Season 1: Zero Hour for Battlefield 2042 will start soon. Here you can find out how the new features play. And whether this makes us optimistic for the future.
Seven months after release, the first season of Battlefield 2042 starts this week. The game was released unfinished and was then developed under live conditions. According to statistics, the multiplayer shooter lost a large part of its active Steam community in the process.
On 9 June 2022, the planned live service will now start with the new map Exposure, the new specialist Ewelina Lis, two new combat helicopters, just as many new weapons and lots of goodies in the Battle Pass.
We were able to try out Season 1: Zero Hour for about two hours. Here you can read our expert analysis of the content on offer.
Want to see the new content first? Watch the new trailer for Season 1 of Battlefield 2042 here:
How does the new map for Battlefield 2042 play?
Exposure clearly stands out from the previous maps of Battlefield 2042. A rugged mountainous region with installations, bunkers and military facilities scattered everywhere, the colour scheme autumnal. Exposure is pretty to look at.
A huge landslide exposed a secret American facility, hence the name Exposure. The game world is characterised by much more verticality, which has to be overcome with ziplines or in flying machines.
Some aiming points are on the mountain, some at the bottom of the cliff. Still others are stuck inside the mountain, which is criss-crossed by a large tunnel and the aforementioned military facility.
This makes for nice gameplay situations: When one’s squad runs over a cliff to advance to the target in a dive, we feel pleasantly reminded of Damavand Peak from Battlefield 3. All combat scenarios from sniper range to wild shooting in narrow corridors are represented.
What is also striking about Exposure is that it seems to have taken into account the many voices of criticism from the players. While playing, we did not notice any environments that lacked cover. The walking distances between objectives also remain moderate.
We played the Breakthrough and Conquest modes on Exposure, each with 64 players. We were not able to try out the Conquest mode for 128 players, which was also planned.
How do the new BF2042 weapons play?
Battlefield 2042: Zero Hour brings two new weapons and one new gadget to the multiplayer shooter. Not much at all. But at least they’re two interesting shooting thrashers:
BSV-M: A mix between the AS Wal assault rifle and the DMR Wintores. The BSV-M runs in BF2042 as a precision rifle, but can also be equipped for close combat. For this purpose, it offers a single-shot and a continuous-fire mode. The rifle was easy to play in both configurations, only the infamous bloom, i.e. the random scatter pattern in continuous fire, seemed a bit too broad to us, which made fights at medium range more difficult.
Ghostmaker R10: As a utility weapon, the new crossbow also serves several purposes. With normal or compact bolts, the silent weapon can be used effectively against infantry. High-explosive bolts are used to hunt down light vehicles and aircraft. In the hands of accurate players, the Ghostmaker R10 is a highly dangerous weapon.
New Gadget: The new smoke grenade launcher is simple but effective. We shoot a multiple charge of smoke bombs that can cloak an entire area. This should also make many an advance easier on the old maps, even before the planned reworks. So yes: definitely a good innovation.
What about the new helicopters?
With Season 1: Zero Hour for Battlefield 2042, two new stealth combat helicopters find their way into the game. Each faction gets its own model, but both work in a similar way.
For one, there is an assault mode to target enemies with machine guns and missiles. The other is stealth mode, which hides the helicopters on radar and makes them intangible to homing systems. Offensive bombing is available in this mode.
Both helicopters must be operated by two players, a pilot and a gunner. This requires a lot of coordination, but also brings a very powerful and flexible player to the battlefield.
How does the new specialist Ewelina Lis play?
Before passionate foot soldiers angrily threaten with their fingers: There’s also an effective counter for the strong Helis. Her name is Ewelina Lis. The new specialist comes from Poland and is a terror incarnate for drivers and aircraft users.
This is thanks to her trait, which automatically makes all tanks, jeeps and helicopters in her vicinity visible through walls as soon as they take damage. So Lis is a great source of information.
On the other hand, Lis can use her skill to really hit out at tanks, jets and the like. The G-84 TGM rocket launcher fires a so-called TV missile. As soon as the projectile leaves the launcher, we control the missile manually. This was also used in Battlefield 3 and 4.
However, the powerful gadget seems well balanced, as it takes several hits to shoot a medium-sized combat helicopter out of the sky. Since practically everyone played as Lis at the event, the air was full of their rockets. Bad times for pilots, then.
In the run-up to Season 1, Battlefield 2042 got another big patch, which is already live:
What’s in the Battle Pass for Battlefield 2042?
A season in Battlefield 2042 lasts 12 weeks, i.e. three months. During this time, the new Battle Pass is also active. Here players can grind their way through 100 ranks. The new mission system helps with this, which offers a series of tasks that entice with XP winnings. With each rank achieved, skins for weapons and specialists, goodies such as profile backgrounds and weapon pimping, and also the new weapons themselves are waiting for you.
Don’t worry: all gameplay-relevant items, in this case the two new weapons, are free to play. A few skins and goodies are also free. But only those who buy the pass or already own it as part of an edition will get all the content on offer.
We have spotted a few more colourful skins in the Battle Pass for Battlefield 2042. But most of it looks rather tactical and military. So there is no sign of Santa Boris and Co., which should satisfy worried leathernecks. It remains to be seen what the purchasable skins in the ingame shop will look like.
Editorial conclusion
Well, this is it, the first season. I really liked the new map Exposure. Especially because a certain Battlefield 3 feeling quickly spread. At first I was worried about the new helicopters. Aren’t they too powerful when you already often have the feeling that flying machines dominate the battlefields?
But then I played as Lis and chased the flying monsters with the TV rocket launcher. That’s when I became more confident again that you can definitely have a lot of fun with Season 1.
If it weren’t for the downer: one new map and one specialist, that’s really manageable. At least reworks for the existing maps are still to come. But two new weapons in a Battlefield that started out with a historically low weapon selection are simply far too few.
It is possible that weapons from Portal will follow, but DICE has not confirmed this. With this cadence, I fear that Battlefield 2042 will have its problems keeping players interested long enough.
