Battlefield 2042 launched just last week and developer DICE’s Head Of Design is already leaving the company.

As reported by VGC, DICE Head Of Design Fawzi Mesmar has announced that he is leaving the studio, but he clarified that he already decided a while ago to do so when Battlefield 2042 was finally released. He originally joined DICE in 2019, and he worked on the Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront franchises.

In an email to DICE staff, Mesmar wrote:

“It was an absolute pleasure to serve on the best design teams in the galaxy,” he wrote in his email to staff. “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, studio 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.”

Mesmar also revealed that his next job will be in Stockholm, Sweden, though he stopped short of mentioning which company. In addition, EA has confirmed that Mesmar is indeed leaving DICE “at the end of the week” and that they “wish him the best in his future endeavours”.

It’s hard not to see Mesmar’s departure as leaving a sinking ship, considering how disastrous the launch of Battlefield 2042 has been so far. Less than a week after launch, the game is already one of the worst-review games on Steam, getting on the same list as games like Uriel’s Chasm and RollerCoaster Tycoon World.

Many of the game’s negative reviews cite many bugs and technical problems. Players also complained about the game feeling like it’s missing many features and a lot of content, including the lack of a traditional scoreboard and others. Thankfully, DICE has already plans for further major patches to fix the game.

Battlefield 2042 is now available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.