Since November 19, Battlefield 2042 has officially been released and has since received mixed reviews. It has even been “review bombed” on Steam. Nevertheless, it is still played by thousands, as it was temporarily in the top 10 of the most played titles in recent days.
How was Battlefield 2042 received on Steam? Not well at all. In the first two days, the game was catapulted into the top 10 of the least popular games, and on release day, it only had 21% positive reviews, with around 10,000 ratings.
As of now, on November 22, Battlefield 2042 has at least reached 25% positive reviews on Steam, with around 35,000 ratings.
However, the game is ranked 9th among the least popular games of all time, with an average of 2.52 points. (via steam250.com) The user score, however, does not seem to reflect how many people actually play the game.
Despite review bombing, briefly in the top 10 of the most played titles on Steam
How many people have played Battlefield 2042? Despite thousands of bad reviews, Battlefield 2042 managed to achieve impressive player numbers over the weekend.
- On release day, the game hit its first peak with 105,397 simultaneous players. (steamdb.info)
- Since then, daily peak numbers have fluctuated between around 90,000 and 100,000
- Battlefield 2042 was still ranked 9th among the most played titles on November 21, ahead of GTA Online and behind PUBG.
- At the time this article is being written (November 22, 10:00 AM), it has fallen to 13th place. However, there are naturally also fewer players online in Europe during the morning.
Despite all the criticism, Battlefield 2042 has managed to motivate numerous players to play at release. We don’t know how many players are playing through EA’s own launcher Origin, but naturally, there are likely several thousand more.
But what is causing the big difference between ratings and player numbers? Fans are currently discussing this in the Battlefield 2042 subreddit.
Review bombing is an ongoing problem
The phenomenon of “review bombing” has been known from other releases. Particularly with games that have a large fan base, there is often an uproar when the latest installment of a franchise or a long-awaited game does not meet expectations.
Such is the case with Battlefield, where there is much criticism regarding the specialists. Fans also called for a storm on reddit because they are missing a proper scoreboard in the game.
These players are often mercilessly downrated on appropriate platforms, which is referred to as “review bombing”. Many games like Borderlands 3, Monster Hunter World, or The Last of Us 2 have experienced this firsthand.
The reasons for such rating attacks are varied, and often issues like the technical state of a game are involved.
What is the problem with Battlefield 2042? Here, there are mainly two major points:
- The technical state of Battlefield 2042 is not suitable for release.
- Battlefield 2042 changed core features of the series and made changes to the fundamental design.
These factors led to numerous players expressing frustration about the game, criticizing the technical state, and also encountering issues with the content.
This resulted in a wave of review bombing on Steam. On Metacritic, Battlefield 2042 has a user score of only 2.3, with around 3200 ratings. Official critics rate the shooter not quite as poorly on Metacritic, yet the ratings remain mixed.
This is what players are saying: The difference between reviews and player numbers is not surprising to many.
- Dum_Fuchs says: “reddit does not represent all players. No matter how much people want that.” (via reddit)
- marquicquis writes: “Right now, there are 3134 ratings on Metacritic. The game looks bad (I haven’t played it yet), but yes, that is quite a minority for a game series that sells in the millions.” (via reddit)
- Caris_Levert replies: “That would be 3% of currently active [Steam] players. I would be inclined to agree with the idea that people who were disappointed with the game would be more likely to rate it.” (via reddit)
- turdmogrol confirms: “Seriously, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve reviewed a game. I’ve enjoyed hundreds of games throughout my life and rarely review one unless I’m upset about it” (via reddit)
Annoyed and angry players would generally write reviews more often than satisfied players or newcomers who simply jump to the next title if they don’t like a game. Many do not want to be dragged down by the negative atmosphere. masterchief99 states:
The game has blatant problems, that’s for sure, but my friends and I just want a stress-free Battlefield game of the modern era that at least lets us find a functioning matchmaking server, something that Battlefield 4 has failed to provide since day one.
via reddit
User XRayZDay sees things more relaxed:
Reviews really aren’t the be-all and end-all that people like to think. It’s really just a bunch of other people sharing their opinions. Just ask yourself how many games you’ve enjoyed before you later realized they were terrible based on the reviews.
In my opinion, BF2042 is a fun Battlefield game, not everyone cares about the specialists like people on reddit think. As long as the game doesn’t have serious issues, it will do fine.
via reddit
Ultimately, players have no choice but to form their own opinion about a game, inform themselves through other sources, and engage more deeply with it.
Simply looking at the ratings of individual titles is rarely enough to truly know how bad or good a game is.
What do you think? Do you consider the poor ratings justified? Or do you believe they do not give a true impression of the game?
If you’re also interested in other topics related to Battlefield 2042, feel free to participate in our survey: Battlefield 2042 offers 7 different maps – Which one do you prefer?
