Battlefield 2042 Spotlights DICE’s Communication Problem

battlefield 2042 season 1

It’s the weekend, and we’re about done with the second week of the new year. Battlefield 2042 players looking for news regarding the game’s roadmap, first season, and info on bug fixes are left in the dark. This doesn’t look well for a game already hemorraging players at an insane rate. So, the question is: what’s happening, DICE?

Believe it or not, it hasn’t always been this way. For reference, the last Battlefield game released before BF2042 was Battlefield V, and some players might not believe it now, but DICE was excellent in communicating upcoming fixes, content, and just what the heck was going on to make the game better.

Battlefield 2042 Update 1.05

When Battlefield V was released in November of 2018, it didn’t exactly set the multiplayer shooter world on fire (same as Battlefield 2042). However, DICE kept on working on it until it was appreciated by the community (somewhat). But the big difference between BFV and BF2042 is that DICE communicated with the player base.

EA’s Director of Communications for Shooters has commented that the devs are away on holidays, which is one of the reasons why the studio has been silent. Mind, I can’t find fault with that; devs are fine taking a break. What’s not fine is, the week is over, and we still have not heard a thing. Compare this to Battlefield V, DICE not only apologized for the silence in communications, but we got patch notes for the upcoming update, a preview of what’s coming the following week, and more interaction regarding a bunch of issues — all within the same time frame (first two weeks of the new year). Heck, the studio even issued a letter apologizing for the BFV Coins issues, which is outside of the silence apology. Again, ALL these we got within the first 15 days of 2019! So what happened with Battlefield 2042?

Is it because of the personnel change regarding who handles communications for Battlefield 2042 now? Maybe. But the thing is, some of the people who were communicating with the BFV player base then are still with the EA/DICE. By my count, DICE and the Battlefield franchise has four community managers/communications people on-board, but yet, here we are, clawing at every bit of info that’s made available via official channels.

So, what happens now? I’m hoping that we’ll hear something this coming week. Maybe it’s a preview of the upcoming fixes, plans for new content, when the first season will start? Anything, really. Anything is better than being silent. With DICE’s silence, the subreddit has been boiling with anger, confusion, regret, and toxicity that it’s even being threatened by the mods to be shutdown if it doesn’t stop.

Mind, players aren’t asking DICE to lay everything on the table right now. All they (we) want is for the studio to communicate. Communicate what changes are being made, what bugs are being prioritized, what content roll out is planned. Basically, anything except the canned tweets that we’ve been getting that seems to highlight just how out of touch the studio’s communications people are.

DICE, tell us what’s coming. tell us what can be fixed, what can’t, and what’s out of your reach. Anything is better than what we have now, and the Battlefield community deservers better. Not every franchise gets a second or third chance, and the Battlefield franchise is in danger of losing any chances of getting redemption; the last thing the franchise needs is for its communications people to remain quiet. I mean, they are being paid to communicate to the community and the player base, right? Now it’s needed more than ever.

Next Battlefield 2042 Update

Amid all the rubble, there is a silver lining. Respawn boss Vince Zampella has been roped in to be the new head of the Battlefield franchise. Zampella is no stranger to shooters, as he’s behind some of the most iconic ones in history. In case you didn’t know, Zampella (along with Jason West) kickstarted this entire modern multiplayer shooter thing with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Before that, they were the heads of 2015 Inc., which was the studio that worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Now, Zampella’s studio is behind the super-successful Apex Legends, and are the devs behind the excellent Titanfall franchise. If there is anyone at EA who can turn things around for Battlefield, it’s Zampella & Co. Another person who gives us a little ray of sunshine right now is Halo franchise co-creator Marcus Lehto who has been tasked to be the Narrative Director of the Battlefield franchise. While Lehto is relatively new to the franchise, he has been very vocal on Twitter, and is aware of the issues and frustrations of players.

What’s kind of shocking here is, Activision has acknowledged the issues players have with a Call of Duty Vanguard, and COD Warzone. Inarguably, the Call of Duty brand is bigger than the Battlefield franchise. Not only that, but when it comes to missteps in terms of game releases, Activision hasn’t released as many disappointments as EA has. Not cutting Activision any slack here since Warzone’s issues should have been fixed last year, but at least they communicated to their player base already — something Battlefield fans are thirsting for right now.

