Battlefield 2042 is bleeding players as launch issues continue
Battlefield 2042 is losing players much faster than anticipated.
Seemingly as a result of Battlefield 2042's countless launch woes, it looks like players are leaving the game in droves.
Setting aside all the technical problems, Battlefield 2042 was actually fairly popular at release, reaching the top five most actively played games on Steam, and similar lists on Xbox Live. Today, less than two weeks on from launch, the game has lost over 60% of its active players on Steam.
As seen on Steam DB, Battlefield's peak concurrent player count over the last 24 hours was 34,005, down from its 105,397 peak on launch day. Losing players after release is fairly normal for most games, but the speed with which this happened is concerning. As it stands, Farming Simulator 22 is more popular than Battlefield 2042 right now.
Indeed, those numbers only reflect the population on Steam. Battlefield 2042 is available directly on Origin, and through the Epic Games Store. Since there is no in-game player count, we can't say for certain whether things are similarly grim on these platforms, too.
However, one other statistic does paint an unflattering picture about the game's popularity. According to True Achievements, only 43% of Xbox players managed to reach level 15, which is fairly early on in progression and can easily be achieved in a couple of days of play. As for level 25, only 22% of players reached it. Things are a little better on PlayStation, where 36% of players unlocked the level 25 Trophy.
For reference, level 25 is nowhere close to earning you all of the game's unlocks.
Anecdotally, I've been running into more AI bots in public matches than usual recently, even with cross-play on. Hazard Zone, for instance, takes way too long to get a game going that it's pointless to queue up for it.
DICE has committed to releasing a major patch in early December, which is going to be the game's biggest so far. The developer has already addressed the excessive weapon bloom in the first update, but the journey is far from over.
You can check out our full review of Battlefield 2042 at the link.