Battlefield 2042 had a disastrous launch. But after three seasons, DICE has turned a lot of screws. Is that enough for the upgrade?
There was no bigger disappointment for me in 2021 than Battlefield 2042. This game was the chosen one after all! It was going to balance the force and get my circle of friends through the second pandemic winter, entertain every after-work, modern-military popcorn fireworks that reignited the charm of Battlefield 3 and 4 ten years later!
Instead, the thing ran bumpier than Deutsche Bahn at release. It was a Battlefield that wanted everything but couldn’t really do anything; a bit of Tarkov here, a bit of community editor there, there were tornadoes, gigantic maps for 128 people, but almost nowhere the Battlefield experience everyone had been looking for. The player numbers collapsed, even Battlefield 5 was played more, you probably know all the jokes by now.
The fact that the first season was delayed for six (!) months seemed to me to be the final death sentence for Battlefield 2042. But one year later, the stumbling shooter is still alive – and has been fighting its way out of the hole it dug itself for three seasons!
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Battlefield 2022: What has happened in 12 months?
After release in late 2021, Battlefield 2042 went through a clear cut. DICE threw everything overboard that didn’t work. The big Breakthrough mode was shaved down from 128 to 64 players, Tarkov competitor Hazard Zone got the Sparflame programme: You can still play it, but there have been no updates or expansions since release.
On the one hand, of course, this speaks against the half-baked idea of launching this mode in the first place, but on the other hand, it’s exactly the right decision! Battlefield 2042 only had one chance to survive at all: by focusing on what people buy Battlefield for.
Season 3 is also supposed to bring back the class system and rework more existing maps, but that’s future talk at this point. You can see all the planned content here:
All the important updates went into the big modes All-Out-Warfare and Breakthrough. Let’s summarise the most important innovations:
- (Season 1 (Zero Hour) brought the new big map Exposure in Canada, also Specialist Lis, whose anti-vehicle missile you can direct yourself with the mouse. The Zero Hour season also gave the game two new weapons – a crossbow and a DMR – new stealth helicopters and a smoke grenade launcher. In addition, the regular Battlefield map Kaleidoscope was fundamentally renovated and significantly improved as part of the first season.
- (Season 2 (Master of Arms) expanded the game with the very cool Panama map Stranded, where you fight over a giant shipwreck on a hill. The new specialist Crawford brings a deployable gun emplacement, the new RAM vehicle annoys infantry and vehicles alike. Oh, and there’s a new machine gun as well as a new assault rifle. In addition, the old map Renewal … renewed. He he.
- (Season 3 (Escalation) has just started in November 2022. Once again, Spearhead is a huge new map. Specialist Zain fires explosive projectiles that drive enemies out of cover. And the weapon pool is also increased with a new rail gun, a tactical shotgun and a silenced pistol.
Meanwhile, over the three seasons, guns from older Battlefield parts (that were stuck in the Portal editor) were regularly packed into the regular game. I now shoot with around 40 guns, so the original selection of 22 guns has almost doubled since release. But that’s where we’re already in the middle of the improvements.
What has been improved since the release of Battlefield 2042?
Let’s drive the elephant right out of the room. Or rather the giant stag beetle, because Battlefield 2042 is now largely rid of its bugs, glitches and performance problems. The game no longer crashes on me, people don’t drive up houses with hovercrafts (part of me misses this feature) – so overall Battlefield 2042 no longer justifies a downgrade.
A lot has also been done in terms of weapon balancing. On the battlefields, everyone no longer runs around with a submachine gun because it hits more accurately than an orbital laser, but the choice of weapons is distributed very healthily across all categories. Every sniper rifle, every assault rifle, every DMR and LMG can be played well depending on the situation and weapon attachment.
Naturally, there are stronger and weaker guns, but Battlefield 2042 hasn’t been defined by such a super tight Meta
for a long time as it was at release. The new season guns do tend to be a bit too strong (the brand new Rail Gun seems like quite the jack of all trades to me at the moment), but most of the inconsistencies will be patched out over time.
Battlefield 2042 plays smoother, I can see enemies better thanks to new colouring, I can check my stats in the scoreboard (signs and wonders still happen), the weapons shoot more balanced. But all this is of no use if the maps are boring.
