There was a tremendous amount of hype leading up to the release of Battlefield 2042. Before its launch, some may have expected Battlefield 2042 to dominate the remainder of the year, and beat Call of Duty: Vanguard as well as Halo Infinite as the must-buy FPS for this holiday season.
However, ever since its release last month, the latest entry in the Battlefield series has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Battlefield 2042 is considered to be one of the most disappointing games of the year and it quickly became one of the worst reviewed titles on Steam. Players have reported all sorts of issues with the game, including numerous bugs and missing features. Despite this, it seems like Battlefield 2042 did sell an impressive number of copies in its first week, if a well-known Battlefield leaker is to be believed.
Insider Tom Henderson states that Battlefield 2042 sold around 4.23 million units in its first week, just shy of Battlefield 3 which achieved 4.68 million in the same time frame. It's unclear where this data is coming from exactly, so fans should treat it with a grain of salt. Henderson also lists the first week sales figures of other games in the series. Battlefield 4 comes next with 2.59 million, with Hardline also attaining a figure of 1.48 million units.
Battlefield: Bad Company is ranked lowest with 0.44 million, although the franchise was not as popular back then. Bad Company was also only released for PS3 and Xbox 360, but fans on PC did get to play its sequel Bad Company 2. These listed sales figures for Battlefield 2042 perhaps do not come as a surprise to anyone that has been following the hype in the lead up to its launch. All of the pre-release trailers were impressive, and Battlefield 2042 likely owes its commercial success to the marketing team.
However, word of mouth plays a key role in the success of any game, especially one focused on multiplayer. If players stop buying Battlefield 2042 due to the overwhelming negativity surrounding its release, the player base can start dwindling extremely fast. Battlefield 2042 is also not a free-to-play title like Halo Infinite, and needs new sales over an extended period of time in order to maintain a steady player base.
EA has already started to make changes, most probably as a response to Battlefield 2042’s reception, as it confirmed that Vince Zampella, head of Respawn Entertainment and DICE LA, will now be in-charge of the Battlefield series. Fans were most likely pleased to hear this news, as Respawn’s latest games have all been well-received.
Battlefield 2042 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.