Battlefield 2042's rocky start leads to major reorganization at DICE and EA

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? The fallout from Battlefield 2042’s rocky launch continues as Electronic Arts is making sweeping changes that’ll affect the latest entry and the future of the franchise. For starters, DICE general manager Oskar Gabrielson is exiting after nearly a decade with the company.

On Twitter, he said the decision to leave was one of the hardest in his life but promised that there was plenty for gamers to look forward to on the Battlefield.

Gabrielson will be replaced by Rebecka Coutaz, the former studio director of Ubisoft Annecy.

Respawn CEO Vince Zampella will lead the Battlefield team moving forward, and newly hired Marcus Lehto of Halo fame will erect a new Seattle-based development team to help add more storytelling to the Battlefield universe.

EA told GameSpot that in the immediate future, DICE and Lehto’s new studio will work with developer Ripple Effect to improve Battlefield 2042. Ripple was responsible for the Portal game mode in Battlefield 2042.

Related reading: DICE’s head of design leaves studio in wake of Battlefield 2042’s launch

EA said it also aims to create a “connected Battlefield universe.” Zampella told GameSpot that they will continue to grow and evolve Battlefield 2042, in addition to exploring new types of experiences and business models along the way that can “add to that foundation to provide an awesome array of experiences for our players.”

"In this universe, the world is interconnected with shared characters and narrative. This universe is also built with our community as we harness the power of Portal and user generated content that puts creativity in the hands of our players."

That’s kind of a vague description, but as the publication notes, this is likely due to how early into the process EA is. We do know that a mobile Battlefield game is in the cards, but aside from that, the roadmap is unclear.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92481-battlefield-2042-rocky-start-leads-major-reorganization-dice.html

 

[Fearghast]

This is no rocky start, BF3 and BF4 were rocky, 2042 is, on the other hand, hilarious to watch as a complete technical disaster and total alienating of BF player base.
The list of "not included" is much longer than actual BF features left in this game.

 

[Shaitan]

Bwaahaha. I suggest you double do on the w0ke f3minist crap. That will get you praise from the mad Twitter crowd.
Of course, the middle aged men with money won't buy for this.

 

[veLa]

So this year's Battlefield is that bad eh?

 

[Guberian]

Bwaahaha. I suggest you double do on the w0ke f3minist crap. That will get you praise from the mad Twitter crowd.
Of course, the middle aged men with money won't buy for this.

Stuff like female characters in a ww2 game and this is only the start of the woke feminist madness.

 

[terzaerian]

I for one cannot wait for EA inevitably to cannibalize and close the last studio it has in its ownership and dissipate into the ether like an exorcised demon

 

[Karlos95]

You would think AAA companies would learn by now. The internet isn't tolerating their crappy games. Seems like they don't have a quality control department any more.

Such simple solutions and the guy running the show on stupid amounts of money doesn't know how to fix it. CEOs are over paid morons I swear.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

My biggest problem with the game is it doesn't feel like I'm actually fighting for any reason.

In Battlefield 3 nd 4, there were clearly defined places you wanted to dominate: Buildings, Helipads, centers of the map, etc. Now the maps are huge, there are way too many players to keep track of and it just feels "broken".

For example: why do airplanes and helicopters start in the air? What happened to the takeoff from runways and airfields? That was part of the fun in B3 and B4. Flying isn't fun because there are too many surface to Air weapons and you can't dominate with an aircraft. Nor can you dominate in a tank: you get "Recoiless M5'd" by virtually EVERYone.

I miss Battlefield 4 maps like Siege of Shanghai, Flood Zone and Paracel Storm. In fact, virtually EVERY map of Battlefield 4 was better - despite Battlefield 2042's superior graphics as seen in maps like Orbit, Breakaway and Hourglass.

I hope they'll fix this game as time goes on. For the time being, I play just 2 or 3 rounds of it and then go play Counterstrike GO.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Anyone with a soul has left these AAA companies years ago, now they are just SJW zombie corporations.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Wokeness is all about people with guilty conscienes projecting. They don't actually go at and after the things they claim to stand against, but rather they attack those who can see them for what they really are. Wicked.

 

[emmzo]

Before BF1, in the argument CoD vs BF, I had always stood by BF`s realism, more natural character movement, weapon firing details, vehicles interaction, etc., but now CoD has made some real progress addressing these issues, while BF turned into a total woke arcadish turd. RIP!

 

[hahahanoobs]

Before BF1, in the argument CoD vs BF, I had always stood by BF`s realism, more natural character movement, weapon firing details, vehicles interaction, etc., but now CoD has made some real progress addressing these issues, while BF turned into a total woke arcadish turd. RIP!

