Last week was particularly stressful for Battlefield fans and developer DICE. The studio announced delaying the game’s first season by several months. What many believed would arrive in March is now landing sometime around June. The developer will instead use this break to address longstanding issues, and potentially change some of the most controversial design decisions made during the development of Battlefield 2042.
Meanwhile, publisher EA all but pretended the game doesn’t exist at all in its financial reports and releases for Q3. When asked about Battlefield 2042’s performance and its view of launch, EA said it was a disappointment, admitting that it has run into several problems. EA, however, was adamant DICE will get things back on the right track because the developer has fixed similar messes in the past.
The unavoidable fact is that all of this means Battlefield 2042 will not be getting any new content for months. In the ever-relevant race for engagement, a number of Battlefield content creators have already publicly announced they’re moving on from the game.
The latest casualty of this lack of interest is Stodeh, one of several YouTubers who built their career on Battlefield coverage, before moving on to other popular shooters like Warzone. Stodeh put out a video over the weekend announcing that while they’ll be covering Battlefield 2042 news, they won’t be playing it on their channels until new content arrives.
Before that, Westie, another Battlefield creator, also recently told his followers he’d be moving away from 2042, explaining that they’re simply not having fun playing it at this time. Both videos were fairly mild in their criticism, but other creators had a much sharper tone when they abandoned the game.
AKA-ART, for example, who almost exclusively plays Battlefield games, pretty much quit after Battlefield 2042’s failure to deliver.
Meanwhile, other Battlefield content creators, such as TheBrokenMachine, have quietly moved away from the game, either going back to past Battlefield titles, or focusing on other popular shooters. LevelCapGaming, and Jackfrags are the only two major creators who regularly post Battlefield 2042 content, though even in the latter’s case, it’s not as frequent.
It’s not hard to see why this is happening. Battlefield 2042 continues to lose players on all platforms. This lack of player interest is reflected in the lack of views on YouTube and Twitch, which is a major reason why all those creators are stepping away – there is simply no money in it.
Battlefield 4 is often the closest point of comparison for a game with an incredibly rough launch that turned things around. But as many continue to point out, Battlefield 4’s problems were mostly in stability and bugs, not in its fundamental design. Indeed, by the time Battlefield 2042 gets its first piece of new content, Battlefield 4 had already received several new expansions, making any potential turnaround for 2042 even more unlikely.
In the meantime, Battlefield fans have gone back to past games to get their fix. Battlefield 5 has seen the biggest boost in players, followed by Battlefield 1. The two games actually far outrank 2042 on Steam’s list of most-played games.
