Battlefield 2042’s launch didn’t exactly go according to plan, with complaints about bugs, balance issues, and a general lack of polish being widespread. Battlefield developer DICE have tried to put a happy face on things and outlined a number of fixes and improvements they plan to implement over the coming months, but new reports indicate things aren’t going smoothly behind the scenes.
According to insider Tom Henderson, DICE’s head of design Fawzi Mesmar is immediately jumping ship following the release of Battlefield 2042. Mesmar worked at mobile developer King, before taking over the 80-dev-strong DICE design team in 2019. According to an email sent to team members, Mesmar was planning his departure for a while, but stayed on to get 2042 out the door. Apparently, he won’t be sticking around to actually finish it…
It was an absolute pleasure to serve on the best design teams in the galaxy. The incredible design work that you do continues to inspire me every day. Thank you for putting some faith in me, I hope I didn’t disappoint. I have been made an offer I couldn’t refuse at another company that has been kind enough to wait for me until we have shipped [Battlefield 2042]. It was super important to me to be here with the team as we achieve this historical milestone.
While Oskar [Gabrielson, DICE GM] and myself have been discussing my succession plans for some time – and it will be announced in due course – we opted to delay this communication till after launch to keep the focus – rightfully so – on the game we’ve been putting a monumental amount of effort on.
Separately on Twitter, Henderson indicated DICE is currently suffering from heavy turnover, essentially necessitating the hiring of a new studio’s worth of talent.
DICE are essentially hiring a new studio.
Expect departures etc. To start being announced this week. #BATTLEFIELD2042
— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) November 24, 2021
To clarify – They are hiring a lot of new people under DICE and not making another DICE studio.
— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) November 24, 2021
Hopefully this behind-the-scenes turmoil doesn’t set back efforts to get Battlefield 2042 back on track, but I’m guessing it will have some effect. It’s one thing to clean up your own mess, it’s altogether more difficult to clean up a mess left to you by somebody else.
Battlefield 2042 is available now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. The game’s latest update dropped today (you can get details on its contents here).
