There have been a lot of rumours about whether Battlefield 2042 will get a Battle Royale with Hazard Zone. Now we know (almost) everything.
It’s such an irony that Hazard Zone – the final big mode of Battlefield 2042 – is all about grabbing secret documents. Because so much supposedly secret info about Hazard Zone was leaked in advance that there are actually no real surprises now. For the most part, the leaks were right.
Hazard Zone will indeed not be a Battle Royale, but in any case a legacy of the idea. Like in Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown, you have to grab a certain target on a large map with a four-man squad and make off with it. In theory, shooting down other teams is a minor matter; in practice, of course, you compete with the competition for the target.
But one rumour actually seems to turn out to be an air act: Hazard Zone will very likely not be free. And with that, the competition to CoD Warzone wobbles quite a bit. Let’s take a look.
Please show a trailer first
Okay, since you’re asking so nicely, of course we’ll start with an in-engine trailer, which at least gives you a good idea of the concept and mood of Hazard Zone:
DICE doesn’t give us any real gameplay from Hazard Zone in the trailer, but we already have plenty of information on how the mode works.
So how does Hazard Zone work?
Hazard Zone does not work like Warzone. There is neither one big map, nor 100 players, nor a gas circle that gets smaller and smaller. Instead, 32 people (or 24 people on PS4 and Xbox One) compete for secret documents – but you not only have to achieve your goals, you also have to leave the map in one piece with the loot. And it’s not just human adversaries who want to get at you. Let’s break down the facts.
- Hazard Zone shares the map pool with the other big mode All out Warfare. So there are seven maps at the launch of Battlefield 2042 where you can play Hazard Zone: Kaleidoscope, Manifest, Orbital, Discarded, Renewal, Hourglass and Breakaway.
- Player count is 32 people on PC, as mentioned. At launch there will only be four-player squads, we don’t yet know whether duos, trios or solos will be possible at a later date.
- Each team member embodies a specialist. Unlike in All Out Warfare, each specialist can only be chosen once. This should ensure tactical diversity: If you take Boris and Irish, for example, you can entrench yourself extremely well thanks to the turret, but lose out in terms of mobility against teams with grappling hook Mackay.
- You can set your loadout before the match, so you don’t have to collect everything on the map itself like in Battle Royale.
- As soon as a match starts you can see the rough location of the valuable Intel targets via scanner like with Hunt: Showdown’s Shadow View. There are several data packets – and you can collect as many as you like until the match ends.
- On the way to the goal you will encounter both enemy players and so-called occupying forces, i.e. AI enemies.
- There are two times when an extraction is possible: around the middle of the match and towards the end. Teams should coordinate how risk-friendly they play, because if you miss the last extraction, you lose everything.
And what do I get out of winning matches?
When you bring the loot home, you will receive experience points that will also unlock the regular multiplayer modes – and you will receive so-called Dark Market Credits. You can use these to buy new weapons, gadgets and the like between missions to put together your desired loadout for the next round of Hazard Zone. So here too: as with Hunt and Tarkov.
What happens when I die?
We can’t answer that in terms of life, as the world’s religions have different concepts, but in Hazard Zone you can crawl to safety if you get shot down. Ideally, your colleagues will then revive you. As in Apex, however, enemy teams can finish you off on the ground.
But there is a counter for that too: If you pack a special gadget in the loadout, you can also call permanently dead team members back into the match.
Will Battlefield 2042 be good?
The beta for Battlefield 2042 caused controversial reactions. But until its release on 19 November 2021, DICE urgently needs to fix bugs and balancing problems. While the beta offered an outdated image according to the developer, a recent report claims the opposite. In detail.
By the way, your community feedback on Battlefield 2042 is currently rather mixed. We will of course keep you up to date on all developments of Hazard Zone – it is not long until the launch.
