EA DICE Boss Rebecka Coutaz Interview: "We want to be proud of Battlefield 2042"

The new head of EA DICE discusses the studio's transformation into a live service business

[RaidenBlack]

~ that's cute
This SCREAMS like it's a response to JeffGrubb's comments that Battlefield 2042 is running on a skeleton crew.

[ArchangelMike]

They need to just take the game out back and put it out of its misery.

[RaidenBlack]

Its already leaked that there's a skeleton crew of few devs handling the Post Release updates for 2042.
"Working on the promised additional seasons that the game needs to meet the requirements of the high-end version that it sold"
“The skeleton crew is working to pump that stuff out the fastest and the cheapest it possibly can”
Its already abandon ship mode for 2042 and the main dev team is already in pre-production for the next mainline Battlefield game.

[yeahokwhatever]

would making content for BF1's updates require more than a "skeleton" crew? I feel like not really. 90% of the engineering work making a game is building the engine and the tools. after that, almost all of the engineers can move on to other projects. you'd only need a handful of artists, a designer or two, QA cycles (one per release), couple server stability engineers (probably shared with other teams anyways), maybe 3-5 engineers(gameplay, audio).

[Trunkz]

Problem is some or most of the skeleton crew is probably made up of new or offshore programmers to keep cost low as possible.

[yeahokwhatever]

that sounds like an assumption to me, Torunkz. I used to work for EA. Granted, things change, but still. I love all of the disagrees from people who probably never worked in games. lol I did this sh!t for many years, kids.

[Cackocacho]

EA hasn't had anything to be genuinely proud about, since Mass Effect 2. Get lost.

[Kornholic]

You are incorrect. Battlefield 3 was great, and so was Battlefield 4. Battlefield 1 was decent, too.

Also, Bad Company 2 came after Mass Effect 2, and it is a masterpiece.

[Inverno]

But weren't both BF3 and 4 completely broken at launch?

[badz149]

BF4 was broken for many months after release though

[yeahokwhatever]

BF4 was busted at launch (server-side issues) and when the water map update came, but it was resolved and was one of the best battlefields in the series.

[frostypants]

Bad Company 2 had the best destruction of the series. Absolutely absurd that nothing has touched it since. Also had some of the best maps in general. And the Vietnam expansion was amazing. Really was the high water mark.

[monkey602]

Dead Space 2 and Battlefield 4 were great games. Both came after ME2

[Silly gameAr]

It Takes Two was something to be proud of, I think. I loved that game.

[Hofstaderman]

Only exception is Jedi Fallen Order.... Spectacular game

[CrimsonWing69]

I dunno, man… Fallen Order was legit incredible.

[aarogree]

Five words:
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

[moriarty1889]

Talk is cheap. Shouldn’t have made it a live service game and should have given it a single player offline campaign for starters. A try releasing a complete finished product instead of a buggy mess of an incomplete game. Live service is the last thing Battlefield needs as a franchise. Stop trying to be the next Fortnite.

[jBlakeeper]

Why can’t developers understand that we don’t want our favorite franchises turned into some live service game where the devs can do way less due to the sale of MTX. It’s like nah let’s just sit on our ass and watch people purchase MTX while we do as little as possible. Then in about five years we will make a sequel.

[senorfartcushion]

THEN STOP MAKING LOVE SERVICE GAMES.

Live service goals are the opposite of wanting to be proud

[0hMyGandhi]

I know that was a mistake with autocorrect, but part of me thinks that EA probably thinks of their live service games as "Love service games".

[senorfartcushion]

If they can get people to pay for sexual explosions then all is lost.

[Stanjara]

We're fighting love!

[Rynxie]

This guy unknowingly admitted to being addicted to love service games. Put down the hentai and genshin impact. They are only wuaifu and not real.

[Yi-Long]

They’re way overthinking this; We just want Battlefield to be Battlefield. That’s it.

We don’t need ridiculous large maps. We don’t need hundreds of players on that same map at the same time. We don’t need ‘heroes’/‘specialists’, we don’t need battle royale modes or whatever.

We just need 2 teams, 32 players each, a couple of gorgeous fun Conquest maps, 5/6 flags on each map, and 4 balanced classes.

That’s it. That’s all Battlefield needs to be and do.

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

Agreed wholeheartedly. Bring back class system, no specialists or hero type gameplay, great maps. Its that damn simple.

