Battlefield 2042 has had its share of issues, to the point that it probably should have been delayed. While that wasn’t possible, with Electronic Arts’ demand for yearly releases from the franchise, seasonal content doesn’t face such strict deadlines; as a result, the first season for the game will be delayed, Senior Producer Ryan McArthur announced today, while also mentioning some changes the dev team will take regarding its communications with players.
Season One won’t be relased until this summer, and it will be the first of four yearly seasons. Players who bought the Season Pass expecting earlier content will receive a bundle containing a Specialist skin, weapon and vehicle skins, a melee weapon and Player Card, delivered in the next update.
According to McArthur, his team is “taking action on multiple fronts to address feedback and implement extensive fixes to the game, key features that are important to you, and getting team play where it needs to be.” These “key features” include the long-promised scoreboard, which will be added in the next update, VOIP implementation, a better player profile, a refined ping system, and improved reward loop. The team will also take a look at Portal and “expand its tools, modes, and tweak player experience gains.”
For the future, DICE plans to implement a system of detailing major changes, taking player feedback on them, and then incorporating that feedback and re-presenting it for potential further discussion. These conversations will be housed on the Battlefield website, with the first one, on map design, to be kicked off later in February.
As for the contentious issue of Specialists, the team is “analysing” and “working on” them and should have more updates later. Does that mean they’ll be refined? Or replaced altogether? The latter would certainly please more than a few players who preferred the class system in previous Battlefields.
