Rumour: Battlefield V May Include Bad Company 2 Remastered (But Probably Not)

An anonymous tipster with previous form has emailed the Giant Bombcast with some gossip in regards to Battlefield V, the first being that if the game under performs the battle royale mode will transition to free to play.

EA’s  soon to be departing Chief Design Officer Patrick Soderlund has already stated that that will not be the case but you only have to look at the ridiculous revenues generated by Fortnite to realise it’s a possibility. Many games that were at first, available for purchase, have transitioned to free to play when they weren’t selling well so I’m going to file that rumour in my “Stating the bloody obvious” file.

The second rumour requires a pinch of salt, in fact it requires a mountain of salt, so here it is.

The tipster suggests that EA will add Bad Company 2 Remastered as post launch content for Battlefield V, in the same fashion Activision added Modern Warfare Remastered to Call of Duty: Infinite. Here’s the exact text of his email.

[EA] is also considering including something huge as part of its post-release content that means to boost sales of Battlefield V proper. That would be a remastered version of Battlefield Bad Company 2 a la the Modern Warfare remaster that Activision bundled with Infinite Warfare.

Let’s dissect that rumour. The comparison with COD remaster isn’t a good one, Infinite was space marines, a complete departure from Call of Duty’s boots on the ground franchise, so adding a classic COD title to the package encouraged those who were giving the franchise a miss that year due to it’s sci-fi setting to buy it anyway. Battlefield V is World War 2, a familiar setting for the franchise.

If EA were thinking to add Bad Company 2 to the Battlefield V package to boost pre-orders then they are leaving it incredibly late, even if it is post launch content as the tipster suggested. Up until a few hours ago the game was meant to be out in six weeks.

Remastering Bad Company 2 costs money so EA would have to bump up the price of Battlefield V, if they did not then they would not make any profit. As many people have already pre-ordered they would either have to cancel them all or announce a new package would which piss off everyone who had already pre-ordered. Bad Company 2 Remastered would sell by the bucket load by itself, giving it away free (EA have stated all Battlefield Vpost launch content is free) makes no financial sense whatsoever. Call of Duty Remastered was not free.

The tipster is credited to revealing Unravel 2 before EA’s E3 conference. The thing is we all knew about Unravel 2 before it was revealed at E3. EA were holding preview events weeks before, the game was on show and we played it, it’s just that everyone else in the industry was polite enough to abide by the NDA, so that really wasn’t a big tip off.

So, eight years of writing news is telling me this second rumour is a load of tosh, especially now that Battlefield V’s release date has moved a month and is now further away from Red Dead Redemption. Bad Company 2 Remastered could be in the works, but I doubt it’s going to be post launch content for Battlefield V.

But hey, I could be wrong, stranger things have happened.

Source: GiantBomb Podcast via Newsweek