According to leaker Tom Henderson, EA is pretty disappointed with how Battlefield 2042 is performing. Henderson says that the publisher is now "looking at all the options" when it comes to the game. This includes the possibility that the game will go the route of a free-to-play title, at least in some capacity.
Henderson failed to elaborate on these remarks and says he'll have "more on this tomorrow."
While Henderson's track record has been less than stellar, there really isn't anything too surprising in his statements today. Battlefield 2042 has been absolutely bleeding players since its launch. At the time of this report, the 24-hour peak for Battlefield 2042 on Steam is 8,054 players. The all-time peak was at the game's launch when it had over 105,000 players. Now compare that to the current 24-hour peaks for Battlefield V with 20,956 players and Battlefield 1 with a 24-hour peak of 8,108 players.
Keep in mind that these are the player counts just for Steam. Also keep in mind that both Battlefield V and Battlefield 1 did not even arrive on Steam until years after they were released on Origin. Battlefield V and Battlefield 1 are several years old now and they have a more active player base than a game that came out just two months ago.
Also, EA is disappointed? Really? The decisions that led to the mess that is Battlefield 2042 almost certainly came from the top. It came from EA, the people writing the checks to fund the development. There were probably multiple people saying how this and that were bad ideas at every step of development that went ignored. This disappointment could have been avoided before it ever began.
