EA has revealed the second season for Battlefield 2042, called Master of Arms, with a new gameplay trailer and roadmap. The Master of Arms season will introduce a new map and specialist along with new vehicles, weapons, and equipment for Battlefield Portal. The second season will begin later this month on August 30 and will be accompanied by a battle pass. More details about the battle pass will be revealed at a later time, but it’s likely that there will be both free and premium versions of the pass that offer different content. The last premium battle pass for Battlefield 2042 cost 1000 Battlefield currency, or $10. Check out the trailer for the new Master of Arms season below.
EA also released a roadmap for the new season detailing some of the new features and additions to the game.
The second season of Battlefield 2042 comes to the game nearly ten months after the initial launch in November 2021. EA was forced to delay work on the additional seasons after mass player complaints and a player base that completely collapsed. Battlefield 2042 went from between 50-100k players each day on Steam during the first couple of weeks down to less than 10k by January. The number of players continued to shrink to around 3000 total players per day earlier this year. There was a slight bump for the game around the time the first season launched months behind schedule, but the game has once again dropped down to around 6000 players per day as of today.
Even EA’s previous entry in the franchise, Battlefield V, currently has a 24-hour peak of more than double Battlefield 2042, despite being released in 2018.
There were reports earlier this year that EA had abandoned Battlefield 2042 to a skeleton crew of developers. According to Jeff Grubb, the team working on the game was doing so solely so that EA could meet the content promise for the Year 1 pass that had already been sold to players. The, now optimistically named, Year 1 pass promised players four battle passes during the first year of the game.
The first battle pass was initially scheduled for a March release but was delayed so the team working on the game could implement the required fixes and improvements. The delay means that the “Year 1” pass will likely be finished in 2023 instead of 2022, as originally planned. Still, it remains to be seen if EA can do anything to tempt players back to the game. Although the release of the first season and battle pass resulted in a player boost, it was short-lived.
We’ll soon see whether EA has done enough with the Master of Arms season two update to warrant players coming back to the game.
