Steam appears to be offering refunds for Battlefield 2042 beyond the service’s normal window due to the game’s extreme number of bugs and glitches.
RELATED: EA Dice To Introduce Non-Binary Specialist In Battlefield 2042
Steam typically does not offer refunds on games that have been played for more than two hours or past 14 days of purchase. despite fans begging for them, unproven claims some were getting refunds, and even guides by gaming news outlets [1, 2].
However, amid fans desperately begging for them, unproven claims that some were having their requests honored, and even guides on how to obtain one from gaming outlets, CharlieIntel reports that Steam is now offering refunds for the recent EA release.
In a Steam Support message exchange presented by the news outlet as evidence of Steam offering refunds, a user who eventually received their money back first reached out to the digital retailer and explained, “I would have less than 2 hours of playtime if I didnt spend 2h in the settings because of the bug where the game was resetting my controls or not allow me to rebind them.”
“The broken state of the game and its bugs did not allow me to test the game properly, which is the reason I wish to refund the game,” they added. “And my refund request was within the 14 days, but was declined due to 4h playtime.”
The user concluded their message, “Once again, I ask you to reconsider and provide me with a refund for this broken, buggy game. I am using Steam for 15 years and I hope you can make an exception and refund me the game. I am very frustrated and annoyed with this game, as I am sure you are aware of the situation with it.”
In response, Steam Support acquiesced to the customer’s request, informing them, “As a customer service gesture, we issued the refund for this purchase. The item has been removed from the account and a credit has been applied to your Steam Wallet.”
Battlefield 2042 currently holds a Mostly Negative rating on Steam, with only 32% of 88,888 reviews at the time of this article’s writing recommending the game. According to third-party metric monitoring website Steam250, it’s currently the 14th worst rated game on Steam.
The title has since gone on to become the worst rated entry in the series’ history. While briefly Steam’s most played game on launch, it lost 70% of its players on Steam a mere two weeks after launch, with player numbers on Steam rapidly dropping well below those of even Farming Simulator 22.
Reviews on Metacritic fare just as poorly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Critic review scores (out of a possible 100) averaged out to 64 across 109 reviews for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, along with two reviews on last generation consoles giving the game 40 and 65.
Meanwhile, across the site’s 65,85 user reviews – of which there is admittedly no way to verify if a given reviewer has played the game – Battlefield 2042 holds average score of a little over 2 out of 10.
The main reasons behind these low scores seem to be the use of operators making the game feel more like a “hero shooter” akin to Overwatch, the lack of features from prior games, and the deluge of aforementioned bugs and glitches, the amount and severity of which almost rivals those seen in Cyberpunk 2077.
Aside from graphical bugs, the worst offending issues can see players hurled across the map to their death, clipping into buildings or beneath the ground, and damage not registering on foes. You can even ride a hovercraft up the side of a building.
You can find a one hour compilation of the bugs here, or a shorter collection below.
Developer response to player frustrations has also done little but flame the fans of disappointment and outrage.
In a now deleted tweet, EA global communications director Andy McNamara came off as dismissive when he told players, “Back to work today, check reddit & twitter and Battlefield fans are p—-d we didn’t do enough updates or communication during the holiday break. Guys, people gotta rest. We have things in motion but we have to figure out what is possible. We will address it when are 100%.”
“Let us get back from break and get back to work,” the former Game Informer journalist pleaded. “Love you guys but these expectations are brutal. These things you want take time to scope, design, and execute.”
Feeling their critiques of the game were being swept away as demanded entitlement over Christmas, with others further inferring a derisive tone from McNamara, the game’s official subreddit took the comments – according to the headline of the subreddit’s most popular thread on the topic – as “EA/DICE finally responds to the Backlash.”
In particular, the “expectations are brutal” comment was the main source of fans’ ire, despite the fact said comment could have meant the “expectation” of working over Christmas, as many felt they had been sold what was essentially a broken game and were receiving little communication from the responsible parties.
This thread grew to over 2,000 comments, and was eventually locked by moderators noting there were “direct insults.” Later, moderators threatened to shut down the Battlefield 2042 subreddit for a time, if needed, in order to counter “toxicity.”
