According to EA Dice, it will no longer make new content for Battlefield 2042’s Hazard Zone “beyond addressing critical errors and odd behaviors that may appear in the future.” In a way, this is EA telling people that Battlefield 2042 is dead.
Watch our Development Update video 👇 https://t.co/6sYhtOFlpW pic.twitter.com/8dpvlI65St — Battlefield (@Battlefield) May 24, 2022 Hazard Zone should have been one of Battlefield 2042’s biggest strengths, except it turned out to be a massive disappointment. Although the “not battle royale” mode is not solely to blame for Battlefield 2042’s failure, it certainly did not help. What’s interesting here is the news of dropping support for Hazard Zone after EA DICE announced it’s lowering the required player count for certain modes like Breakthrough and Conquest by half. This would suggest that EA DICE already had this planned for a while but waited to break the news, perhaps in an attempt to mitigate the backlash. However, as the game already has fewer than a thousand players, we don’t think that it comes off as a shock that EA is redirecting its focus. If anything, Hazard Zone’s demise is a long time coming. EA already confirmed earlier this month that it wanted to rethink Battlefield 2042 “from the ground up,” and this feels like a step in the said direction. After launching Battlefield 2042 to dismal reviews and calls for refunds, the game’s situation has only gone from bad to worse. EA DICE built Battlefield 2042 for a large audience. As the player count dwindles, it becomes harder to fill matches, rendering Battlefield 2042’s main attraction into its worst enemy. The move towards smaller game modes is a sad attempt to try and reinvigorate a dying game, which is why it would make more sense for EA DICE to jump ship and move on to other endeavors. We’ll just have to wait and see what Season 1 of Battlefield 2042 brings, but we don’t think anyone’s holding their breath for what EA DICE has in store. In other news, EA is reportedly looking to merge with another company after the Microsoft acquire Activision-Blizzard in January. Also, for those looking for a Battlefield alternative, EA hopes to release Battlefield Mobile before the year ends.