[jBlakeeper]

The answers are simple to many developers. Listen to the players. But casual gamers who don’t care are the ones that aren’t talking. And they generate the most revenue for the industry.

[HyperMoused]

The Maps are good i really dont get the hate, and the 128 players was also good more chaos like a war. the way BF 2042 is now its just like BF aside form the operators, no one wanted or asked for that, getting rid of those will please everyone id say.

[zachyBROosevelt]

It’s not popular to like this game. I bet lots of the negative reviews are from people who have never played and just assume it’s terrible. The court of public opinion has spoken and it is hard to overturn that hearing

[yeahokwhatever]

battlefield became battlefield by pushing the limits. when battlefield 1942 came out, FPS' had 16 players, tops. maybe a couple with 32 players. it was revolutionary. they're still chasing that feeling. i dont blame them for trying. i just blame them for going forward KNOWING it wasnt great.

[Father__Merrin]

Just go look at BF3 and BF4

Great campaign and great multiplayer all that's needed is usual BF modes across a dozen or so maps

[CrimsonWing69]

Then you need to put a lot more effort into it.

[aaronaton]

It'll be interesting to know what Rebecka Coutaz thought of the Battlefield 2: Special Forces DLC, maybe what her favourite character from the Bad Company series is, or for instance, which was her favourite map from Battlefield 3.
She was be a huge Battlefield fan with countless hours played.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

The majority of developers don't play games they make. Anyway, she came over from Ubisoft in December 2021 so not much experience with Battlefield.

[MadLad]

Nobody is proud of 2042.

[Aloymetal]

Waste of money and resources. At this point a simple remaster of either BF3 or BF4 would've been much, much better.

[GoodGuy09]

Oh good lord...

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

There is absolutely NOTHING to be proud of with that hot, fresh, steaming hunk of shit. We only want Battlefield to be BATTLEFIELD THATS IT! Its that damn simple. Non of that live service crap, bring back class system for better squad and teamwork based play, and the maps still suck ass.

[staticall]

Then fix your freaking game, fast! It's being 7 months already, for G-d sake! Stop with your stupid marketing and PR bullshit, you need competent developers right now, ASAP.

[stanr]

That be easy, they just need to make a game that;
1) Works at launch
2) Isn't stuffed with loot boxes and microtransactions

[annoyedgamer]

PR damage control is what this is

[adaminoregon]

Well then you shouldnt have released the game the way you did. You shouldnt have doubled down on operators which no one in the battlefield world wanted. Was team deathmatch and a scoreboard just too much for you?

[babadivad]

Drop the identity politics and make a good game then.

[Retroman]

Little to late for that Rebecka . You should have thought of that before releasing it.

[Spartacus10]

You'll never be proud as long as you stick with live service. People want complete, tested and working games on day 1 which dont have any microtransactions. 'Live service' is a red flag that basically says 'I'll still be unfinished 6 months later, might as well wait for me in the bargain bin'.

[HyperMoused]

So step one take the person who wanted operators or every person guilty, and hurl them off the top of something high

[Neofire]

She's the Boss of EA Dice? No wonder all that non-binary LGBT stuff is in BF2042 instead of focusing on the core gameplay and features 🤦🏿‍♂️

[John_McClane]

It was in the game before she became the boss.

[jBlakeeper]

They didn’t publish the rest of her statement. “But we just can’t”. Hahaha

[frostypants]

There's literally nothing to be proud of. Start over.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Then support the reason I got the game:
1) Promised Dualsense support (still no adaptive triggers)
2) Hazard Zone support (still no proxy chat to encourage squad communication and strategy, the crux of the mode.)

[SpineSaw]

They seem to be trying so I guess that's good and it could be so much worse at least its not that F2P dumpster fire that's burning outta control that's over at Microsoft. Lol

[Stanjara]

Rebeca is so happy. Thank you gamers for giving us money and playing a broken game. We'll do it again.

[MocBistro]

If you abandon these shitty games and bussiness schemes, I'm proud of you EA.

[Binarycode]

Here's what you do.

You make a game with 96 players, full destruction, levolution 2.0, slightly bigger maps then bf4. plenty of modes. And even some small maps to capture COD players. Done.

Instead you went large, ppl running around like headless chickens, poor damage model, awful handling vehicles, hovercraft climbing buildings in a single bound.