Can this much maligned FPS get a second chance on Xbox Game Pass?

battlefield 2042 it recently launched its third season of content, and with that, it also joined the EA Play baseline. Anyone subscribed to the service can now play it, which also means it’s available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass members.

But is that enough to bring new players to Battlefield 2042? Is it even the right time?

We’ve seen a lot of games get big boosts by joining Game Pass later in their life cycles. Even when they don’t become the most talked about or actively played service, Game Pass has proven to be a lifeline for what might otherwise be dead games.

marvel avengers is a recent example that comes to mind. After joining the service, you rocketed into the top ten most played Xbox games. The narrative changed from all the doom and gloom on the Steam Charts to one that is more hopeful about the future of the game.

If you don’t keep up with Marvel’s Avengers news, you may be surprised to learn that it continues to receive updates and new content to this day. The Winter Soldier, the next hero of the game, arrives tomorrow. Some of that renewed support has to be related to the increased player count (and interest) brought about by the addition of Game Pass.

This is the closest thing to getting free-to-play power-ups without Really make the game free. Gamers have long suggested the free-to-play route as an option, but Square Enix never listened. Game Pass effectively acts like a revolving door, letting new and old players in while veterans head off to other games; only to then replay the new content.

The Avengers’ continued money-making opportunities don’t lie in continued sales, and it could be argued that they never have. Real money is earned through microtransactions, of which the game has many. This is what most publishers expect to happen when they put their ongoing multiplayer games on Game Pass, or make them free to play.

Like Avengers, many debated whether making Battlefield 2042 free-to-play would achieve a similar effect. The game’s Steam numbers pick up every time a new season arrives, but never reach launch heights. Meanwhile, every other Battlefield on Steam continues to outperform 2042 every time they go on sale.

Surely Battlefield 2042 could do the same if it dropped to a similar price or was made available to players without the upfront charge in some way. Go to Game Pass/EA Play. The basic level of EA’s subscription service is generally reserved for back catalog titles.

EA essentially uses it to add value to games that are no longer selling in significant numbers. It’s where last year’s sports games, EA Originals, etc. live.

Whether EA wants to admit it or not, Battlefield 2042 has reached that point in its life. It’s a game that has probably exhausted all of its sales potential, so it’s time to offer it to a new audience.

But the key question remains, are there enough of those people on the fence who were waiting for a similar moment to jump? I don’t think so, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, as the continued success of classic Battlefield games shows, core fans and newcomers alike don’t just like a good deal—they like classic Battlefield. Whether by choice or technical limitations, Battlefield 2042 is missing a lot of what made the past few games special.

I could go on about the very specific things each of the last few games did wrong, some are so bad they drove me away. But I’m guaranteed a Battlefield experience in each of them, the same way a Call of Duty player knows the next one will have killstreaks.

Battlefield 2042 may have combined-arms combat, but its maps are drab, lifeless, unnecessarily vast, and the lack of destruction exposes all of those problems even more. You can’t play it as a class shooter, because it doesn’t have classes. It’s not quite an arcade shooter, though. It’s the worst parts of Battlefield’s codependency and the worst parts of Apex Legends’ hero-driven gameplay combined.

Then there is the issue of time. Battlefield 2042 is set to reintroduce the class system to the game early next year, effectively making it a Battlefield game.

Whenever that update comes around, it would have been a better time for the EA Play/Game Pass movement. Battlefield 2042 has brought back one more thing that it didn’t launch with. Come back, everyone’ is a convincing tone. Not so much now.

Don’t get me wrong, 2042 is absolutely better today than it was just two or three months ago, but there’s not a lot of fixes I can do to fix the fundamental design issues.

The arrival of classes would be the first great reform to attempt that impossible task. Even if it fails, it would have been a good talking point and a reason for new or returning players to get involved.

Of course, this could still happen as the game will also be on Game Pass, but how many will actually do that when 2023 looks incredibly packed with highly anticipated games?

The news also came right in the middle of Obligations season. If you’re not hooked on traditional multiplayer, there’s Warzone 2.0 free and DMZ for those who’d rather avoid the $70 entry fee.

Modern Warfare 2 is also a game from Infinity Ward, a studio whose games traditionally attract the largest number of Battlefield refugees. I should know, I’m one of them.

I really wonder how many people would ditch the cool new thing everyone is playing and take a few hours to decide if Battlefield 2042 is worth jumping into today, but maybe one day.