Battlefield 2042 reportedly in "Abandon Ship" mode and only worked on by a skeleton crew, EA denies the allegations

[AlTech]

Summary

Battlefield 2042 is reportedly in "Abandon Ship" mode with EA allegedly ready to end Battlefield 2042 updates and live services as soon as it has met its DLC obligations. It is alleged that Battlefield 2042 is only being worked on by a skeleton crew and that most of DICE's developers are already working on the next Battlefield game.

 

EA has since responded and denies both the allegations that game is in "Abadon Ship" mode and that it is now worked on by a skeleton crew. EA used this opportunity to confirm that it's planned 3 more Seasons of content, lasting approximately 4 months each, after it released the first Season of content for the game since launch last week.

 

It is unclear which side is tellling the truth and being honest, EA or the industry sources cited in the reports. Several outlets have commented that regardless of who is telling the truth there will always be doubts in some people's minds because of the trust that EA has destroyed with their customers.

 

Quotes

Quote

“This game is basically down to a skeleton crew. It’s down to like the bare bones and those people are specifically just working on the promised additional seasons that the game needs to meet the requirements of the high-end version that it sold,” said Grubb, who described the situation as “abandon ship time”.

Quote

EA has committed to releasing four seasons of live service content for Battlefield 2042 over the course of a year.

“The skeleton crew is working to pump that stuff out the fastest and the cheapest it possibly can,” Grubb said.

He then said the reason for this is that EA is currently in pre-production for the next Battlefield game.

“They’re doing this to move everyone on to the new Battlefield as fast as possible,” he claimed. “The real core crew of Battlefield developers are already working on that.”

 

EA's denial of the allegations

Quote

Reports that only a ‘skeleton crew’ are working on Battlefield 2042 have been refuted by EA, who claim multiple studios are still involved.

There have been rumours for months already that EA is working on a new Battlefield game, after the disastrous launch of Battlefield 2042 last year, and now new claims suggest that only a ‘skeleton crew’ at DICE are left working on 2042.

EA has previously committed itself to at least four seasons of new content, with season 1 beginning earlier this month. There’s no suggestion they won’t deliver that but a new source claims that EA intends to make it in the ‘fastest and cheapest’ way possible.

Normally publishers don’t comment on such rumours, but EA has issued a statement insisting that that’s ‘untrue’ and that there’s a ‘significant team at DICE, alongside our other studios, focused on evolving and improving the Battlefield 2042 experience.’

 

My thoughts

Damn, what a sh*t show. This game has frequently been in the news for all the wrong reasons and that continues with EA pretending this game will be supported when they plan to drop it a year or two from now; just like they did with BF5 anf Battlefront 2 (2017). I'm not inclined to believe EA and it would take a lot more from them for me to trust them again. This game could make a comeback, like BF4 did and BF5 did before they dropped BF5, but I suspect that won't happen.

 

Sources

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/battlefield-2042-is-reportedly-in-abandon-ship-mode-as-ea-switches-focus-to-the-next-series-entry/

https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/09/ea-denies-battlefield-2042-is-in-abandon-ship-mode-despite-rumours-16796964/

[ZetZet]

How does it make sense to claim that when they just released a major update? It's a bit sad how much rushed releases are harming good games and studios. These executives should be given their golden parachutes and pushed off the cliff. Cyberpunk is another great example of a game that released like two years too early. 

[Supreme Calamitas]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:49 PM, Commodus said:

And I don't think Apple would be concerned about EA brand association

[BetteBalterZen]

IMO, they should just refund everyone and pull the plug, and focus only on the next game with all available developers. 

But still, "Battlefield 2042 is reportedly in "Abandon Ship" mode with EA allegedly ready to end Battlefield 2042 updates and live services as soon as it has met its DLC obligations" sounds like the best news since forever - it feels like - when it comes to Battlefield!

[manikyath]

this assumes that electtonic farts has more than a 'skeleton crew' working on anything for which they already have your money.

[BetteBalterZen]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

electtonic farts

Haha, that's a good one

[AlTech]

20 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

How does it make sense to claim that when they just released a major update?

It's not that big of an update all things considered. The consensus seems to be that the update is big enough to get some players back for now but likely not enough for people to see a real future for the game.

 

EA is obligated to release 3 more seasons of content. The real test of whether they will stand by the game will come once the first 4 seasons are done and whether they add more seasons of content or cut their losses and move on.

20 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

 

It's a bit sad how much rushed releases are harming good games and studios. These executives should be given their golden parachutes and pushed off the cliff. Cyberpunk is another great example of a game that released like two years too early. 

Well it also doesn't help that the original BF 2042 launch game didn't even have a scoreboard or built in voice chat cos EA considers them legacy features. They ended up having to backtrack and spent a lot of this year just fixing the base game.

[ZetZet]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Well it also doesn't help that the original BF 2042 launch game didn't even gave a scoreboard or built in voice chat cos EA considers them legacy features. They ended up having to backtrack and spent a lot of this year just fixing the base game.

Yes, BF2042 "release" was like some alpha preview, it totally sucked ass. I don't know who can make a decision like that and still get paid for doing their "job".

[Blademaster91]

27 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

How does it make sense to claim that when they just released a major update?

IIRC the major update EA released was mostly bug fixes and the updates were supposed to come sooner, and BF2042 has been out for a while now without any major updates, like more weapons and maps should've been added, what the game launched with was kinda bad as there were only a few good weapons and maps had terrible balancing.

