DICE Tells Angry Battlefield Fans The Team Needs To Rest Like Everybody Else

Electronic Arts has said that the team behind Battlefield 2042 will resume development and support for the maligned online shooter once everyone is properly rested after a break last month.

The mental and physical wellbeing of developers is an important topic for the industry as a number of shocking stories surrounding some of the most acclaimed games of the last couple of years emerged. For example, in 2020, a handful of artists were working late on The Last of Us Part II when a large metal pipe fell through the ceiling and landed next to their desks. The construction company assumed that no one was in the building in the evenings and had the pipe fallen a few feet closer to the artists, there might have been grave consequences. Another example are the Mortal Kombat 11 developers who were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after being exposed to incredibly graphic and violent reference materials for its gameplay.

While games like Mortal Kombat 11 portray and engage the player in heightened violence, they don't trigger violent actions or behaviour in the people that choose these titles off the shelf. Check out our explainer here.

Most would agree that the health of the person who develops our favourite game takes priority over the game itself. Encouragingly, there has been a positive pattern in the announcements from studios that have delayed their games mentioning the wellbeing of the team as a factor in pushing the launch backwards, no doubt partly instigated by the pandemic. This trend seems to have stuck for Electronic Arts, however, it's unfortunate that there is a loud minority that are not on board with this approach.

Andy McNamara via Twitter

Andy McNamara, EA's global director of integrated communications, tweeted that he was dismayed to see that some players were chastising developer DICE for a lack of communications during December. "Back to work today, check Reddit & Twitter and Battlefield fans are p*ssed we didn't do enough updates or communicating during the holiday break," said McNamara (the Tweets have since been deleted). "Guys, people gotta rest. We have things in motion but we have to figure out what is possible. We will address it when [we] are 100%."

Let's not mince words here - Battlefield 2042 was not welcomed warmly by its players. Yet, it's a circular thing. If you're dissatisfied with Battlefield 2042 and would like it to be better, then you've got to give the team the time to return to work. Once everyone's rested after the rush of the release and the busyness of the holidays, improvements for Battlefield 2042 will be here before you know it.

Topics: Battlefield, Battlefield 2042, EA