Battlefield 5 fails to meet EA’s expectations, blames battle royale delay

Electronic Arts announced in its most recent earnings results that blockbuster shooter Battlefield 5 failed to meet its sales expectations.

Having launched in November 2018, it was one of the biggest shooters to launch ahead of the festive period, thus leading to high hopes from the publisher.

While it certainly didn’t sell badly, Battlefield 5 only managed to move 7.3 million copies, falling 1 million short of the projections expected by EA.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson cites the title’s lacking “creative center” and “unprecedented competition” as reasons for its failure, also believing the marketing campaign failed to stimulate players ahead of launch.

Related: Best Battle Royale Games

The prioritisation of Battlefield 5’s solo campaign over its battle royale mode, which is still yet to launch, was also believed to hurt its sales performance, especially since Black Ops 4 had one at the time of release.

‘Unfortunately, the later release date meant the game launched deeper into a competitive holiday window where heavy price discounting was a big factor,’ Wilson said. ‘In addition, we also made the decision to prioritise other features, including a single-player experience at launch, over a battle royale mode.”

DICE and Electronic Arts still have plenty of plans for Battlefield 5 going forward with the launch of Firestorm alongside new maps, modes and other things as part of the Live Service model.

However, Respawn Entertainment recently released Apex Legends, a free-to-play battle royale experience also flying under the EA banner. Anthem is also set to launch next week, developed by Bioware and once again published by Electronic Arts.

Are you still playing Battlefield 5? Excited for the launch of Firestorm? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter @trustedreviews.