Battlefield 2042 drops below 1,000 players on Steam, as indie game snaps up users
A game that looks like Roblox is taking Battlefield’s players
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Battlefield 2042 has dropped below 1,000 active concurrent players onSteam, marking a new low for the multiplayer FPS’s playerbase.
On April 11, only 979 people were playingBattlefield 2042on Steam, according to data recorded onSteamChartsand spotted by users onResetEra(thanks,Eurogamer).
Dice’s multiplayer FPS has beenhemorrhaging playersfor months, as persistent glitches andcontent rollbackscontinue to disappoint fans. Many are now looking for alternative games to fill their multiplayer FPS craving and have flocked to the little-known, upcoming indie game Battlebit Remastered.
Battlebit is as close to a Battlefield clone as you can get – if a little blockier. It transfers the series’ core, squad-based shooting loop into a world of low-poly visuals. It’s essentially Battlefield in the skin of Roblox – and players seem to love it.
The indie game hasn’t even launched yet but managed to attract 30,000 players to its latest public playtest held from April 8 to April 10 (that’s according to thedevs, althoughSteamDBestimates a lower, but still impressive, figure of 27,000). The playtest even ended early after servers became unstable when the number of concurrent players skyrocketed.
Battlefield 2042, meanwhile, is only able to attract a fraction of that player count. On PC, it drew a peak of2,000 active playersduring the same period and hasn’t been able to reach 30,000 players since last December.
Its fall below 1,000 players marks a significant low point for the game, which is only worsened by the surprisingly high number of players that tiny indie game Battlebit has been able to attract.
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A Battlefield contender
It’s easy to see why Battlebit would be such a draw for players who are disappointed with Battlefield 2042. Even in its current beta state, it includes all the hallmarks of the series: massive multiplayer matches that pit up to 250 players against each other; land, air, and sea vehicles to control; and fully destructible environments that let you topple huge buildings.
The game gives you five classes to play – Assault, Medic, Engineer, Support, or Recon (a selection that’s been directly ripped from past Battlefield games) – which all come with particular gadgets and class-specific abilities. That’s particularly enticing for those who weren’t taken by BF 2042’s specialists system.
It also places a huge focus on squad communication, encouraging you to talk with your teammates over voice chat to coordinate assaults. Voice chat is also something that’s yet to be added to BF 2042.
Throw in the option to customize your weapons with specific scopes, magazines, and camouflages, as well as make tweaks to your individual soldier, and you’ve got a game that is as close to a mainline Battlefield entry as you could hope for.
In light of the persistent glitches that continue to plague Battlefield 2042, as well as the slowrollout of content, it’s not surprising that players are now holding out for a small indie game to deliver the kind of multiplayer experience they want.
As players onRedditsuggest, Battlebit is ticking all the right boxes, and its player count keepsgrowing with each playtest– a January playtest attracted 7,000 players, a February build drew 17,000, and the latest has added another 10,000 on top.
They might be waiting a while, though. Battlebit is due to release in early access sometime this year, but developer MrOkiDoki’s Studio hasn’t announced a specific date. Although you can play the current playtests for free,BattleBit’s developer saysthe game will launch in early access for $15.
Callum is TechRadar Gaming’s News Writer. You’ll find him whipping up stories about all the latest happenings in the gaming world, as well as penning the odd feature and review. Before coming to TechRadar, he wrote freelance for various sites, including Clash, The Telegraph, and Gamesindustry.biz, and worked as a Staff Writer at Wargamer. Strategy games and RPGs are his bread and butter, but he’ll eat anything that spins a captivating narrative. He also loves tabletop games, and will happily chew your ear off about TTRPGs and board games.
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