Even Battlefield 2042’s Smaller Updates Are Being Delayed

It was only earlier this week that we were reporting that Battlefield 2042’s first major content updates won’t be out for months. Now the smaller updates are being pushed back as well.

“We’ve had to make some big decisions to ensure that our next set of updates can be focused on delivering these improvements,” EA said with regards to the major updates—stuff like new maps—a few days ago. “The most substantial one [is] being to move the release date of our first Season to early Summer,” they added.

Earlier today, as part of a small hotfix announcement, EA then said that the game’s next smaller update—one that will bring something fans have been crying for since launch, a refreshed scoreboard—has also been delayed. Originally announced in January for a February launch, this update now won’t be out until March.

Our next Update after todays Hotfix will now roll out in early March. This is a change from our last messaging to you all on it's intended release.

The extra time will help to ensure we improve the quality of our Updates, and include additional changes.https://t.co/WoeHvOludK

— Battlefield Comms (@BattlefieldComm) February 3, 2022

Battlefield 2042 launched in an absolute state, but despite the game’s myriad weird issues—and black holes where it feels like more game should be—I’ve still been really enjoying it, because the chaos of 128-player battles is an incredible experience, warts and all.

That said! Only two game modes make the most of this (Conquest and Breakthrough), and so few people are playing the same handful of maps that I now can’t even join a Breakthrough game half the time, because there aren’t enough players.

That speaks to a wider problem the game has, which is that negative reviews and a toxic word-of-mouth have become so pervasive that 2042’s playerbase total is in freefall, and no number of hotfixes or tiny updates are going to change that. It needs two things if it’s ever going to succeed—new stuff, and the passage of time for new stuff and tiny updates to slowly improve matters—and the more it has to push those back, and be seen to be delaying the updates needed to fix a game that clearly was in no state to launch, the harder it’s going to be.