Update: EA has responded to the claim that it partly blamed Halo Infinite for Battlefield 2042's poor reception, stating that the discussion "was about key learnings and actions we are taking, not blaming external factors."
Here's what EA communications VP John Reseburg had to say about it in a statement to PC Gamer:
"These stories are not accurately capturing the discussion and the context, which was an in-depth and very humble internal conversation about the recent Battlefield launch. It was about key learnings and actions we are taking, not blaming external factors."
Original story: A new report has been published by journalist Tom Henderson over at XFire revealing details from a recent internal EA meeting call, including a suggestion that Halo Infinite was partly to blame for Battlefield 2042's poor launch.
EA's Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele reportedly told staff that there were multiple reasons why Battlefield 2042 suffered a bad start, including the large scale of its ambition, work-from-home development and the sheer number of bugs at launch, but "the early critical reception was good", and Halo Infinite was a reason why things began to change:
Here's what Henderson had to say about it in his report:
"Following the game's launch, DICE rolled out its Day 1 and Day 0 patches to get the bug count down further. On this, Miele continued and said that Battlefield 2042's launch and patches meant "the game was stable" and "the early critical reception was good". However, according to EA, things took a turn, and that turn was *clears throat*, the surprise release of Halo Infinite multiplayer (I wish I was joking)."
"According to Miele, the comparison between both games was not favourable because Halo Infinite was a very polished title whereas Battlefield 2042 contained bugs and wasn't as polished."
As you may remember, Halo Infinite's multiplayer was originally scheduled to launch on December 8th with the rest of the game, but ended up releasing early on November 15th — just four days before the launch of Battlefield 2042 on November 19th.
EA has already publicly admitted that Battlefield 2042 didn't live up to expectations at launch, with boss Andrew Wilson stating recently that the game "[had] unanticipated performance issues" and "some of the design choices we made did not resonate". However, the company says it's "fully committed to realising the full potential of this game".
Do you agree with EA on this one, or was Battlefield 2042 doomed no matter what? Tell us down below.
[source pcgamer.com]
Comments 32
So EA is mad that another game was better than its title? Lol, wow.
From what I understood they released a multiplayer only game and charged full price, it wasn't finished, so naturally it suffered when a superior quality and fun factor game came out and was F2P.
None of this makes sense.
1) Your game should be able to stand on its own regardless of other titles released.
2) If 2042 was only bad compared to Halo Infinite, then why did BF players go back to older BF titles, and not just stick with 2042 or move to Halo? Clearly, 2042 wasn't up to older standards.
3) Wasn't Halo Infinite criticised for it's progression and unfinished state?. It's missing features and game modes, and BTB didn't work, and you want to say that that was the game that was super polished compared to your game?
This all just sounds like a way of deflecting blame.
I'm sure Halo DID steal some of Battlefield's initial thunder. The multiplayer shadow dropped 3 weeks early on 15 November and gazumped Battlefield by 4 days. And it was really good.
However if Battlefield 2042 was actually a competent title it would have weathered that storm, but it wasn't. The main blame is on releasing a game at least a year early. They should have followed Halo's lead and delayed 12 months.
Being full price in a sea of great FTP games can't have helped either.
Halo was also 'delayed' so the Developers had time to at least get the game to a releasable state and had several Beta's in the run up to its 'official' release - in fact, Halo: Infinite was still in 'Beta' when BF2042 released.
BF2042 also dropped their SP campaigns - Halo did not. Whilst Halo may of been missing 'some' features - like Forge, BF2042 was and still is missing MANY, MANY core features and the 'actual' MP is exceptionally 'bare-bones'. Its other modes are 'broken' and/or underwhelming too.
Halo MP was 'free to play', BF2042 was asking a Full price for a 'broken, messy, under-whelming, shallow 'Alpha' state release - you'd expect more 'from' a Beta test which should have 'most' of the features you'd expect from a Battlefield game intact - some things the game still lacks today, months after release...
Instead of 'blaming' Halo for their 'failures', look at themselves first. The 'BIG' difference was that 343's game was a LOT more 'ready' to release - maybe because MS gave them more 'time'. Dice's game was far from 'ready', EA pushed that game out in that state!!!
Yet the player base is now pretty similar, plus they different games as Halo is an arcade shooter whilst Battlefield is all about big team battles and more realistic feel
I don't think this makes much sense at all. Halo feels and plays totally different from Battlefield in that it's an arena based arcade like shooter whereas Battlefield is set on massive maps with not necessarily realistic but not nearly as arcady as Halo gameplay.
Plus Halo is only available on 2 platforms instead of 3 like Battlefield. If Battlefield was better received it at the very least could have done well on Playstation where Halo is unavailable.
