The latest iteration of the Battlefield series has fallen short of its target sales, after its release in November: Battlefield V sold around 7 million (vs the 8 million target), and subsequently costed EA an October-December loss of $1.6 billion, compared to last year’s numbers, having raised £1.289 billion in 2018’s last few months.
This unusually bad Christmas for EA has executives blaming the single player content the game featured, as opposed to a battle royale style game play. The game released with three campaigns and multiplayer - with a fourth campaign available for free download after - the four episodic War Stories that make up the single player campaign all follow different narratives and characters.
EA apparently seek to recover from this by releasing a battle royale mode in March, with execs commenting the developers missed a trick by not engaging with the popularity of the mode, as seen in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite.
The battle royale mode in Battlefield V will be named “Firestorm”, after Battlefield’s version of the closing boundary featured in the battle royale mechanic.
The game released with three campaigns and multiplayer - with a fourth campaign available for free download after
Other reasons EA executive Blake Jorgensen attributed to the sales loss for Battlefield V include a busy Christmas period, and fans of the series still supposedly playing Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 4. The shortcomings of the game this year echo the disappointing sales of Star Wars: Battlefront II during the 2017 Christmas period.