EA denies blaming Halo Infinite for Battlefield 2042’s launch issues

EA has moved to rebuke yesterday’s reports claiming executives blamed the poor launch of Battlefield 2042 on Halo Infinite.

The rebuttal came in the form of a statement sent to PC Gamer by EA communications VP John Reseberg. “These stories are not accurately capturing the discussion and the context, which was an in-depth and very humble internal conversation about the recent Battlefield launch. It was about key learnings and actions we are taking, not blaming external factors.”

The comments referenced were initially reported by Xfire’s Tom Henderson, citing a Town Hall meeting held by EA executives. During the call, EA’s chief studios officer Laura Miele referenced Battlefield 2042 getting unfavourable comparisons to Halo Infinite. She also mentioned difficulties with home-working challenges, and a switch to a new version of the Frostbite engine. However, a direct quote referencing Halo Infinite wasn’t provided in the original report.

Henderson would later clarify the exact context of the reference via his Twitter account. According to him, Miele’s exact words were “The following Monday, Halo did a surprise release of their multiplayer mode. It was a small segment of the game but it was very polished and it was not a favourable comparison to our experience given some of the bugs and polish issues we had.”

In the meantime, DICE are working hard to fix the issues with Battlefield 2042. Their plans have included delaying a planned Season One of post-launch content to fix the main game. Behind the scenes, a restructure of EA studios working on the series has now put Respawn’s Frank Zampella in charge of Battlefield as a whole.

#Battlefield2042 pic.twitter.com/y6tp7Yy0Gp

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) February 17, 2022