New Battlefield in pre-production

Battlefield 2042 has been a colossal flop, so much so that it has not only become the franchise's worst installment, but it has also remained one of the lowest rated games on Steam, a dubious distinction made clear when we read in the said store that 3,133 recent reviews have been "very nasty."

Not negatively or "primarily negatively," but "very negatively."

It's unusual for a triple-A game to have a 40% GPU bottleneck at 1440p with everything maxed out and ray tracing enabled.

The truth is that, despite all of EA's attempts to boost Battlefield 2042, these are not bearing fruit at the moment. The issue is difficult, so much so that the price of the game has been reduced by half, and we have already seen evidence indicating that EA may transform it, partially or whole, into a free game with micropayments.

We don't have a crystal ball, but following the last crusade against Battlefield 2042, we're worried that its short-term future appears very sad unless EA has some ace up its sleeve that allows them to perform a true miracle. The only way to accomplish that feat would be to make it a free game.

Another method would be to directly turn the page by starting a fresh game. It wouldn't restore the shambles that has been Battlefield 2042, but releasing a new installment ahead of schedule would help both overcome that failure and offer them an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that they're capable of doing things right.

DICE, according to Tom Henderson, has recognized that it has acquired very useful lessons, but has not dived into them. However, the majority of them are obvious: it is not a good idea to release a game without a campaign mode, it is not a good idea to make radical and inappropriate changes to the gameplay, and finally, a triple-A title of this caliber cannot be released with such a mediocre technical finish and so poorly optimized.

According to the same source, DICE has already begun the pre-production stage for the next installment in the franchise. He has also stated that it might be set in the near future, similar to Battlefield 2042 and that a 2023 release is not out of the question.

This timing makes sense since it allows DICE and EA to move on from Battlefield 2042 as soon as possible, and also because there will be no new Call of Duty in that year, which means less rivalry.

However, it is doubtful due to time constraints, as DICE would have to perform a lot of tests in order to finish the game in just over a year.