Battlefield 2042 only officially came out today but it has been available via EA Early Access for many players for almost a week. While early access to a game normally helps to drum up hype before the normal release, the opposite is happening for Battlefield 2042. Reactions to the game from players over the past week and through to release day have been overwhelmingly negative.
Already, the game has a “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam after receiving only 22% positive reviews. Similarly, on Metacritic, the game is being bombarded with bad user reviews which have brought the score down to between 1.4 and 3.5 depending on the platform. The game is receiving a wide variety of criticism relating to gameplay, polish, port optimization, and more.
One review on Metacritic describes the game as “boring and broken”, others describe the game as “half done” and there are a plethora of complaints about bugs in the game. Another common theme to the reviews is users complaining about the game not feeling like a Battlefield game at all. Many gamers enjoyed the Battlefield franchise in the past over Call of Duty because of the teamwork and objectives, but are now complaining that those core elements of the franchise are not in Battlefield 2042.
Over on Steam, the game has received 11,870 reviews at the time of writing. Of those, 78% are negative. The current “most helpful” review is essentially a list of all of the missing features from Battlefield 2042 that are core to the DNA of the franchise, as well as other issues currently present in the game. For the full, very detailed list, check out the review here.
Battlefield 2042’s disappointing launch comes after similar complaints with Rockstar’s GTA Trilogy and Activision’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, both of which have received negative receptions from fans. Both games were subsequently hit with negative reviews on Metacritic as gamers expressed their dissatisfaction in franchises that used to dominate gaming.