Vanguard sales are very bad. 40% lower bad.
If you meant Warzone, then yea, Warzone still dominates. With the old CoD boy getting more control at EA/DICE, you'll probably see more CoD in BF going forward which might not be a bad thing as long as the inspiration comes from Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone. The BF franchise died after BF4 to me, but 2042 can resurrect the franchise if the patches keep coming to make me like it even more. So far we are getting a lot fixed that we've asked for in a very short amount of time. This is so unlike EA/DICE so I'm excited.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Stuff like female characters in a ww2 game and this is only the start of the woke feminist madness.

Female characters in WW2 games in general isn't the issue because there were actually females fighting on the frontlines in WW2 - Soviet female snipers (eg. Lyudmila Pavlichenko with 309 kills), European & Chinese female guerilla fighters, etc.

The problem is BFV 1) created female characters in totally unrealistic and fictional ways and 2) made up fictional female characters and had them replace real life, historical missions conducted by male commandos. If BFV simply created a campaign based on the real life experiences of female snipers in the Soviet army, it would've been historically accurate and awesome.

 

[psycros]

Cool, now give us Codename Eagle II.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Stuff like female characters in a ww2 game and this is only the start of the woke feminist madness.

#1 Females actually did fight on the front lines in WWII

#2 My problem with Battlefield 2042's female characters is the level of wokeness as well. Why is it that I MUST pick the female character Sundance to have a Wingsuit? Why does she have to have so many layers of wokeness? "Non binary?"... I see a FEMALE.

Why can't I pick a man - Black or White (or Asian) and have a Wingsuit?

Seems to me they did this to force us to use a character we would otherwise have ignored.

 

[Dimitrios]

Oddly on YOUTUBE main page for a while it was getting flooded with it's reviews from random unknown people I never heard of and quickly they were over-hyping the game and that's when suddenly I knew what was really up.

Be it TECHNOLOGY or POLITICS I get annoyed when they pull these shady stunts. They can't fool all of us. 'Snake oil salesman' meet social media, social media meet 'snake oil sales man.'

 

[whateversa]

The problem probably is that coders are not given enough time to finish the game... but management keeps using the excuse of restructuring (just like some governments) as if that will change the insufficient time provided to coders... Release the game when it's actually finished.

 

[Geralt]

Cool, now give us Codename Eagle II.

I remember that game. So interesting but broken, unfortunately. I remember myself escaping while one of my enemies shouted: "Shoot the trespasser". Good memories.

 

[emmzo]

Vanguard sales are very bad. 40% lower bad.
If you meant Warzone, then yea, Warzone still dominates. With the old CoD boy getting more control at EA/DICE, you'll probably see more CoD in BF going forward which might not be a bad thing as long as the inspiration comes from Modern Warfare 2019 and Warzone. The BF franchise died after BF4 to me, but 2042 can resurrect the franchise if the patches keep coming to make me like it even more. So far we are getting a lot fixed that we've asked for in a very short amount of time. This is so unlike EA/DICE so I'm excited.

Yeah, I meant MW and Warzone, Vanguard sucks hard. BF franchise died for me too after BF4, but unlike you, 2042 still feels too arcadish to me to be excited it could become more than a CoD clone. After all, as far as I remember, they hired some important CoD guy to shape their game and it's definitely showing.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Yeah, I meant MW and Warzone, Vanguard sucks hard. BF franchise died for me too after BF4, but unlike you, 2042 still feels too arcadish to me to be excited it could become more than a CoD clone. After all, as far as I remember, they hired some important CoD guy to shape their game and it's definitely showing.

COD guy had been there since BF1.

 

[emmzo]

COD guy had been there since BF1.

EA announced today that Byron Beede, the former Call of Duty and Destiny general manager, has been appointed as the new SVP and GM of the Battlefield franchise, which perhaps “signals a strategic, long-term commitment to the growth of the franchise.” aka CoD clone commitment.
That was June 2nd this year. If there was another guy since BF1 that would explain a lot.

 

[Gimp65]

The problem probably is that coders are not given enough time to finish the game... but management keeps using the excuse of restructuring (just like some governments) as if that will change the insufficient time provided to coders... Release the game when it's actually finished.

No thats not the reason it sucks and isnt widely popular. Even with zero technical issues the fundemental flaws are still there. Basically EA just dont get what players want and are making a low quality product. Classes are ruined, maps suck, the atmosphere isnt cool, the game dosnt really look good(poor art direction), the animation system is now worse than a 10 years old BF game (BC1+2), the whole game feel like a gimick.

What's good about all this is that it leaves room for smaller devs to reach more players. EA isnt the right company to make the BF series, they never been. It all started going downhill for the series since BF2 basically, BC1-2 was good - but more of a spin off with half the players and less options for vehicles, no planes etc. Back in the days of BF2, battlefield could do more, offer more, had more advanced vehicles like 2 man planes.

