Battlefield Portal, the unique multiplayer mode of Battlefield 2042, might be made free to play as publisher Electronic Arts (EA) searches for a way to save its dwindling player-count.
Battlefield insider Tom Henderson had pointed out over the weekend that EA has been “very disappointed with how Battlefield 2042 has performed” and has started considering the possibility of a free-to-play update “in some capacity.” He has now provided further clarification that Battlefield Portal has a better chance of going free to play, not Hazard Zone and definitely not Battlefield 2042 itself.
New video going live – https://t.co/6tqbiA84Jn
— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) January 23, 2022
A free-to-play option will definitely help in boosting the number of players in Battlefield 2042 but it is all the more necessary for developer DICE to also fix a slew of ongoing issues with the game. Even a free-to-play mode will not save a player-base if the players are not enjoying the game to being with.
While only a rumor for now, a free-to-play Battlefield Portal will likely bring up more questions as players wanted the battle royale-style Hazard Zone mode to be free to play from the start. EA and DICE would have generated a lot of positive vibes with the latter but Hazard Zone will apparently remain a premium experience.
Battlefield 2042 was released about a couple of months back, just before the holiday season, and has since then been seeing a constant drop in its players. The game dropped off completely from the most-played Steam games list a couple of weeks back and has dipped below 7,000 concurrent Steam players since then.
Perhaps the reason Hazard Zone will not be up for a free-to-play consideration is because the mode was rumored to have died at launch. Henderson previously claimed that DICE stopped tracking Hazard Zone internally within the first seven days of launch because the number of players was so low.
In either case, the player-base should keep its finger crossed that DICE somehow finds a way to produce that highly-requested free-to-play battle royale game mode as a competitor to Call of Duty: Warzone.
