The new head of Battlefield Studio is putting all other projects on hold early to focus on the disappointing Battlefield 2042.
Battlefield 2042 suffered from major problems at the game’s release. Countless bugs and lack of content caused player numbers to plummet rapidly. There are few current games that were so poorly received by the original fans of the series. Okay, Diablo Immortal excepted. Dice has also learned a lesson from this and turned the entire studio upside down.
Some executives left, including the then general manager Oskar Gabrielson. Rebecka Coutaz has been in the boss’s chair for almost half a year now. The Swede is not new to the industry: she was already employed at Ubisoft Annecy for ten years and worked there on games like Riders Republic or Steep. She also has experience in multiplayer, having worked on the multiplayer modes of Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell.
What makes it different?
In an interview with (gameindustry), she tells us that they now define simple processes and workflows more clearly, and she is rebuilding motivation among colleagues. “Our players and community were disappointed, but so was our development team. We focused on the health of the game and with each patch we improved it. And every patch was a small, small victory.”
Letting the game die was out of the question for them, he said. They couldn’t do that to the players or to themselves. Rather, they owe it to the players, Coutaz said.
Even though the number of players is now crushingly low, it was one of the most played games on Steam at the beginning. It makes you wonder how much negative reviews and the like hurt a game at all.
Only Battlefield?
When asked if other, unusual projects like Mirror’s Edge will now be put on the back burner, she responds, “Totally. We’re just focused on Battlefield 2042. There’s no time for anything else and that’s what we’re doing. In three years, we want to be the first-person shooter powerhouse that Dice deserves to be.”
And Dice isn’t the only studio working on Battlefield. EA Gothenburg, Ripple Effect and Criterion are also working on 2042. The latter is currently working on the new Need for Speed, but the others are apparently still working on Battlefield 2042. According to an insider, it was recently said that the game had hardly any developers left, but EA has already denied this.
What’s going to happen with Battlefield 2042? Coutaz says they mainly want to improve the core gameplay. Season 1 has also now been released and Coutaz says it has received positive feedback from players
Battlefield 2042: Season 1 – All important new features finally played
What do you guys think of the attempt to get Battlefield 2042 off the slippery slope? In your opinion, is it the least they could do, or should they rather let the game die? Drop us a line in the comments!