27 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

It's a bit sad how much rushed releases are harming good games and studios. These executives should be given their golden parachutes and pushed off the cliff. Cyberpunk is another great example of a game that released like two years too early. 

I agree, however  people keep buying games from these studios pushing games which essentially are a paid beta test, and IMO EA hasn't made a good Battlefield title since Battlefield 4.

[suicidalfranco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. EA said the same thing with Anthem, see how much of their word was true back then

[Stahlmann]

Seeing the player numbers it wouldn't surprise me one bit of they just abandon it and move on to the next game.

[strajk-]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

I'm not inclined to believe EA and it would take a lot more from them for me to trust them again.

Is that a recent conclusion?
Because I stopped trusting EA back in 1999-2000 when they stopped funding Dungeon Keeper 2, rushed out its release, then proceeded to cancel DK3 and shut down my favorite studio (Bullfrog Productions).

 

Thought most people were on the same page regarding EA, because as a fan that experience is not unique, plenty of titles and studios killed off that were someone's favorite, remember Spore? Yeah...

[Eaglerino]

1 hour ago, ZetZet said:

How does it make sense to claim that when they just released a major update? It's a bit sad how much rushed releases are harming good games and studios. These executives should be given their golden parachutes and pushed off the cliff. Cyberpunk is another great example of a game that released like two years too early. 

I would not at all call any of their updates major. This game is dead and needs to fade into the same fate as Anthem and Titanfall

[Rauten]

4 minutes ago, Eaglerino said:

I would not at all call any of their updates major. This game is dead and needs to fade into the same fate as Anthem and Titanfall

Doesn't TitanFall still have a small, but dedicated fan/playerbase? Don't play it myself, but that is (was?) my perception of it.

[Arika]

[ZetZet]

1 hour ago, Eaglerino said:

I would not at all call any of their updates major. This game is dead and needs to fade into the same fate as Anthem and Titanfall

I don't think Battlefield can fade into non-existence. It's Battlefield. They could definitely fix it and it would be fine. 

[Stahlmann]

(double post, pls delete)

[ZetZet]

1 minute ago, Stahlmann said:

And a broken game is still a broken game. It's almost impossible to regain a foothold once you lost 99% of your audience (which they did, it's not even an exaggeration), even if you manage to turn the game around.

It's definitely not impossible. Make a proper fix, do one free expansion, do an event, give the game a free week or two. There are a hundred ways you can bring a game back if you make it good. Now if it's still shit and has issues then sure it will remain dead. 

[Stahlmann]

4 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

It's definitely not impossible. Make a proper fix, do one free expansion, do an event, give the game a free week or two. There are a hundred ways you can bring a game back if you make it good. Now if it's still shit and has issues then sure it will remain dead. 

I said it's ALMOST impossible. Even though they might fix the game, there is still a big problem: You can never have another first impression. There will be many people that won't give it another chance.

 

At this point the best they can do is to try to do better with the next game and hope people still buy it. It is entirely possible to destroy a game studio's reputation with one bad game release. Would you ever trust Bethesda to release a good game again after the Fallout 76 fiasco?

[ZetZet]

Just now, Stahlmann said:

Would you ever trust Bethesda to release a good game again after the Fallout 76 fiasco?

Yes, because they already did release multiple good ones after that. 

[Rauten]

6 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

At this point the best they can do is to try to do better with the next game and hope people still buy it. It is entirely possible to destroy a game studio's reputation with one bad game release. Would you ever trust Bethesda to release a good game again after the Fallout 76 fiasco?

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one. While it's rare (very rare), and I don't trust EA to ever pull off something like that, FFXIV and No Man's Sky stand as testament that, even if initial launch is a god-forsaken mess it can be brought around with care and hard work.

 

Also, hasn't Bethesda massively improved FallOut 76 since original release? As in, you don't hear people gushing about it, but it does seem to have a stable player base that enjoys the game quite a bit.

[Stahlmann]

7 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

Yes, because they already did release multiple good ones after that. 

And what game would that be? They released 1 game after Fallout 76 and that was a mobile Elder Scrolls title:

To be clear i'm talking about "Bethesda Game Studios", not the Publisher "Bethesda Softworks".

[Vishera]

3 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

It is unclear which side is tellling the truth and being honest, EA or the industry sources cited in the reports. Several outlets have commented that regardless of who is telling the truth there will always be doubts in some people's minds because of the trust that EA has destroyed with their customers.

As a developer it's really easy to see who speaks the truth here.

Considering the current road map for the game and the progress being made in recent updates i had say that only 1 or 2 devs are working on the game.

The updates they release are pretty much work i can do on my own,and with 3 devs you can do a lot more.

[ZetZet]

Just now, Stahlmann said:

And what game would that be? They released 1 game after Fallout 76 and that was a mobile Elder Scrolls title:

Ah, you're excluding all the other studios Bethesda controls I see.

 

2 minutes ago, Rauten said:

Also, hasn't Bethesda massively improved FallOut 76 since original release? As in, you don't hear people gushing about it, but it does seem to have a stable player base that enjoys the game quite a bit.

They did, it's also on Steam now with mostly positive reviews. 

[Stahlmann]

1 minute ago, ZetZet said:

Ah, you're excluding all the other studios Bethesda controls I see.

As i said, i was talking about Bethesda Game Studio, NOT the publisher.

 

When i look at a game studio's past references, i look at theirs, not their publishers...