BF2042 is the culmination of all the crap that started after BF2/BC2, now we have all the crap we dont want or need in BF2042, they just dont get it anymore.

 

[hahahanoobs]

EA announced today that Byron Beede, the former Call of Duty and Destiny general manager, has been appointed as the new SVP and GM of the Battlefield franchise, which perhaps “signals a strategic, long-term commitment to the growth of the franchise.” aka CoD clone commitment.
That was June 2nd this year. If there was another guy since BF1 that would explain a lot.

It would explain a lot? That's intersting since you don't know if a cod guy really was there since BF1. lol

At least come up with a more plausible assumption to base your comments on.

 

[Shaitan]

Female characters in WW2 games in general isn't the issue because there were actually females fighting on the frontlines in WW2 - Soviet female snipers (eg. Lyudmila Pavlichenko with 309 kills), European & Chinese female guerilla fighters, etc.

The problem is BFV 1) created female characters in totally unrealistic and fictional ways and 2) made up fictional female characters and had them replace real life, historical missions conducted by male commandos. If BFV simply created a campaign based on the real life experiences of female snipers in the Soviet army, it would've been historically accurate and awesome.

The main protagonists of WW2 were, in Europe at least, white men, Russian, German, Polish, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, French, English, later in the war when Germany was assaulted, the Americans etc.
The main protagonists of WW2 were, in Asia, Chinese/Japanese etc.
No matter how these cretins want to spin things around, most people fighting and most casualties weren't black, green, or whatever non-diverse attack helicopter. want to make a nice diverse campaign? Afrikakorps and Rommel's campaign. in Africa.
If they wanted a realistic campaign with, let's say, a female French Resistance fighter, they DEFINITELY wouldn't have made her able to fight males 20 kg heavier one-on-one in a fistfight. They would have made her an expert in seducing men, a good knife fighter, and a stealthy figure.
Any sane human being will tell you that in an exceptional situation, an exceptional athlete, such as Rhonda Rousey, would be able to defeat an average male in an MMA tournament. However, if we're talking about an Olympic Judo male contender, definitely not happening. No matter how good the girl is trained, against an athlete, she won't stand a snowball's chance in hell. The muscle mass is just differently distributed, the bone density is different and inside "realistic" games stuff like killing three men with the bare fists is not just comically untrue, but an insult to anyone who trained in contact sports.
The woke agenda replacing real-life missions and real-life characters will be the death sentence of the modern games. No matter how hard you push me into a corner and try to shame me for not liking a game, I'm not going to give my hard-earned money to someone who has "fight evil men" as a motto.

 

[Phylop]

No thats not the reason it sucks and isnt widely popular. Even with zero technical issues the fundemental flaws are still there. Basically EA just dont get what players want and are making a low quality product. Classes are ruined, maps suck, the atmosphere isnt cool, the game dosnt really look good(poor art direction), the animation system is now worse than a 10 years old BF game (BC1+2), the whole game feel like a gimick.

What's good about all this is that it leaves room for smaller devs to reach more players. EA isnt the right company to make the BF series, they never been. It all started going downhill for the series since BF2 basically, BC1-2 was good - but more of a spin off with half the players and less options for vehicles, no planes etc. Back in the days of BF2, battlefield could do more, offer more, had more advanced vehicles like 2 man planes.

BF2042 is the culmination of all the crap that started after BF2/BC2, now we have all the crap we dont want or need in BF2042, they just dont get it anymore.

Agreed. The issues with BF2042 aren't just the bugs, it's poor design choices that players never asked for and missing features that are fundamental aspects of Battlefield. I've purchased every Battlefield game at launch going all the way back to BF1942 (BF2 is probably my favorite). To varying degrees every Battlefield game has had a rocky launch with tons of bugs, maybe a few new design choices I didn't like, and with the last few releases, fewer maps. All these issues have been increasing through the last several releases...

However, the issues with previous Battlefield titles pale in comparison to BF2042. BF2042 makes the BF4/BFV launches look like gleaming pinnacles of perfection by comparison. It's like they ripped out the heart and soul of Battlefield, chewed it up, spit out half of it, spit the rest into a bowl, threw in a bunch of random crap from the fridge, mixed it up, under-cooked it, and served their fancy new pile of **** as if it was a delicacy.

I do like the concept of the portal mode though, it just needs to be fleshed out better and have more content. It feels like the poor design choices/bugs/limited content offered by the rest of the game get in the way of allowing portal mode to live to it's true potential. I hope they are able to work past this and at least evolve portal into something truly great.