There was a great deal of hype for Battlefield 2042 leading up to the game's launch, though the game's beta testing period seemed to lower expectations. And then when Battlefield 2042 finally launched, it seemed many fans weren't impressed with the latest entry in the long-running FPS series, criticizing it for its multitude of technical issues, inconsistent tone, focus on specialist characters, and more.
Battlefield 2042 has an incredibly low user rating as a result of this backlash, with many fans voicing their disapproval with the game and the direction that EA and DICE decided to take it in. It seems that this poor word of mouth is hurting the game's staying power already, as Battlefield 2042 currently has less active players on Steam than an older game in the series, Battlefield V, which launched in 2018.
The first few months to a year of a game's life is usually when it has the highest player count, so to see Battlefield 2042 already having less active players on Steam than Battlefield V is not a good sign. That being said, this is not a comprehensive representation of Battlefield 2042's overall player count, so fans should keep that in mind.
Battlefield 2042 is a cross-gen game released for a variety of platforms, with Steam just being one way fans can play the game. It's also playable through EA Origin on PC, not to mention it's readily available on PlayStation and Xbox as well. It's likely that, overall, Battlefield 2042 has more players than Battlefield V, but it's still not a great look to have the game's active player count on a certain platform be outdone by an older entry in the same series.
Over time, it's possible that EA and DICE will be able to improve Battlefield 2042 and get it to a point where it's seen more favorably by the community, though that remains to be seen. It's always been clear that Battlefield 2042 is meant to be a live-service game that will get regular updates, and it hasn't even started its Season 1 yet, so there's still a lot of content in the pipeline for the first-person shooter, assuming it can keep its audience.
Battlefield 2042 has new maps on the way as well as updates that will address player feedback. Whether or not it will be enough to save the game long-term is unclear, but we'll see how it goes in the months ahead.
Battlefield 2042 is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.