Battlefield 2042 is Currently Less Popular than Battlefield 1, 4, and 5 on Steam
Battlefield 2042 currently has fewer concurrent players on Steam than Battlefield 1, 4, or 5.
According to SteamDBBattlefield 2042 had just 2,090 players online in the last 24 hours, compared to 2,195 in Battlefield 4, 7,498 in Battlefield 1, and 21,709 in Battlefield 5. Battlefield 4 came out in 2013, and that’s an indication of how hectic. The last game in the series was in that there was more activity in a much older version.
Battlefield 2042’s popularity on Steam has been slowly declining since it was released last November. And is currently less than 2% of its original peak player base of 105,397, even with a free weekend in December.
Tumultuous
The game had a rather tumultuous development period both before and after launch, first realized in September. When the release date was pushed back a month. However, several issues still cropped up during the early launch of Battlefield 2042 and continued when the game was officially released.
It quickly became one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam, despite being quite popular, with players commenting on the lack of several promised features. And voicing their dissatisfaction in a subreddit that moderators threatened to shut down.
The first season of Battlefield 2042 (essentially its Battle Pass) was delayed from February to summer 2022. As developer DICE decided instead to focus on more pressing issues like adding scoreboards to online matches. But that update was also delayed a few days.
EA
Around the same time, publisher EA acknowledged that Battlefield 2042 didn’t live up to expectations. And shortly after a petition appeared online asking for a refund, with over 220,000 players already signed.
In early March, DICE announced that it was aware of several issues in the map’s design. And stated that it understood why players were calling the game a “walking simulator”. Maps will be corrected one by one, starting with Kaleidoscope, but not until summer.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally tweets @thelastdinsdale.
