After a disastrous start and months of treading water the besieged Battlefield 2042 had its first major update last week with the launch of Season Onein which the game received its first new map, weapon, vehicle, and specialist since its release eight months ago.
That doesn’t sound like much, and let’s be clear here at the top: it is not. It’s a poor offering for a game that needs it so much more – especially considering this series has released multiple maps, weapons, and vehicles with big updates like this one in the past – and has done little to change outsiders’ perception that DICE and EA massively hit the ball here have lost.
Unhelpful were technical issues plaguing the launch of Season One, that DICE tried to fix, screwed up, and then made things worse. It took me days to reliably join servers and stay connected, which is a big reason I’m writing these impressions later than what you might have read or seen elsewhere.
And yet! Those cursed to play and keep playing Battlefield 2042 regularly since the start—and I am doomed to belong to that number– finally had something to enjoy this week. Because while the update contained very little, what it introduced was fantastic and a rare bright spot for a community that has known little but suffered over the past eight months.
G/O Media may receive a commission
The new specialist Lis is equipped with a rocket launcher, which players can control via a small TV screen after launch. It’s hugely overpowered at the moment when it comes to ground vehicles, but it’s also really fun to use, so there’s some balancing work to be done there. Overall, though, it’s good, and happens to come at a time when the Specialist’s often-mocked post-game soundbites can be heard were taken out of the game saved them from ever becoming as notorious as certain other characters.
The new vehicle is a stealth helicopter, which one might think is characterized by the fact that it can activate a stealth mode It’s impossible for units to get a missile trap on it, but that’s notable because it can drop bombs like a B-17. It’s incredibly powerful in the hands of the experienced – I got absolutely wiped out in a tank by one of those things sneaking up on me – but also deeply funny to see if you’re playing as infantry.
However, it’s the new map that has the biggest impact. I haven’t seen them 2042 Community so happy … everbecause exposure came in and blew up every existing map in the game out of the water. It’s beautiful, it’s huge, but most importantly, it also has a variety of focal points and an abundance of infantry cover, two of the biggest criticisms of the launch map’s openness.
Joining the game’s bullet point additions are a number of smaller interface and UI tweaks that do little things like: B. Provide more context for things you’ve done in a round that earn XP and give you additional information about the server you’re on about to join, that kind of thing. Not headline-grabbing updates, but still welcome as part of the overall package.
These all come together to make 2042 Finally feeling… well, the game it could and should have been at release. That’s yet another damning indictment of how bad his release was, and despite my personal Stockholm Syndrome, I never want to make it sound like I think that’s okay. The fact that long-suffering fans are so excited for a game to par eight months after release says as much about this release as it does about the quality of the new content. IIt’s tragic that a series with such a strong and established history of making big updates to its seasonal content was able to offer so little this year.
But for now, for this week, I’m just happy to play a good map with some fun new stuff. I’m sure my long-standing concerns about the game will have enough time to circle around again over the course of the year.
