The developer of Battlefield 2042 DICE has just announced a first season battle pass called Zero Hour with the goal of revitalizing its troubled multiplayer shooter.
I want to take a quick look at the community’s response to this news, but before I do, if you allow me a moment to editorialize.
The game, which came in a bit of a state when it was released last year, has been slowly tackling its list of issues ever since. In a business model where the game was launched with instant success, a battle pass would make sense. It would be a way to ensure that the game has a long queue, keeps players interested, and stays profitable for a while. But Battlefield 2042 has done none of the things you need to do to earn the right to ask your players to switch to the Zero Hour battle pass.
Especially a paid battle pass. For me, DICE’s decision to get their hands on more money is to deploy an Australian colloquialism, testing friendship. Given the still uneven state of Battlefield 2042, it doesn’t seem fair for DICE to ask for more when it hasn’t yet put its house in order.
While many of the game’s issues have been resolved within eight months of release, there are still many. Is it time for the game to move on to the next phase of your life cycle? Let’s see what the community thinks.
The community responds
But let’s take a look at the response from the community, starting with Reddit.
Interestingly, most of the fan reviews so far have been about the scarcity of content available in the update, not that DICE intends to charge for it.
They don’t take it very well. Broadly speaking, the subreddit considers Battlefield 2042’s new Zero Hour content to be an anemic offering that seeks to document the game’s ongoing issues. Nor are they very impressed with the new “ingenious” crossbow weapon.
Twitter felt the same way with many players expressing disbelief at the lack of content.
I realized I spent $ 100 on Battlefield 2042 just to wait almost 8 months for the first season of barebones content downloads and a battle pass pic.twitter.com/WiQMMbjpGx
– White Rabbit (@RabbitShirogane) June 7, 2022
Some expressed the feeling that their faith in DICE to respond to the problems of the game had not been rewarded. Others were excited to see any movement at the station and hoped it would lead to more significant updates in the future. Others complained that previous Battlefield games could produce numerous maps on a similar scale in almost the same amount of time, and that a map and a single operator were simply not cutting it.
A Zero Hour ad posted on the Battlefield 2042 community page saw comments split in the same way, with some celebrating the news, others exploiting the studio, and others simply deciding to post. hi.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you. Should DICE charge for the battle pass, or even implement it? Are you happy with the new content or do you think there should be more? Do you hate the crossbow? Are you, like many people on Twitter, convinced that this is a move to advance Modern Warfare 2? Let us know in the comments below.