RALLY POINT

Why EA is razing Battlefield to its foundations in order to build something new

- ALEX SPENCER

Rebecka Coutaz joined DICE in November 2021, just two weeks after the launch of Battlefield 2042.

"It's crazy, when you come in like that, as the new GM of a studio, and you haven't been on the journey of the previous game," she says. "It's probably the hardest thing I've done in my career, for sure - but a joy as well." Such a situation would be challenging no matter what the studio, no matter what the game. But by 2021, 2042's journey had been anything but smooth.

At launch, the game was greeted by the worst reviews in series history, a precipitous dropoff from its immediate predecessors. It was a sentiment echoed by the players: at one point 2042's Steam user reviews were among the ten worst on the entire platform, and within two months of release its player numbers had dropped below that of the already three-year-old Battlefield V.

"It was a difficult time," Coutaz says. "We had a lot of expectations from the community and the players who have been with us for decades. So we owed some things to them - and, of course, to our teams as well." Why the teams? "They were disappointed on Battlefield 2042, too. And, across all the studios, they did not want to allow this to happen again."

One of the challenges that faced Coutaz was rescuing the game's reputation. After seven seasons of DLC, and much tweaking, "the game is in a completely different state than when we released it," she says proudly. "We still have a lot of players playing." (The game has also clawed back its Steam rating to 48 per cent positive, while its average player count remains just behind that of BFV.) The importance of the mission to save 2042, though, was soon eclipsed by the question of where Battlefield would go next.

It's not entirely clear at what point the development of