Battlefield 2042 ate a lot of shit at startupand rightly so, because for a game that claims to launch as a premium shooter at a premium price, it certainly came out undercooked.
However, most people just said the game was “bad”, which I’ve always claimed wasn’t entirely true, because a lot of what was there was actually fine, just released in a sparse and unfinished state. With some work – the kind of work that DICE would afford with an extra year, and without the pressure of having to release an unfinished game in the middle of a pandemic to keep EA’s executives and investors happy – I definitely had hope that the game could afford one day to turn out better as well. Good even.
Now that we have two major seasonal updates for the life of the game, I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but you can definitely see Good on the horizon. The major additions to the game like new maps, weapons and specialists have of course helped to complete the experience, but the seemingly endless quality of life improvements made to every other corner of the game, from menus to icons, do just as much Work.
So much of the game’s early criticism focused on how raw the game was, it seemed like it was missing so much of what made previous games better. Stuff like scoreboards and lifetime statistics. Stuff that is in play now. It also felt a bit empty and vague, like some maps being held together by a handful of broken menu screens. That’s fixed now too. Battlefield 2042 at last feels more like a coherent, functional video game, instead of a series of cards held together with tape.
Everything feels more rounded, more at home in the world DICE has created for this iteration of the series. After some nips and tucks, the Specialists now look as serious as the climate-crushed maps they’re fighting overand the maps begin to build enough volume and consistency to fill them world itself also out.
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Basically, there’s enough polish and content here that you’ve had This in October 2021 instead of what was actually thrown out the door, you might have just thought, OK, that’s the new thing battlefield
In fact, things are coming together so well – albeit slowly – that I think once we have 1-2 more new maps, maybe the same number of specialists, a few more weapons (sniper rifles have been largely ignored since launch) and the process of Rework of starting cards is complete (DICE go back and mod many of them out and adding more terrain and detail), I think “Good” is definitely within reach of this game.
We didn’t just magically get to this point, of course, when Most of the game’s updates have come in the form of the first two seasons. I’ve already covered Season 01, which was surprisingly fun
Sitting somewhere between the LATV4 and the Wildcat in terms of speed, protection, and firepower, the new armored vehicle was a blast to ride, and with its passenger capacity and ability to drop spawn points, it’s already a scout player’s favorite. Crawford, the new Specialist, has a mobile minigun turret that’s as silly and fun to use as it sounds. However, the best part of Season 02 is the new map, which I stumbled upon at first glance, but which is actually just three long “lanes” (a desert area for vehicles, a ship interior for up-close infantry bloodbaths, and a paradise for snipers between some palm trees), which offers three completely different playstyles, all within a short run away.
So yes, both Battlefield 2042 The seasons have been great and brought life to a game that many would have thought Dead On Arrival would have made. However, remember: AAA games, especially stubborn online games like this one, are usually too big to fail, for better or worseand 2042 slow improvement after such a disastrous release is the latest example of this.
