DICE released the community-based Zombie Survival game mode on January 20th but, just a day later, had to remove it after players discovered it was a great XP farm. Senior design director Justin Wiebe form Ripple Effect Studios stated the mode needs to “go back into the workshop for a bit.”
Wiebe was hoping Zombie Surival could be fixed to align properly with standard game progression.” The developer also mentioned that the teams working on Battlefield 2042 have “tightened” their review process to ensure problems like this don’t happen in the future. “Thanks for your patience and understanding,” Wiebe said.
Zombies Survival is a fan-made game mode that was released in Battlefield 2042’s Portal. It the typical zombies game, with teams of four players fending off endless waves of the undead. Players quickly found ways to use this game mode to farm XP that applies to other elements of Battlefield 2042. This was putting the general XP balance of the overall game out of wack, which is partially the reason for its removal.
Wiebe admitted that Zombie Survival should have never released to Battlefield 2042. “I think our desire to create a fun zombies mode clouded our ability to see such a simple thing like the impact it would have on progression. I’m very sorry for the hardship this has caused,” Wiebe explained.