We’ve reached that point in every year where the big fall releases are so close that everything else just feels stale. I’m personally enjoying the indies and single-player games that are starting to roll out, but every time more than 2 of my boys get on, we get stuck trying to find something to play together.
Battlefield 2042 has kinda been the game in our sights since most of us aren’t super competitive and we loved Battlefield 1. And until yesterday, we had been counting the weeks until it came out.
Alas, Battlefield 2042 has been delayed 4 weeks, now expected to release on November 19th.
This hit me pretty hard yesterday. I’m not saying I cried a little, but my soul got bruised up a bit knowing the wait for the next big shooter I’m playing with the boys is even longer than we thought.
Am I mad about the decision? No, absolutely not. I’d rather play a decent game than a glitchy buggy garbage game 10 times outta 10.
I tweeted this yesterday, but put yourself in the CEO of EA’s shoes for a second.
First off, please head down to the main lobby and take a massive shit on the floor for all the years of pain this company has caused me and millions of gamers around the world? Thanks.
Now go back to your office and consider this scenario: you’ve just been told by the game director of one of your biggest franchises that your big holiday game isn’t going to be ready on time. What choices do you have?
Option 1 is to just release the game as planned in October regardless of its state. You chose that date intentionally so you could be the first of the “big 3” shooters released, and moving the date in any way removes that advantage. However, your game will likely be extremely buggy, you’ll for sure get review bombed, many people will request refunds and you’ll be memed all over the internet as the next Cyberpunk.
Option 2 is to delay the game until the spring and give the team plenty of time to make sure everything is perfect. Doing this should ensure that everyone’s day 1 experience is perfect, increase the chance that you’ll get great reviews, and maybe even roll out that battle royale mode that hasn’t been officially announced yet. On the flip side, you lose all those holiday sales, throw your Q4 budget and earnings in the gutter, and have to explain to investors why you can’t manage a gaming company.
Option 3 is to do what they did: delay the game a few weeks, tell your employees there is zero chance it’s getting delayed further and that they need to crunch to get this game finished. You keep your holiday sales, you give yourself a better chance to have a good day 1 product, and hopefully, everything works out. I think that’s the best option you have.
But it still comes with a huge downside: you are now sandwiched between the other two of the “big 3”.
I’m not expecting Vanguard to be that great and while I do think Battlefield has the advantage of being a modern shooter while CoD is muddling around in the WW2 era again, CoD is by far the more popular game among casuals and a new Warzone map and a ton of new free-to-play content is going to be really had to peel away from for just another shooter.
On the flip side, Halo Infinite comes out two weeks later. I think Battlefield has a slight advantage over Halo in terms of casual gamer awareness/hype (11.2M followers on socials vs 6.4M), but Halo has a whole lot going for it that they haven’t in the past. Infinite will be the first Halo released Day 1 on PC, the multiplayer will be free-to-play, the campaign is on Game Pass, and they get the added bonus of 6 years of waiting from diehard Halo fans.
But really, let’s be honest: any and all of these games have a chance to suck.
The second map of every battle royale ever has kinda sucked, everything I’m hearing about Vanguard has been negative, and are we really just gonna forget the fact that 343 Industries not only has made two bad Halo’s but also were supposed to release this game last year? Considering how close these games are releasing to each other, they can really gonna live or die based on how good that day 1 product comes out.
Though I’m not completely sure they even have a chance to have a good day 1 product considering this information that came out today from credible leaker Tom Henderson.
That is not good at all.
If you can’t even run a beta on time for a game supposed to debut in (now) 9 weeks, that’s a big red flag. I’m really starting to get a Cyberpunky vibe from the news that’s coming out every few hours surrounding this game. I went from excited AF to worried AF in less than 12 hours and I’m not sure my soul can take much more of this.
Still, despite the fact that EA has never lived up to expectations and every single warning sign is telling me to give up on this game, I’m still clinging to that little strand of hope deep down in my soul that Battlefield is a good game.
I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks when the beta comes around.
