"I hope not", "Nope, not until its stabilised", "Maybe when it drops to around 1K" and even "First let 2021 finish bro" are the responses to "Are any of you playing Battlefield 2042?". Pictures with text superimposed on them, known in the classical 4Chan circles as "Image Macros" and by the rest of the interwebs as "memes" are sent, along with YouTube videos of gamers swearing and laughing at bugs in the game. The reactions are not surprising, considering the title has been review bombed on Steam.
Playing a squad-based tactical shooter is no fun without a squad. Chances of survival improve considerably with gamers who have mechanical keyboards and Razer mice, with Battlefield 3, Ghost Recon Phantoms and the Sniper Elite titles on their resumes. Even better, if they tend to set up private servers running Urban Terror or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. Winning with a known squad, while playing with voice chat is fun. But that is an experience denied until Battlefield 2042 is available on Gamepass or EA Play and gets a price drop, so at the moment it is Plan B, which is play with PUGs or Pick-Up Groups and hope for the best.
But first, it is necessary to wade through dependency hell to even start up the game. Origin is unpleasant. Thankfully, it has stopped downloading the same 74 MB update, but unthankfully NFS World is no longer available on it. There are two reasons to use Origin: Apex Legends, and now Battlefield 2042, but the latter is available on Steam as well. When in doubt, blame Origin. Battlefield 2042 just refused to start even though it showed that it was playable mid way through the download, and even after the download, the client just quietly shut down. It was necessary to "troubleshoot". This involved updating all the drivers, and the NVidia Gaming drivers, both x86 and x64 versions of Visual C++ Redistributable from a number of years, and uninstalling and reinstalling these till it felt like a Windows 10 machine was a Loonix box. It "works" on arcane magic.
Help? Please? (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
The game starts with flashes of a dystopian future, of a world thrown into chaos because of global warming and extreme weather events. Glitches are an aesthetic, which makes it really hard to figure out whether something is a bug or a feature. Because of the journey through dependency hell, it was only possible to get into the game after DICE released a patch to stabilise the game, and squashed some of the bugs that were making it a frustrating experience for gamers. At this point, the game cannot be characterised as "unstable" or "buggy" and there were just two glitches in about 10 hours of gameplay, which was the interface for a map not loading, and a soldier's face jumping forwards and backwards while alighting from the copter at the start of a match. Anyway, it's time to finally jump into the game.
This is not the future of climate change though, forget about the forest fires, heatwaves, floods and heavy snowfall. Battlefield 2042 cherry-picks three meteorological phenomena that have a dramatic effect on the action, sandstorms, regular storms and tornados. The science is actually not that clear on the last, global warming may actually end up suppressing tornados. There was what appeared to be a satellite for seeding storms (maybe the increased cloud cover is meant to bounce off more sunlight), but we never see it again and are not sure how it plays into the game. In the end climate change is just a convenient excuse to bring dynamic weather events into the game, and well, we will just accept that without thinking too much about it.
The continent is burning? Don't worry, it's not actually in game. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
This is not the future of politics. We are not going to end up in a world where Russia and the US are the only remaining global superpowers, come on, China is not going to fizzle out in a cloud of self destructive pollution. Technology, networking, information and even culture are all going to be sources of power. We are going to have more state actors than just two, and we can expect virtual superpowers as well as small independent and globally influential communities.
Perhaps the convenient political prognostication is the most unrealistic and unbelievable aspect of Battlefield 2042's "story", providing players with zero motivation as a no-pat to have any allegiance to any side. It would have been too complex and too nuanced to realistically explore the politics of the 2040s in a game such as this, so we are surprised that they even tried. In any case, it just does not matter, as that is not what the game is really about, so we are just going to go ahead and ignore it, and talk about the gunplay.
Navin Rao, roleplaying Robin Hood in a hopefully cashless economy, using wearables with wires. (Image credit: DICE/EA)
This is not the future of warfare. There are drones but no drone swarms. The robot dogs do not evacuate the wounded from the battlefield, or lug around equipment, which is also what they are primarily designed for. The tanks do not play a central role in the battlefield, and neither should they, or the game would be World of Tanks. The hovercrafts, aircraft and armoured vehicles are not autonomous. These are not futuristic technologies, they all already exist. It requires some concentrated effort at suspension of disbelief for any brain with more than four neurons. This terribly convenient narrative is always lurking in the background, and there is just so much effort put into it, but it is difficult to consume. There is a podcast, and a short film as well, although there is no comic book, yet.