“Over the past few days we have seen insults, harassment and vile comments directed towards members of our community and DICE employees,” wrote /u/Battlefield2042mod. “We are making this statement to give you fair warning that we will not tolerate this anymore. We are letting you know what your options are in regards to how this subreddit functions in coming days.”
The mod continued, “It’s an understatement when we say that this subreddit has grown incredibly toxic. It’s near impossible to have a simple discussion without insults being flung around at each other – and it’s really starting to harm the entire Battlefield community, and each of us that are part of it.”
“We mods have always been very laid back as far as moderation goes – we try our best to let everyone’s voice be heard, no matter how upset or angry, but we’ve always been of the position that insults or harassment directed to any individual will never be tolerated,” they asserted. “We’ll do whatever it takes to drive that sort of toxicity down. If it means shutting down for a period of time, we will. The mods have an obligation to follow the rules set out by Reddit, and if we are found to be in breach of not enforcing them, or doing a poor job at enforcing them, we risk the community getting banned altogether.”
RELATED: China Reportedly Bans International Version of Steam
“With that said, here are the options we are considering,” the mod then explained. “Option 1) If toxicity goes down, we will leave the subreddit open without further restrictions, Option 2) If toxicity stays at current levels, we will begin locking threads early, on a majority of posts, [and] Option 3) If toxicity increases, we will lockdown the subreddit for a period of time.”
“Yes, the last two options seem nuclear, and we don’t want to use them, but we said we will do whatever it takes to drive the current toxicity down,” they concluded. “If that means you can’t comment in the majority of posts, or you can’t view the subreddit for a period of time, we will go down that route. The choice is in your hands. If you don’t like the options available to you, you are welcome to unsubscribe and create your own community outlet.”
Eventually, it seems moderators realized, after over 3,000 comments and only 22% upvotes, that this threat had been ill-received.
In a later thread, mods provided an update on the state of the subreddit and moderation thread days later saw mods clarifying that critique of Battlefield 2042, Electronic Arts, and Dice was allowed, stating that they were focused on abusive comments, and clarifying that they themselves were not affiliated with Electronic Arts or Dice.
“Recently we made a post discussing the state of the sub in terms of ‘toxicity’ levels and outlined potential options to deal with said toxicity,” wrote the mod team. “We discuss things as a team and try to make correct decisions, but feel we may have made mistakes in some of our choices and communication, which resulted in misinformation as to what we’re actually trying to combat – which is insults, threats and harassment.”
They further elaborated, “To clarify, when we speak about toxicity, we don’t mean criticizing the game. We don’t mean negativity toward the game. We don’t mean criticizing EA/DICE. We mean comments/posts like: ‘X developer should never have been born,’ ‘X person is a piece of shit who should burn in hell,’ ‘I wish X and family would get COVID and all die, Or making calls to violence like ‘who wants to come with me and burn down DICE HQ?’ As well as making posts like “DICE developers deserve abuse. Yes, these are real examples of what we remove on a day to day basis.”
The mods then explained, “It’s not just attacks on developers or EA/DICE as a corporate entity that have increased. Redditors attacking other Redditors, within comments, has also continuously been increasing in both frequency and degree; ‘you’re a f—–g idiot for enjoying X’, ‘just stop playing the game you piece of s–t’, ‘anyone that likes X should just kill themselves.’ ”
“THIS is what we truly have issues with,” they asserted. “We don’t have issues with your completely valid criticisms of the game. While it may not be the majority causing these problems, we are a community and that makes us all responsible for curbing this behavior, together.”
“Be upset. Be angry,” they invited fans. “Voice your criticisms and concerns here. We empathize and even align with a lot of the complaints you, the community, have. However, we simply cannot allow the behavior of the nature as exampled above.”
Eventually, McNamara deleted his original tweets, later clarifying, “Deleted the tweets. Seems my message wasn’t clear. Apologies.”
Tensions seem to be riding high with both fans, developers, and community moderators.
What do you think of the current state of Battlefield 2042? Let us know on social media and in the comments below!