Facepalm: Last week, Battlefield 2042 got a new mode called “Zombie Survival.” Initial reviews were mixed, but players only got a few hours into the post-apocalyptic shooter before DICE pulled the plug.
Ripple Effect is a studio that helps DICE with expansions and game modes. Ripple’s Senior Designer Justin Wiebe explained that they removed Zombie Survival and replaced it with a “Gun Game” mode because it borked the game’s progression system. Evidently, the zombie addon wasn’t grindy enough because it awarded too much experience.
We’ve removed the Zombie’s mode and replaced with Gun Game. Hopefully we can fix it in the future and keep it in alignment with standard game progression. We’ve also tightened our review process to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
— Justin Wiebe (@JA_Wiebe) January 21, 2022
Wiebe was vague about when or if the zombie mode would return, saying only, “Hopefully, we can fix it in the future and keep it in alignment with standard game progression.”
“I’m not going to lie, this one shouldn’t have gotten through our review process,” the dev apologized. “I think our desire to create a fun zombies mode clouded our ability to see such a simple thing like the impact it would have on progression. I’m very sorry for the hardship this has caused.”
I’m not going to lie, this one shouldn’t have gotten through our review process. I think our desire to create a fun zombies mode clouded our ability to see such a simple thing like the impact it would have on progression. I’m very sorry for the hardship this has caused. https://t.co/01MXOdWGN5
— Justin Wiebe (@JA_Wiebe) January 21, 2022
When DICE launched Battlefield 2042 last November, it exemplified everything an online multiplayer game should not be. Within days of its release, 75 percent of BF2042’s reviews on Steam were negative. The reasons for the poor reviews are so wide-sweeping that the game could reasonably be considered unfinished.
Its terrible performance earned it the eighth-worst title on Steam’s Hall of Shame just three days after launching. Even after some fixes, the game remains on the worst 100, falling (or rising?) to 14th.
The backlash was severe enough to cause a shakeup in DICE and EA management and has EA considering making the game free-to-play. However, when you have developers more worried about the game’s progression system than fixing the other multitude of problems, making it F2P is not likely to help.