Battlefield 2042 might reportedly be turned into a free-to-play game in light of its ongoing player-retention problems since launch.
Taking to Twitter earlier today, Battlefield insider Tom Henderson claimed that publisher Electronic Arts (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.”
Henderson made it clear that EA has been exploring other options as well to attract players, but it goes without saying that a free-to-play mode will likely be the best way for the publisher to breath new life into Battlefield 2042.
EA is reportedly very disappointed with how Battlefield 2042 has performed and is "looking at all the options" when it comes to the title, this is including looking at Free to Play in some capacity.
I'll have more on this tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/WWuDpstyqS
— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) January 20, 2022
Battlefield 2042 was released just before the holiday season and has been facing criticism after criticism since then. The game started the new year by finding itself dead last on the most-played Steam games list. The player-count has been dwindling constantly and as a result, the game dropped off completely from the most-played Steam games list as of the last couple of weeks.
In a twist of irony, players are returning to Battlefield 5 which saw its own fair share of backlash. Battlefield 2042 has been finding it hard to maintain more than 7,000 concurrent players on Steam, which is disappointing since Battlefield 5 actually retained its player-base much better in comparison.
In another twist of irony, major cheat makers have stopped supporting Battlefield 2042 because its performance issues along with numerous bugs are stopping cheats from working as intended.
The player-base on PC has already labelled Battlefield 2042 dead after two months of release. Reportedly though, developer DICE decaled Hazard Zone dead within its first week of launch, which should not be comforting for the future of the game at all.
DICE, having returned from its holidays, announced yesterday that Battlefield 2042 will receive a new scoreboard in the coming weeks. The coming updates will bundle stability fixes. As for issues concerning matchmaking and voice communications, DICE has no updates to provide at the moment except that both are on its radar.
