After what seemed like an excessive period of silence between announcement and release, Battlefield 3 Aftershock hit the App Store this February. The silence and the fact that it hit many, many moons after Battlefield 3 proper were big hints that Aftershock wasn’t going to be the greatest game ever, and boy, was it not. Glitchy and laggy play defined the user experience, and its strange Act of Valor tie-in baffled us. Players bombarded it poor reviews immediately, while we questioned why it was even released in the first place.
Now, it’s gone. EA has removed Aftershock to “re-evaluate" the experience, and presumably, to ensure that Battlefield‘s name isn’t completely sullied by this whole thing. Battlefield is an especially big brand for EA. It’s its flagship first-person shooter, and a franchise that it actively sets up to compete against Call of Duty.
IGN obtained the following statement:
“EA Mobile is committed to delivering mobile entertainment experiences that are on par with the content and quality users have come to expect from their favorite EA gaming brands.
To this end, we have decided to remove Battlefield 3: Aftershock from the App Store and are currently re-evaluating the app in response to the consumer feedback we’ve received. We thank all the fans who have downloaded the game to date."
As IGN notes, another Battlefield 3 game is set to hit the App Store in 2012. We expect this one to offer more than multiplayer. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if it used a similar formula to Bad Company, which has been a hit with fans despite having more than a few of its own problems.
In the past, we’ve seen EA pull old apps to make room for sequels. Recently, it pulled Mass Effect: Galaxy in advance of Infiltrator‘s release. We’ve never seen this kind of pull from EA before, but it seems like a good move. The app was broke and it needed some significant bug testing and tweaking. Here’s to hoping that it actually reappears.
