EA reportedly said Halo Infinite’s surprise launch hurt Battlefield 2042

Electronic Arts has reportedly attributed some of Battlefield 2042’s struggles to the surprise early launch of Halo Infinite’s comparatively polished multiplayer experience.

Battlefield 2042 was released in mid-November and hasn’t gone down well with fans, with over 200,000 people even signing a petition asking for EA to offer players unconditional refunds.

Acknowledging the game’s disappointing launch earlier this month, EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson blamed factors such as “our teams working from home for nearly two years” and “unanticipated performance issues” that only became evident once the game was played at scale.

He admitted “some of the design choices we made with the game also did not resonate with everyone in our community” too.

Battlefield 2042’s troubled launch was also addressed during an EA town hall meeting this week, according to industry insider and reliable leaker Tom Henderson.

During the meeting, EA’s chief operating officer Laura Miele reportedly reiterated what Wilson said publicly earlier this month, but she also partially attributed some of Battlefield 2042’s struggles to Halo Infinite.

343 Industries surprisingly launched Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer component via a beta on November 15, which was three days after Battlefield 2042’s early access period started and four days before the game’s worldwide release.

Henderson wrote in a report on Xfire: “Following the game’s launch, DICE rolled out its Day 1 and Day 0 patches to get the bug count down further. On this, Miele continued and said that Battlefield 2042’s launch and patches meant ‘the game was stable’ and ‘the early critical reception was good’.

Related

1

EA’s boss thinks Battlefield 2042 ‘will do really well over the course of time’

Andrew Wilson backs DICE to turn things around following the game's disappointing launch

“However, according to EA, things took a turn, and that turn was… the surprise release of Halo: Infinite multiplayer (I wish I was joking).

“According to Miele, the comparison between both games was not favourable because Halo Infinite was a very polished title whereas Battlefield 2042 contained bugs and wasn’t as polished.”

UPDATE: Henderson has published the following message including the comments made by Miele, which VGC has verified are authentic:

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES: Developer DICE recently confirmed it was delaying the release of Battlefield 2042 Season 1, which had been anticipated by March, until the summer of 2022, so that it could focus on getting the base game up to scratch.

It has also delayed Battlefield 2042’s next update, which will introduce a refreshed scoreboard, from later this month to early March.