EA blames Halo Infinite for Battlefield 2042's woes

EA believes Halo Infinite contributed to the dismal sales of Battlefield 2042.

In a company "Town Hall" meeting with employees, EA acknowledged the disappointing launch of Battlefield 2042, and discussed plans to improve the game and the franchise going forward (thanks, Xfire).

Laura Miele, EA's chief studios officer, said the company "failed to meet the expectations of our players, and also clearly missed our own expectations".

Identifying the reasons for the game's failure, Miele attributed part of the blame on the huge ambitions for the project, combined with the global pandemic which created unexpected variables in the development process.

Miele also said that while EA received a lot of feedback concerning bugs and unpolished areas of the experience, there was also a substantial amount of positive feedback from players.

Following the game's launch and the rollout of the Day 1 patch, "the game was stable" and "the early critical reception was good".

However, Battlefield was then affected by the launch of Halo Infinite, Miele said, as unfavourable comparisons were made between the Xbox shooter and Battlefield 2042, with Halo perceived as a much more polished title.

Miele acknowledged the company historically had bug issues with DICE games at launch, but said the bug count for Battlefield 2042 fell into the range EA expected when compared to other launches. The company, therefore, believed the issues would be manageable.

However, Miele believed player expectations had changed with respect to live service games, and so the previous model of shipping it and patching it later no longer flies.

Dissatisfaction among players has led to the circulation of an online petition demanding refunds, which has now reached over 200k signatures.