The bomb status in Battlefield 2042 becomes nuclear as the player count falls below PowerWash Simulator

As the player count drops below PowerWash Simulator, the bomb status in Battlefield 2042 becomes nuclear. Image Credit: EA

The most recent Battlefield has seen its concurrent player count on Steam fall for the first time, falling below 1,000 for the first time.

There are flops, and then there's the Battlefield 2042 situation, especially on Steam. On debut, the game received low sales and considerably negative comments from players, who were unhappy with the flaws, lack of content, and sloppily put-together nature of the game.

Things only got worse from there, with key updates being routinely delayed and rumors circulating that developer DICE had already started development on a new game.

The game was already being played less than Battlefield 5 and 1 at the start of the year, and its concurrent player count on Steam has now dropped below 1,000, with more people playing the 11-year-old Portal 2 and the strange-sounding PowerWash Simulator.

The total number of concurrent players is 951, as of this writing. There are no figures for consoles, but Battlefield is traditionally thought of as a PC game first and foremost, which exacerbates the situation.

Many of the games with similar figures are obscure indie titles like Muck, Foxhole, and Beasts Of Bermuda, with Madden NFL 22 and fellow flop Ghostwire: Tokyo being the only recent high-budget games with similar numbers.

To make matters worse, the game has one of the lowest ratings on Steam, and with the updates taking so long, it's unlikely to improve any time soon.

You can examine the stats for yourself on the Steam Charts website, but the data all points to a continued decrease in the number of users.

What this implies for the series is unclear, although rumors that development on a new entry has begun are entirely credible.

It's difficult to confirm whether the game will be free-to-play in addition to or instead of the paid-for version, but something has to happen if the franchise is to continue.

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