Battlefield V to End Ongoing Content Development, Final Update Releases in June
Spencer Baculi
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After just under two years of release time and numerous controversies, EA and Dice have announced that ongoing content development will be ending for Battlefield V, following a final content pack release in the summer.
On April 23rd, Battlefield V Senior Producer Ryan McArthur published a blog post titled “The Future of Battlefield V: An Update with Ryan McArthur”, announcing that the game will see only “one more standalone update this summer” and noting that the team was aiming for a June release:
“As you are aware, the current Battlefield V Chapter, Into the Jungle, wraps up on April 29. As we look to the future, we will release one more standalone update this summer that brings with it some new content, weapons, and game tweaks. We are targeting June for this update. We’re still tackling the challenges from working from home and will let you know how things progress for us over the next month.”
While new content will not be developed, EA and Dice will provide ongoing support for the game in the form of “weekly rewards,” “various weekly initiatives,” and “Community Game Updates.”
“Here’s a brief overview on what’s coming:
New Content: A new update will be released this summer.
Weekly Rewards: Following the summer update, you’ll receive Battlefield Currency or Company Coin as Weekly Rewards, giving you a chance to unlock gear you may have missed.
Events and Activities: We’re also planning various weekly initiatives such as the reintroduction of #FridayNightBattlefield servers, where the community can play Battlefield V in a friendly atmosphere. Throwback Thursdays, where we’ll look to bring you together across all of our Battlefield titles are in the works, too.
We are continuing our work on Community Games Updates. We are committed to bringing these to the game and we’ll keep you updated on when you can expect them to start coming online.”
Despite the game’s playable lifespan coming to an end, Battlefield V will be remembered for a long time to come for the game’s anti-gamer marketing and its producer’s condescension towards long time fans of the Battlefield franchise.
Rather than adhering to the series’ grounding in real world military combat, history, and technology, the developers opted to use the game as a vehicle for promoting progressive politics.
After the game’s first trailer, featuring a number of historical inaccuracies including soldiers with prosthetic arms and women serving on the frontline, EA Chief Creative Officer Patrick Soderlund stated that these choices were made to “stand up for the cause” and that “people who don’t understand it, well, you have two choices: either accept it or don’t buy the game.”
Related: After a Year of Insulting Fans and Mishaps, Battlefield V Sales Estimates Look Grim
Upon release, Battlefield V was met with middling to overwhelmingly negative reception and currently holds an average score of 73/100 among critics and 2.3/10 among fans on review aggregate site Metacritic.
In response, EA and Dice plastered the walls of their Battlefield V launch party with quotes from critics on social media. Unsurprisingly, the game eventually began to bleed users shortly after launch.
Related: EA Admits Battlefield V Tanked as Company Misses Earnings Goal
Ultimately, EA and Dice admitted last year that the game “didn’t resonate strongly as we would have liked it to with players and we were never truly able to catch-up.”
They added, “A combination of a poor start in our marketing campaign together with what I think was a longer development cycle”.
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