Does the saying “better late than never” apply to live service games? Today, developer DICE has unveiled “Zero Hour,” the first delayed season of Battlefield 2042, its troubled futuristic military shooter. It is available on Thursday, June 9th. Here is a trailer:
“Zero Hour” will introduce a new map, called the Exposure, located between cliffs on the western border between Canada and the United States. It will also add a new specialist, Ewelina Lis, who comes with a rocket launcher.
Battlefield 2042 really needs this season to go well. First released in November 2021 for consoles and PCs, the multiplayer shooting game was as chaotic and unpredictable as previous Battlefield games. It also introduced a number of changes to the form, introducing character-based “specialists” and adding support for 128 players to next-generation PCs and consoles, contributing to the feeling that gamers are really just a cog in a massive battle.
But thanks to a litany of errors and a noticeable lack of features, even such basic things as voice chat and a marker, the player base quickly dwindled. Last month, DICE disconnected 128-player Breakthrough mode – the next-generation playlist that was one of the game’s main marketing hotspots. A roadmap for the next 12 months described the minor features and fixes that should have been applied to the release, further indicating that the game was released incomplete.
Read more: Battlefield 2042 I just can’t take a break
The EA publisher said the Battlefield 2042 seasons, which are available in free and paid premium versions with additional content, last about three months. (Hmm, for what other multiplayer shooter have we heard this before?) The plan, at least initially, was to release four seasons for “live service year,” but in February EA pushed the first one a few months, so it went push back the entire timeline.
It is unclear whether “Zero Hour” will revitalize the Battlefield 2042 player base. At the time of writing, according to the Steam Charts database, the game had a maximum player count of 4,000 players simultaneously during the last 24 hours, about 4% of its all-time high. During playback, viewers sent spam to the YouTube chat with cries of “refund,” “zero content,” and, I’m not sure that applies, but whatever it is, “it’s time to die.” .