I'm a bit biased of course because I friggin love Halo Infinite and have never been a big Battlefield fan but I know Battlefield fans are pretty hardcore. If 2042 was good that fanbase wouldn't be populating older Battlefield games instead. Halo didn't steal 2042's thunder because there wasn't really any thunder to steal anyway.
Hahahaha. So a game that wasn't finished was too much for them?
Somebody please... release a fully finished multiplayer. The bar has dropped.
EA bought codemasters and I'm expecting that studio to die like any other EA studio. Damn and I played Dirt 5 last week and I liked it. These guys are incredibly bad. Only reason Respawn hasn't been affected is because they talk back when EA wants to control them.
@themightyant It's not even on Playstation so what's the excuse there? LMAO.
I sometimes wonder how EA has the highest market cap out of all the third party publishers and Capcom is one of the cheaper ones.
edit: Yes I know how, I just can't believe it happens.
Ain’t no way they just tried to pull that BS
Yeah sure, Battlefront II, Anthem, Battlefield 2042 - it must only have been competitors that made them look so bad.
Well, I remember when EA said that reason why Mass Effect Andromeda flopped was because it released too close to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.
Actually more people on playstation consoles play Battlefield than xbox and most likely pc so halo would of had hardly no impact at all
Next up: Crossfire X failed because Forbidden West launched.
Yeah no EA sorry. I think your game is just awful and unfinished.
Wow I didn't think they could throw up anymore rubbish excuses but there they go and do it haha
Doesn't feel good when this happens, does it?cough*Titanfall*cough
That said, it is kind of sad when you're blaming your bad game doing bad on another bad game.
Nobody is at fault for battlefield 2042 problems but EA . in my honest opinion it all due to EA devs falling down on the job. To put it another way battlefield 2042 very poor reseption is due to lazy game development
Aren't these the same people who smugly told everyone "if you don't like the decisions we have made, don't buy the game" and now they are once again upset at people not buying their game?
The trick of a diversion artist is weak on this one, what can we say really, stop releasing games early for international oligarch/syndicate investors that cash in easily on demand and get off that FIFA FUT money high that leads too attempting & implementing nickel and diming strategies like the specialists in battlefield 2042.
“Halo Infinite was a very polished title whereas Battlefield 2042 contained bugs and wasn't as polished….” Ummm….. then polish your game. Problem solved. And then the surprise release from Halo? It was delayed a year. That’s not a surprise release, they knew it was coming. Just excuses EA.
I love how it's not just "Halo came out and pulled players away from our game"
but they're saying "its not fair that Halo was polished and our game was a mess" 😂
Oh no, it wasn't our fault. Master chief hacked into our system and made our game bad. Shots fired.
Maybe release games in a better state than half-baked?
Mars blamed snickers for lack of sale because snickers has peanuts in it 😂😂😭
Wow, EA is to blame for lack of sale. They removed what made battlefield legendary to go the route of battle royale.
Go back to what makes Battlefield great again and build on that formula. Man up and take the hit, EA just messed this one up.
@The-Chosen-one that would be interesting seeing as mars/snickers are the same company . But yeah, get your point.
I don't know about what problems it had other than via other ppl saying but it put me off not having any single player at all, i don't like all these multiplayer games and even more so when the games used to have single player ,at least have two parts a single player and a multiplayer game and look at the sales before you decide to get rid of single player altogether
It sounds like he is saying something similar to what everyone else is commenting IMO. It sounds like he is blaming himself more than Halo. He is basically saying it wasnt a good idea to release a game in a buggy state along side the other major FPS releases. Either make sure it is polished enough to stand up to those or delay it.
EA is like this toxic partner that gaslights you for all of his/her errors and crappy attitude
Ea needs to learn that they have burnt many bridges with gamers. most of us wont buy EA games at full price anymore.... maybe they need to tell their investors to F off and start delaying games... the Beta for BF2042 was horrific and showed how badly bugged the game was but instead of delaying the game they decided to blame the beta build which was a "old build" Ea's pattern of releasing games with either no story mode or not enough content or buggy(Anthem, mass effect Andromeda, BF 2042, BF4 was a buggy mess when it launched, and it seems more and more likely their games will be buggy as the years go on.
@Somebody i honestly beleive EA said ok we have two weeks before halo launches we can build a playerbase in that time and patch away the bugs...l then MS shadow dropped Halo online 4 days before BF 2042 and EA was F'd as you cant release a buggy game days after a game that is less buggy and f2p and a major IP.
@Blessed_Koz it was going to be tough for battlefield no matter what happened launching right between call of duty and halo. Looking back at all 3 games and call of duty seems to be the clear winner even though it had a weaker than normal reception itself.
Battlefield was buggy, halo is missing a bunch of key features and is light on content. Neither game should be surprised or blaming another game for their declining playerbase. It's not surprising to me that people tried these games and then went back to warzone, Apex, etc.
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