Happily, DICE is noticeably learning from their own mistakes here. The three new maps play noticeably more fun than the original map pool. There is less open space, more cover options, hardly any unfair passages:
- Exposure works heavily with height differences. On the mountain plateau I fight for two facilities, in the mountain itself fierce positional battles break out – and while all the teams are busy there, my squad in the valley can conquer the unguarded points. The teams are constantly able to cross each other somewhere.
- Stranded is pretty symmetrical, sometimes I fight in a huge shipwreck, sometimes I conquer the points all around. Here too: lots of variety.
- In Spearhead you penetrate two huge weapons centres through ventilation shafts – or fight for survival outside in the fields.
The reworked old
maps Kaleidoscope and Renewal also play more tactically thanks to additional cover – however, here you also notice the limits of what Battlefield 2042 can even fix.
Where do problems remain in Battlefield 2042?
Battlefield 2042 will never be the best Battlefield – and for many fans, not even a very good one. What makes Battlefield Battlefield is far more than just big maps, lots of weapons, tanks and helicopters. Battlefield lives on teamwork, on decisions, on exciting trade-offs.
Do I play medic and give up a good weapon in order to heal my team? Is everyone on the team supplied with ammunition or should I change that? Which setup do I need to help my tank driver?
Yes, Battlefield always remained casual, but it offered depth. Even with the announced class system, Battlefield 2042 won’t match its predecessors here – I can predict that now:
I can coordinate cool manoeuvres with my squad via Discord, keep my colleague Johannes Rohe’s tank alive, fall into the enemy’s flank here and there; and this is exactly where Battlefield 2042 is now much better than at release.
But I don’t have to make any real sacrifices for my team. I run around the map as an assault rifle-medic supersoldier with smoke grenades and a sniper revolver, taking on three roles at once, while the game also doesn’t give me much insight into what tasks the rest of the team is tackling.
Squads still can’t be changed, the environments remain almost completely indestructible, and the matches play out uniformly in the long run. In addition, the old and new maps still lack atmospheric charm – everything remains sterile, bare, the interiors empty.
And then, in its worst moments, DICE demonstrates a stubborn resistance to obviously correct decisions: Why am I only allowed to play Conquest with 64 players every two weeks in a rotating playlist? Why do the devs still stick to the horrible 128-player concept, in which I never feel like I’m making any difference on the far-too-large maps?
Who is Battlefield 2042 worth playing for?
So anyone hoping that 2042 will suddenly play like Battlefield 5 with modern weapons after three seasons will unfortunately, unfortunately have to bite the bullet: it never will. Battlefield 2042 is simply not a classic Battlefield, the Specialists with their individual gadgets will remain and teamwork will never feel as good in the grand scheme of things as it did in its predecessor.
But Battlefield 2042 has its own strengths: it runs smoothly by now, every weapon is fun to use, the maps are quite well balanced and the interplay between vehicles, helicopters and infantry works. There’s a counter for every vehicle, a solution for every situation.
For example, if the enemy is defending a shipwreck in Breakthrough mode, my squad will take four Dozer shields to clear a path for the team. Or we sneak around the enemies and rattle in from behind with the LMG. Or we fog everything in and tick our way through the ranks with the MP.
As much as teamwork between 32 or 64 people is made more difficult: On a small scale with my after-work squad, I can always try out new manoeuvres, plan feints, try out loadouts – and this is where Battlefield 2042 feels really, really good.
Editor’s Verdict
You know what the ultimate accolade for Battlefield 2042 is? All year I’ve been looking forward to the release of CoD Modern Warfare 2 like a happy night-vision, absolutely willing to spend every spare minute with it after release. And yet I’m now playing the third season of Battlefield 2042! Sure, that’s largely due to CoD’s annoying crashes and bugs, but even regardless of that, the most problematic of all Battlefields occupies an extremely fun niche in my gaming life: that of the perfect after-work game.
With Battlefield 2042, I switch off. I call a few friends on Discord, we jump into the fray, sometimes driving tanks, sometimes storming enemy positions on foot, fooling around with vehicles, fogging campers on our own team so they can’t camp anymore … and all that is just fun. No sweatbox like in Call of Duty, no demanding risk management like in Hunt: Showdown (I love Hunt: Showdown), but just pretty, silly after-work multiplayer shooter entertainment.
You may now interject: Yes, if that’s what you want from a Battlefield, then good night. And you hit the nail on the head! If you’re looking for an outstanding Battlefield in 2042, you’ll only experience frustration – I’m done with that. But if you take the game for what it is, you can have a lot of fun with it. You just have to know what you’re looking for.
