something extraordinarily unexpected last weekend, marking a significant moment that hints at its brighter future.
DICE’s first-person shooter was made free-to-play for the weekend, which resulted in Battlefield 2042 seeing a massive inflow of players. As far as the gaming community was concerned, the title was dead, with no signs of being resurrected anytime soon. But against all odds, the game has come back to life, and just one weekend could have changed its whole fate.
Battlefield 2042 Returns on the Gaming Community’s Radar
According to the Steam Charts, Battlefield 2042 pulled some of its highest numbers of players during last weekend, when the game was made free-to-play. To put the player counter into perspective, the number was in the thousands before the free weekend officially began, after which it started to gradually increase until the gradient became exponential. On Sunday night, October 15, DICE’s first-person shooter witnessed a player peak that it had not seen in a long while.
In fact, what is even more impressive is that Battlefield 2042 reached six figures, with 101,362 players tuning in to give the game a much-needed chance. This was the highest number of players that the game had ever witnessed, as the Steam Charts stated that the aforementioned figure was an “all-time peak.” DICE’s title saw an unfortunate decline in its player base right after its release, which is a worrying situation for any developer.
At launch, Battlefield 2042 had a player count of a little over 100,000, which drastically decreased in the following months, resulting in nearly complete irrelevance, especially during the majority of 2022. Most of the gaming community had forgotten about the game’s existence and moved on to more relevant first-person shooter titles, with no one expecting it to make a blazing comeback two years after its initial release.
This is quite amazing because the upcoming instalment from its main competitive franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, is one of the most anticipated titles of the year, and it also had its second week of open beta during the same weekend.
Battlefield 2042‘s latest success is a testament to how anything can be achieved in the gaming industry if the developer acknowledges its player base and keeps on making significant improvements to its title, regardless of the number of players participating.
Battlefield 2042 Had an Absolutely Horrible Launch on Steam
Battlefield 2042 was originally released in October 2021, and to call its launch disastrous would be an understatement and something that the developer never would have expected to happen. DICE’s first-person shooter title became one of the lowest-rated and worst-reviewed video games on Steam due to multiple technical issues. For starters, the game was infested with bugs, glitches, and performance problems that players just could not overlook.
To make matters even worse, Battlefield 2042 also took various gameplay detours that fans of the long-running franchise were unable to get behind. In addition to the aforementioned issues, there were also some features that the game’s community was really looking forward to, only to find out that some of them were not even included in the final product.
What is even crazier is that shortly after its launch, its three-year-old predecessor, Battlefield 5 from 2018, had a bigger player base than the 2021 title.
Because of Battlefield 2042‘s horrible launch, the EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, had an open confessional conversation with investors, admitting that the game was unable to “meet expectations.” It would have made perfect sense for DICE to completely abandon the game after that, but its belief in its title paid off in the long run. The player count keeps increasing exponentially, with the number now at 103,492, which is even higher than its peak during the weekend.
This is a fresh opportunity for DICE to keep the newly found momentum going for Battlefield 2042.
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