This is not the future, but it is Battlefield, and that is what gamers expect. Senseless as it is that soldiers without bionic implants, augmented reality and brain-computer interfaces are on the frontlines in 2042, it's what makes this "futuristic" game fun. All the one dimensional world building is geared towards the convenient choices to make the core gameplay more interesting, and it is all acceptable because the gameplay is just so good.
Battlefield 2042 is incredibly impressive and sophisticated on a technological level. The maps are sprawling, to accommodate the 128 players on crossplay. PC and console players are all thrown into the same map, but the generous aim assist means that the PC players are not at all at an advantage. Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC players can all play with each other. If you have an Xbox One or a PS4, no dice for you, the maps are capped at 64 players, but there is crossplay between the two consoles.
Aim assist is to blame. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
The dynamic weather events are impressive, at least when it comes to visuals. The tornados ripping off trees, making vehicles explode, taking debris and combatants into the air really makes players instinctively rush indoors for protection. If a sandstorm washes over a location, the slight adjustments to character movements, the dulling of the sounds, and the drop in visibility all make it a visceral experience, easily extending beyond the screen. The developers get this part right.
There is no single player mode. There are PVE maps, which pits humans against bots, but that mode is just empty most of the time, and not worth bothering with. PVP is of course where all the action is, but the matchmaking is problematic there as well. One of the crippling problems of Battlefield 2042 right now, is that there are simply not as many gamers playing the game. Crossplay does not solve the problem, which is made worse by the size of the maps. Strangely enough, there is an additional waiting period even after the matchmaking countdown runs out and the game "starts". New players can be made squad leaders, and they might not know how to use the drones, or worse, mismanage the spawn beacon.
Oops. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
The All-Out-War mode is the boosted Battlefield experience, with the larger maps and player count. Each of the maps have a distinct character, and are better designed than what the series had to offer so far. Renewal is half garden and half desert with a wall between the two zones. The Alang shipbreaking yard in Gujarat gets a map, with the local houses forming a somewhat safer refuges when the storm rolls in.
Kaleidoscope is beautiful enough to be distracting. The textures in the game are all better than the underlying 3D models, or maybe it is RTX On. The capture points in Orbital are the various facilities at the Kourou launchpad, with the capture points being various equipment related to rocketry. At times, players may find themselves making incredibly long treks to head to the action, but this problem is somewhat mitigated with drivable civilian vehicles strewn around. Opting for these can be risky though, as they are unarmored, but the game makes up for this by making them fast and manoeuvrable.
Unfortunately the buildings do not have destructible portions, like Battlefield 3. The glass panels are about the only parts of buildings that break, and there are many of these. The maps also all have ziplines and hanging cables for additional vertical and a limited amount of strategic horizontal mobility. There are also crates and towers in every map for the benefit of the snipers. There are very few nooks and hidey holes that players can camp at while not leaving your six exposed, so they are all designed very well.
Camping is so hard. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
The class system takes a while to get used to, but is incredibly versatile once you get the hang of it. For a player character, gamers have to choose a Specialist, with unique abilities. The Specialists are sorted into the four classic classes, Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. This however, does not matter so much because you also have loadouts, which you can set up before the game and choose at every spawn. There are four loudout types by default for Assault, Medic, Engineer and Sniper, but players can add their own custom loadouts as well. Within each loadout, it is possible to choose the secondary, primary, a gadget and a throwable.
Although there is some synergy between the loadout and the class, this is by no means restrictive, and in fact invites players to discover new playstyles, as well as find a setup that they are most comfortable with. Specialists and items are unlocked as you progress, but the early ones are actually the coolest and the simplest to play. Dozer has a shield that you can throw up to reduce damage from incoming fire. Sundance, perhaps the best of the lot, has a wingsuit. This allows players to jump off from a vantage point, and glide into the action. There are some players who are very good at using the regular old parachute over short distances, for much the same purposes though.
