There’s certainly been a lot of talk about Call of Duty on the Xbox and Game Pass, isn’t it? It’s almost like other shooter franchises don’t have a place in this world where Microsoft owns Activision. But as EA DICE themselves say, that’s far from the truth.
EA DICE senior producer Ryan McArthur was on hand for a new interview about Battlefield 2042 with GamesRadar, and in it, McArthur talked about how Game Pass turned out to be a huge moment for the game.
EA DICE made the hard decision to restore Battlefield’s reputation, even if it was a costly and risky gamble, and try to fix Battlefield 2042 instead of just dropping it in favor of the next game. That, of course, is what other studios have done with their big tentpole games in their mega-franchises that turned out badly.
DICE had managed to turn things around on Battlefield 2042 around the time of Season 3. This season was in November 2022, and at this point DICE had gone far beyond fixing the obvious bugs and performance issues, and were focused on polishing the game design for a real AAA experience that met expectations.
Around this time, Battlefield 2042 was also set to premiere on Game Pass. While McArthur hadn’t revealed if Game Pass was part of the plan for the game all along, he did reveal that DICE’s developers took this debut seriously, almost like a second launch for the game.
“I’m a big believer in programs like Game Pass, and for us it was a huge moment – something we marked on the calendar. One thing we talked about internally quite a lot was that if there was a moment in time where we were going to open this game up to a whole bunch of new players then it needs to be good.
It needs to be the game that we wanted it to be when we launched it, and that really galvanized the team as we charged towards that date.”
And that really drives home just how substantial an impact Game Pass has made to the industry. As everyone knows Game Pass is where many players will try a game for cheap, Game Pass is also where gamers decide if a game is worth it or not. As contradictory as it seems, Game Pass can make a difference whether a AAA like Battlefield 2042 sees full retail sales again or not.
And today, EA DICE has won. Battlefield 2042 is the game they set out to make, and a hit on Game Pass, as well as everywhere else. Developers didn’t have a way to get a second chance like this until now.
