DICE disables Battlefield 5's battle royale duos mode again
"We're going to get back to the original plan today and we've disabled [its] matchmaking."
Despite only recently adding duos to the squad options in Battlefield 5's battle royale mode, Firestorm, DICE and publisher EA have now decided to remove the option, stating there simply weren't enough players making use of the mode.
"Duo received an overwhelmingly positive reaction at launch," said EA community manager, Adam Freeman, on the Battlefield 5 subreddit (thanks, VG24/7). "It debuted during a weekend, and was initially done so only as an early first look at the mode. Duo was originally designed as a limited time offering similar to Grind and Rush, and featured as limited time content in Chapter 3.
"When Duo was first removed, you told us that you wanted to see it come back and we were happy to support. Since then, we've seen more folks jump back into Squads mode, with less preferring to Firestorm it up in Duo - so we're going to get back to the original plan today and we've disabled it's (sic) matchmaking."
While it might not necessarily be gone for good - "as with other limited time modes, we never say never. We're confident that we'll see it again!" - right now there are no concrete plans to reintroduce the option at a later date. Many fans shared their frustration at the decision, downvoting the topic and stating that without a duos option, they'd return to other battle royale games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout and PUGB instead.
When asked if the mode could remain on the proviso that players queuing to participate are warned there might be an elongated wait, Freeman added: "It's not an impossible thing to do, it's just likely not the most sensible thing to do. Where we can do a better job is around more clearly advertising (both here and in the game) what content is available for a limited time only and when you can expect it to exit Battlefield.
"We genuinely have a lot of stuff to show and talk about with Firestorm at EA Play," he added later in the thread, referring to EA's consumer-facing E3 show coming up next month, "and if this reintroduces the need to get Duos back in we'll for sure think about the best way and times to do that [...] Whether we do that on certain weekends every month, or for a week to celebrate each of the future Firestorm updates - you will see Duo again.
To be very fair to folks though, and as transparent as possible, we're not presently expecting it to return as a permanent addition."