Will Zampella and Lehto be enough to “save” the Battlefield brand? Nope. They’ll need the help of DICE Sweden for that. Here’s to hoping that DICE themselves are aware of what’s happening and working on something. But even before they release that, let’s hope that they realize that they need to communicate to players now, and not later, since at this point communication is key, and they better do before the player base stops caring and moves on.


Views expressed here are solely that of the author’s and does not represent that of MP1st and its staff.

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Theodore
2 years ago

I have battlefield 2042 on my PS5 and it won’t play it. I am still at the loading screen. Do you have any suggestions?

High
Reply to  Theodore
2 years ago

Yea delete it and play a different game, this is hands down the worst shooter I’ve ever played. It’s not even a Battlefield game, the only cool part about the game is the Portal and they probably won’t even add anything to it.

Conor
Reply to  High
2 years ago

Portal has been awful for me..booted into a game 4 separate times and it’s always like 1v1 on a 128v128 map..it’s crazy..that was like a month ago can’t imagine what it’s like now.

Mike Smith
2 years ago

I played Battlefield 2042 during the free to play weekend, and was instantly hooked! I purchased it on 09 January, and it has quickly become my favorite shooter.

martin
Reply to  Mike Smith
2 years ago

I agree bro

John Doe
2 years ago

With 93% of the player base out the window it won’t even matter if they start communicating now,that game is finished and nothing can save it now,better put a cross on it and move on…

Alex Co
Reply to  John Doe
2 years ago

Even if a lot of players left, they can still make it better for the existing ones, or possibly rope new players in. Look at Hunt Showdown, For Honor, etc. They fizzled and then got their second wind by constant updates, communications by the devs, etc.

big raver
2 years ago

When will people learn that EA is a pump and dump publisher. Make a bad game and hype it up to make as many sales on day one then let it die like anthem. Who cares they made their money so next pump and dump on the way! I’m done buying EA games. Anthem was my last and will be my last EA game. They never care about releasing a good game ever. It’s about money, not quality of the product. If they had to make games for N64 they’d be a dead company within a year. Stop buying EAs turds. The only way to make them change this garbage is to STOP GIVING THEM MONEY FOR GARBAGE.

martin
Reply to  big raver
2 years ago

Fifa is brilliant. That’s most of ea’s income. But your right, look at star wars battlefront.

wirm
Reply to  martin
2 years ago

Well EA might lose the FIFA license. Sooo.. there’s that too.

Infinite
2 years ago

The problem is there is not enough representation for LGBTQIA+. The fact that I can’t be my non-binary self is really irritating as this is the main subject matter of any game, gender identity. It’s about who you are, not who they want you to be.

tkersey16
Reply to  Infinite
2 years ago

I honestly can’t tell if you’re a troll or not. 1) what is the specific issue you are having 2) what do you suggest be done about it? I’m genuinely curious because this is literally the most diverse group of playable characters from battlefield. They placed importance on that even when you don’t see your avatar 99.99% of the time. What do you want?

Kingof
2 years ago

As long as EA tries to make this a hero shooter it will fail. The specialist system is the worst idea to ever make it into a battlefield game. Other important things like a scoreboard would be nice.

marcos
2 years ago

Zampella and letho will ruin bf , they are experts in games like apex or halo, thats the problem of bf, we only want a remastered bf3/bf4.. not a hero game like apex, for that all fan players are gone.. apex sucks. kid game..

Alex Co
Reply to  marcos
2 years ago

Huh? Zampella was the studio head for Modern Warfare, and MW2? Not to mention Titanfall. They don’t NEED to make a hero shooter. Also, can we go any lower now?

martin
2 years ago

Battlefield 2042 is brilliant. I love it.

It still needs a bit of work definitely.

The stats are rubbish, no kill death ratio, highest kill streak record. That is surely missed, but the game is awesome and should only get better.

I’ve never had a problem with finding a game.

Highly recommended, action is frantic and quality. I cannot wait to upgrade my TV so it looks even better.

Now halo campaign, now that’s a proper let down.

martin
2 years ago

Plus squad selection is missed. Being able to boot bods if not contributing.

All the little stuff has been taking away.

