![]() So far, I like to bless my crew with intel from a spotting drone and transparent fortifications to hide behind. Give me something useful and I'll want to use it, and that's how the new specialist gadgets encourage squad play for me. I gave up on playing Battlefield 5 with friends because we always ended up on opposite ends of the map, but in Battlefield 2042 I've been able to get a much more productive rhythm going with squadmates. When I'm in a semi-coordinated squad talking on Discord (there's no built-in VOIP at launch, not that I'd use it over Discord anyway), I can better appreciate the reasoning behind the decision. It's basic, but making personal stat numbers go up is a powerful intoxicant. Instead, you get a squad-centric view that emphasizes cooperation and doesn't reveal death counts. It's without a traditional scoreboard where you can see how you stack up against your teammates and enemies. It feels odd, then, for Battlefield 2042 to present itself as more team-focused than its predecessors. Winning as a team in Conquest often feels like a secondary goal in Battlefield games, and that's even more true here. Entirely separate war stories were playing out over at the rocket launch pad while I was repeatedly dying on a grassy hill, for all I knew. I can easily spend an entire match duking it out in a single sector. However, points can now appear in clusters of two or three, forming sectors that give some structure to the giant maps. In Conquest, two 64-player teams compete to capture and hold control points the same way they have for 20 years, by standing near a flag until it changes color. Some of these regressions are disappointing, but I can't think of a better reason for a Battlefield game to make sacrifices than in the name of largeness. ![]() On the old maps that have been remade beautifully for Portal, such as Battlefield 1942's Battle of the Bulge and Battlefield Bad Company 2's Valparaiso, tanks can blow big holes in the sides of buildings, but Battlefield 2042's new maps protect what little cover there is by making most buildings indestructible. Battlefield 2042's skyscrapers and facilities aren't nearly as detailed or characterful as Battlefield 1's French chateau or the grand St Lawrence church in Battlefield 5. ![]() That also means that the maps have returned to a cruder form than we were getting from the 64-player maps DICE has spent nearly 20 years designing. Some of the awe I felt when I first played Battlefield 1942 is recaptured here. Squad and vehicle spawning took a lot of the cardio out of the Battlefield series, and sometimes I want to take a break from shooting and spend a moment feeling surprised by the knowledge that the little dots running around on top of a distant skyscraper are other players. The new vehicle call-in system makes it hard to become truly stranded-on a cooldown, you can ask what I presume is an orbital parking garage to drop a ride-but long treks through uncontested territory can happen if you accidentally spawn on an AFK squadmate. In infantry warfare terms, though, the gorgeous vistas equate to large tracts of mud, grass, or sand filling the space between landmarks, sometimes without much cover. When I was first caught in a dust storm on Hourglass, set in Qatar, I felt sympathetically short of breath and worried I'd overlooked some kind of gas mask item. One map is half desert and half agriculture, split down the middle by a wall, another takes place around an Antarctic oil rig.Įven on medium settings, which I'm using to hover at 80 to 100 fps on my RTX 2070 Super, Battlefield's sunlight and atmospheric effects remain uncannily good. The gist is that we're "No-Pats," a made-up word for stateless mercenaries who are fighting for the US and Russia across a series of climate change flashpoints. Most of the time I've forgotten that there's a fictional war going on at all, and then a Russian voice will mention Western imperialism and it'll briefly drift into focus. Battlefield 2042 leans hard into its climate disaster mood.Īnd yet the world of 2042 has all the presence of an eye floater. The menu and microtransaction hygiene is largely a good thing, though it comes off a little icy, and the unsettling musical hits-no inspiring horns here, just ominous pings-aren't inviting. The only extra EA is selling right now is a year-long pass that promises four new specialists who'll bring exclusive gadgets and perks to the battle. There are fewer unlockable guns than usual (although I'll still never use some of them), simpler progression systems, and no battle pass. Outside of the granular accessibility and graphics settings, the menus feel sparse. There's a lot to experience in Battlefield 2042, but it feels like Swedish minimalism has won a victory here.
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