EA Denies Battlefield 2042 Abandonment Rumors

Since its launch, it seems like everything that can go wrong for "Battlefield 2042" has gone wrong. The game has had a myriad of bugs and issues since it launched in late 2021 and even got its multiplayer lobbies scaled down from 128 to 64 in order to better match the current player base. The latest rumor about the game sounds like the final nail in the coffin for this entry in EA's "Battlefield" series, although the publisher has publicly pushed back on the reporting.

Jeff Grubb, former GamesBeat reporter and now a member of Giant Bomb, said on his premium show (transcribed by VGC) that the current development team on "Battlefield 2042" is a skeleton crew, only in place to meet the games prior obligations for content before the company completely jumps ship. "The skeleton crew is working to pump that stuff out the fastest and the cheapest it possibly can," Grubb said. EA committed itself to four seasons of content, only one of which it has released so far. Grubb stated that the reason for this is that the company has already begun pre-production on the next "Battlefield" game and is looking to move as many developers to that project as quickly as it can. EA reached out to Grubb and denied this reporting.

After Grubb's premium show aired, he shared in a tweet that EA had reached out to deny the rumors. "This is untrue. There is a significant team across studios focused on evolving and improving the Battlefield 2042 experience for our players, and at the heart of that is our team at DICE. We are committed to the future of Battlefield 2042 and our areas of focus for the game, based on what we have heard from our players, was laid out in our recent development update that you can read here," the statement read.

Grubb followed up that tweet stating that his feelings for this are the same as when other developers deny reporting. He stated that he looks for the space where both things can be true and would talk about this more in-depth on his next show. Many things have gone wrong for "Battlefield 2042" and when that is paired with the game not selling well in EA's eyes, it wouldn't be shocking that the developer has abandoned ship. Plenty of live service games have rebounded from shaky launches, but for a series that releases a new game every few years, it makes sense to just focus on the next game, even if fans find it upsetting.