Game play first class

Conor
2 years ago

I wish we would stop calling them DICE, because it’s DICE in name only. All the big battlefield veterans that worked on the game have gone and left. I think this should’ve been the first sign that this game was going to have a extremely rocky start. You’ve got people that worked on modern warfare working on a battlefield game, what could possibly go wrong. I was the biggest battlefield fan, and gave 2042 a chance, played it for a few weeks. The dev team was definitely stretched thin, imo they should’ve never tried to release portal alongside bf2042, all that time energy and resources could’ve been spent on making the base game a really solid experience. What we got was half finished portal and base game. I think they’re being silent because they themselves have no idea what they’re going to do. How do you fix this game? Get rid of operators? Bring back the “legacy” scoreboard? Put AA guns at the beginning of maps so you can’t get spawn killed by jets like they did with literally every other bf game? I’ve already moved on from the game, but would like to get back in it someday. After playing around 2000 hours of BF3 and BF4, BF2042 is..just simply a disappointment. Now, bf3 and bf4 launches were very rocky for anyone that remembers. BfV was pretty bad too, but it’s true, the devs, the real DICE, communicated what was going on and what to expect in the future. I think EA just doesn’t care, their social media team members are just completely tone deaf. You’ve got literally every person on social media begging them to fix the game, and they just post killfeeds, and other corny stuff like missiles locking onto Santa’s sleigh. This is what happens when a truly beloved franchise is tossed to the side, and not given the proper attention it deserves. Honestly the original DICE team leaving shouldve been a clear indicator that this game was going to be a dumpster fire. My take after playing the game for around a month is that the dev team didn’t actually ever play a battlefield game. So many basic features missing that were just staples of the old games. No diving underwater? No crouch sprinting? You cant even check if you’re MVP anymore..people play these games to win, not just see who had the most vehicle damage received. Hopefully someday someone will come and help this dev team fix their errors and get this game back on track, but for some reason I highly doubt it.

Conor
2 years ago

I wish we would stop calling them DICE, because it’s DICE in name only. All the big battlefield veterans that worked on the game have gone and left. I think this should’ve been the first sign that this game was going to have a extremely rocky start. You’ve got people that worked on modern warfare working on a battlefield game, what could possibly go wrong. I was the biggest battlefield fan, and gave 2042 a chance, played it for a few weeks. The dev team was definitely stretched thin, imo they should’ve never tried to release portal alongside bf2042, all that time energy and resources could’ve been spent on making the base game a really solid experience. What we got was half finished portal and base game. I think they’re being silent because they themselves have no idea what they’re going to do. How do you fix this game? Get rid of operators? Bring back the “legacy” scoreboard? Put AA guns at the beginning of maps so you can’t get spawn killed by jets like they did with literally every other bf game? I’ve already moved on from the game, but would like to get back in it someday. After playing around 2000 hours of BF3 and BF4, BF2042 is..just simply a disappointment. Now, bf3 and bf4 launches were very rocky for anyone that remembers. BfV was pretty bad too, but it’s true, the devs, the real DICE, communicated what was going on and what to expect in the future. I think EA just doesn’t care, their social media team members are just completely tone deaf. You’ve got literally every person on social media begging them to fix the game, and they just post killfeeds, and other corny stuff like missiles locking onto Santa’s sleigh. This is what happens when a truly beloved franchise is tossed to the side, and not given the proper attention it deserves. Honestly the original DICE team leaving shouldve been a clear indicator that this game was going to be a dumpster fire. My take after playing the game for around a month is that the dev team didn’t actually ever play a battlefield game. So many basic features missing that were just staples of the old games. No diving underwater? No crouch sprinting? You cant even check if you’re MVP anymore..people play these games to win, not just see who had the most vehicle damage received. Hopefully someday someone will come and help this dev team fix their errors and get this game back on track, but for some reason I highly doubt it.

Jason
2 years ago

The problem they have now is that just about any communication will be met with a toxic response. I know the performance has been poor, abysmal even, but it does seem like people are going to complain no matter what.

Alex Co
Reply to  Jason
2 years ago

Indeed. You have a point there. The game has been underwhelming. DICE needs to turn things around and this isn’t helping. BFV was the same way. Every post/tweet, etc. were met with disdain but it got better slowly.

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