The journey of Battlefield as a whole has been both a hit and a miss. Battlefield 2042, which was released in 2021, was not able to replicate the game’s initial success. The game has been plagued with bugs and glitches since launch. The developers struggled to fix these issues and spent months finding a solution.
New leaks now confirm that a new edition of the game is set to launch in late 2025. Let’s dig into more about these leaks and what Battlefield has in store for us.
Free-to-play battle royale incoming
The rush for any developers these days is to get more and more players playing the game. With games like Palworld and Helldivers 2 breaking records for concurrent players, the competition in the gaming space is really heating up. EA is clearly aware of the potential markets battle royale titles provide. Battlefield has decided to launch its battle royale mode as a free-to-play mode, mimicking the same business model Call of Duty is following.
Rumors on the next Battlefield:
— Planned for October 2025
— Will feature 64-player matches, four class system, destruction
— Will also have a Free to Play Battle Royale mode
— Game set in modern era (2025-2030)(via Insider-Gaming) pic.twitter.com/wTqBDgI29C
— Battlefield News (@bravoINTEL) February 27, 2024
Activision made the battle royale mode free to play to invite more players to play Call of Duty. The campaign and multiplayer modes are only available to players who bought the game. Irrespective of whether you’ve bought the game or not, to play the battle royale game, you’ll have to download the whole game, which is a whopping 200 GB in size. This is a pretty aggressive move by Activision. From a business point of view, it does force players who like the game to buy it offhand and get straight into it.
We don’t know as of yet how Battlefield plans to implement its free battle royale mode into the game. Hopefully, it isn’t as heavy in size as what Call of Duty is now. Games like Fortnite allow players to disable the download of other modes like “Save the World.” If Battlefield does provide such a feature, that itself would be a solid win over Activision.
More information on the game:
The game is set to be played out in the 2025-2030 era. 64-player lobbies with a 4-class system are how the battle royale mode is going to be played out. The other core modes of the game are going to remain the same with the additions of a few new ones. To get access to the other modes, users will have to buy the title and unlock them.
Overwatch 2 was released as a completely free-to-play title after the OG Overwatch turned into an overnight success. Unfortunately, the Steam store flooded with negative user reviews. People were unimpressed by the lack of new elements to the game, suggesting that Overwatch 2 was a free-to-play reskinned version of the OG Overwatch.
Hopefully, EA has learned a thing or two from Blizzard’s Overwatch launch failure. Despite making the game free to play, players still value the overall quality of the game rather than the price. The launch of Battlefield 2042 was not able to live up to the hype. The introduction of a free-to-play mode is definitely one of the best ways to salvage past failures. If everything falls in place for EA, we might have a banger of a title in 2025.