Do not try this, or you will end up like the in-game screenshots. (Image credit: DICE/EA)
Boris has a handy deployable turret, and Webster has a cool grappling hook that lets you quickly scale the crates, towers, cranes or buildings, without having to find dangling wires to scale. Using Webster in tandem with the parachute gives players incredible mobility, and there are those whos scurry around the map really well. Watch out for Websters who know what they are doing, they tend to be the bane of campers and the most dangerous specialists on the map, seemingly coming out of nowhere and disappearing as quickly even when surrounded by enemies.
It takes a while to settle on a Specialist and loadout that is suitable to your play style, but things click, each match becomes increasingly more fun. If and when a particular Specialist gets boring, there is always another one waiting to be mastered.
Not a glitch, it's art. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
Hazard Zone, if you are lucky enough to find enough people to play with, involves a race against competing squads to retrieve intel, which is on hard drives, which are in crashed satellites. Surprisingly, the satellites are crashing all over the place because of a very plausible Kessler cascade, and not a space tornado. Playing against the squads are AI soldiers, who just are out to kill any no-pat looking to grab the intel. The object of the game is to get the intel and extract with the helicopters, that will just take in any squad that reaches it first. There are two extraction opportunities in a game, and it is a race against time, as well as the other squads to get to the copters, particularly the second one.
Now, all the intel gathered by everyone in the squad counts towards the squad's total. Collecting intel earns players "Black Market Credits", which can be used to buy weapons and upgrades. Die and the credits poof, win and you get a few upgrades. This is a mechanic that is incredibly hard to implement, giving the losing squads a fighting chance while balancing out with a meaningful reward for the winners. One of the few games that manages to do this well is the esoteric Neotokyo.
In most games and in Battlefield 2042, Levolution just ends up in the first squad to win being more likely to win all the subsequent rounds as well. In theory, it seems like fun, but in practice, it is tough to even get started, and is punishing for uncoordinated squads. The matchmaking queues are particularly lengthy in this mode, and more often than not results in players bailing after waiting around awkwardly in the lobbies, till everyone runs out of patience and finds something else to do.
The Portal mode is a bit of a surprise, and really rewarding, especially for long term fans of the franchise, as well as those who like to host private games. The servers are hosted for you, there is no need to run it off your own machine, or buy external servers, which is really awesome. Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 1942 are all included within 2042! There are two maps from from each of the games, Battle of the Bulge and El Alamein from 1942, Caspian Border and Noshahr canals from Battlefield 3, and Arica Harbor and Valparaiso from Bad Company 2. We hope to see some fan favorites such as Metro and Stalingrad added in the future.
The Portal mode allows for exhaustive finetuning of all the parameters of the gameplay. It is a such a complex system that the setup occurs on its own website, not even within the game. You can boost up the headshot damage multiplier, turn friendly fire on or off, and most rewarding of all, turn off aim assist for the console players. The system allows you to come up with some pretty advanced rules, and is kind of an integrated modding system for the game. This is pretty advanced, and can take a while to get into. The community has come up with some really fun game modes, which the developers surface and showcase. It is also possible to favourite the servers that you like, to get back in to later. The Portal mode allows you to gain XP and win badges.
There is a featured event in the Portal mode that is usually the most fun mode in the game. This is community made content integrated into the game, and it is not surprising at all that it also tends to be the mode with the most players. In fact, at any given time you are more likely to run into more players in the featured event in the Portal mode, than any of the other modes in the game.
Don't get fooled by the pretty boxes, I'm still dead. (Image credit: Portal)
It may just be that the Portal mode is so much fun, that most of the players are seen in this mode only. The matchmaking queues are the shortest, and this mode alone without the rest of the game can be considered a winner. It is rewarding to play even with PUGs. In every mode, instead of just showing the leaderboards, every player's contributions are displayed, with stats noting that player's contribution, so that maybe most vehicle takedowns, most assists, most revives and so on. The early and at times unearned rewards do work at keeping you motivated to play more. The game does a pretty good job at making you feel like you have achieved something even if the team wins 20 seconds after you spawn.
20 seconds well spent. (Image credit: In-game screenshot)
The more games you play the more fun it gets, and hopefully, with downstream patches, updates and hopefully, price drops, Battlefield 2042 can only get better from here.
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