Battlefield 2042’s Season 1 update draws players back despite ongoing struggles

Battlefield 2042’s player count has grown as a result of the long-awaited Season 1 update, despite the game’s many well-documented struggles since its rocky November launch. However is it just a flash in the pan?

It’s no secret that Battlefield 2042 launched in a less-than-ideal state, to put it lightly. From game-breaking errors and countless bugs to severe performance issues, widespread problems forced players away in droves.

In the months that followed, the game was hit with a number of significant patches, fixing dozens of bugs and tidying up overall balance. Though all the while, fans were awaiting any form of new content to arrive in the long-delayed Season 1 update.

Finally landing on June 7, seven months after launch, Season 1 brought a new map, one new Specialist, along with some new equipment.

While many were underwhelmed by the size of said content drop, it nonetheless managed to drive up interest in the game once again, as Battlefield 2042’s player count rebounded to a degree over the course of the past month.

When the latest Battlefield launched, it reached a peak of 100,950 active players in November, at least for those on PC according to SteamCharts.

The game immediately suffered a 61% drop in December and has continued a gradual decline ever since, falling to an average of under just 2,000 daily players across May.

With the launch of Season 1, however, despite the seven-month wait, Battlefield 2042 has seen its steepest upward trend since release. Climbing back to a peak player count of 14,989 on PC, the game recorded its fourth-best month thus far, a drastic improvement from its February-May stretch.

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Obviously, just shy of 15,000 is still a far cry from the competition. It even remains a significant chunk away from 2017’s Battlefield 5, which still holds over 30,000 average players on PC to this day.

It’s nonetheless a slight win for 2042, as the title has finally bounced back to some degree rather than continuing its steady decline.

Without a release date confirmed for Season 2 — estimates put it as launching in September — there’s no telling how the title may fair over the coming months without any further content. We could once again see a dip in the overall player base before a slight bump with the next big update.

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We’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out and whether Battlefield 2042 is truly able to find its footing after one of the roughest launch periods in recent gaming history.