DICE, stop killing the series! Battlefield 2042 review

After Battlefield 4, released in 2013, everything went downhill for the Swedish studio DICE. The previous project even seemed to drive the final nail into the coffin. But then the developers introduced a new entry – Battlefield 2042. Remember that cool reveal trailer with a tornado and destroying a jet with a rocket launcher? Well, that was all fiction. There is no fun and no return to roots in the game.

We won’t explain what Battlefield 2042 is and what the main premise of the local “plot” is. There is no campaign in the game, and all the information dumped onto the player’s head serves merely to create set dressing. We will talk about specific issues of the new project from DICE to save you from buying it.

Technical state

Let's start right away with the most painful topic for any modern AAA project.

Battlefield 2042 launched terribly. Early access opened on November 12 and crashed the servers for several hours – playing was impossible. Was DICE really so unprepared for the early access launch for people who bought the 8,000 ruble edition? Yes, exactly so. Even on November 13, the servers kept crashing for hours, and then occasionally let players in only to throw the “2002G” error. 

Another day later, there were no connection errors, but connection issues remained. During gameplay, characters could teleport across the map, preventing them from reaching their objective. Shooting suffered from delay, and some control keys refused to work altogether. But that could be fixed! By blowing yourself up with a grenade. And after respawning, everything was great again.

The only thing more infuriating than this is the broken hit registration on enemies. This is especially noticeable when playing as a sniper, when you’ve already zeroed in and know the bullet trajectory precisely. Yet once again it flies right past, and a puff of dust rises right behind the enemy. 

If you suddenly notice that all players simply run past when you’re downed – don’t be mad at them. The problem is that reviving sometimes doesn’t work or doesn’t show up as an available action. Revives reset, players fall through the ground, and picking up a teammate becomes impossible.

And how could we forget minor flaws? Playing as a sniper, I repeatedly encountered broken optics after being revived. This is also fixed by the player – switching scopes using the new feature of on-the-fly weapon attachments during a match. Which nobody ever uses, since you can configure your gun in advance in the menu to your liking. 

On an HDD, Battlefield 2042 runs simply terribly. Yes, we are in next-gen territory and SSDs are the standard, but on a hard drive, the game doesn't even immediately load environment textures, weapons, and other players. In addition, note that the system requirements do not state SSD recommendations. But on such drives, loading stutter issues vanish immediately.

Game modes

Moving on to the most important thing in Battlefield 2042 – the battle types. There are genuinely plenty of them here to suit any taste, but only some of them can be played comfortably. Let’s take things in order.

Core

The main modes, the backbone of the new Battlefield, are “Conquest” and “Breakthrough”. In the first, logically, you need to capture points, and in the second – hold off the enemy or attack points, just like back in “Rush” from Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Is it entertaining? Yes, for a while and on certain maps. With the rest, however, there are major problems and it feels like no one balanced them at all.

For example, the winter map in “Conquest”. Who thought of placing the closest point to the US (E1) on a mountain, where players will spend more time climbing up than running to the next point (C1)? Plus, driving down from it takes about a minute in a vehicle and about 5 minutes of real time on foot. Meanwhile, for the Russian side, all points are located almost next to their base and all they have to do is just walk along the path. By the time the US reaches the enemy, Russia already holds an advantage of three or four points. Balance!

“Breakthrough” seems like the most fun of all currently existing modes. If there were an option to play it without vehicles, infantry-only – it would be the best mode available. But omnipresent tanks, helicopters, and crazy motorized hovercrafts kill all the fun of capturing another point. Yes, you can counter them, but it requires coordination, and in the current state of things, it’s easier for players to just respawn and run back into the fight than replace useful gadgets with rocket launchers.  

By the way, no Levolution (dynamic level changes during a match) was ever noticed. The rocket never launched, the tornado never carried away cars and chunks of buildings. The only map change is rain reducing visibility. This is the biggest disappointment of the new Battlefield 2042, because we were promised real weather effects on maps, but in reality, there are none.

Hazard Zone

A mode where players have to gather data drives, fight other players and bots, and then extract on a helicopter. Only one squad can do this at one of two available extractions – everyone else loses. Yes, the concept itself is much more interesting than a typical battle royale, but the execution and the essence of the mode fall flat.

Imagine that in all these circumstances, a battle takes place where one mistake can cost your squad the match. Can you picture it? That is Hazard Zone, which is recommended to be played ONLY with a squad of friends. Winning with random players happens 1 out of 10 matches – mostly they scatter across different points, don’t ping data drives, and don’t spot enemies. The lack of voice chat, done so nobody gets offended, only makes things worse.

Bugs are present too. It was very unpleasant instead of spawning on the map to jump out of the helicopter and die by crashing into some tree stump. And then my squad had to look for an uplink laptop and redeploy me instead of completing the mode’s main objective. All I could do was sit and watch as random matchmade teammates tried to save me and died under enemy fire.

Portal

Yet in this barrel of tar, there was a spoonful of honey – Battlefield Portal. Or rather, only a part of this mode is good. Players are allowed to battle in Battlefield 1942, Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3 inside Battlefield 2042. 

Battlefield 1942 suffers from huge maps and an incredibly fast time to kill – running to a point takes 5–7 minutes of real time, then the player gets wiped out by a rocket launcher or gunned down with an SMG, and after that, you have to run in line to the points all over again. There are two choices: either play as a sniper and lie down on high ground trying to pick off another frenzied warrior with a rocket launcher, or keep running to the points and dying over and over.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 and the “Rush” mode are the best things in Portal right now. The exact same gameplay, the exact same maps, building destruction familiar from thousands of hours, and weapon handling. But the problem is that you can play BC2 without buying Battlefield 2042 – the servers are still very much alive, and the enjoyment is exactly the same.

On the other hand, DICE broke Battlefield 3 in Portal mode. The overly colorful picture ruins any attempt to spot an enemy against dense foliage or numerous structures. “Noshahr Canals” with the current color palette is simply unplayable – an enemy can hide in any relatively light or dark spot and then flank you. The way out is not to rush in, but hide and pick off enemies from afar. In the original, this wasn’t the case, and you could clearly tell where an enemy was versus a tree stump in Caspian Border’s forest or a concrete slab at the Canals dock.

What’s more, Portal mode doesn’t let you level up weapons for the core modes; it only grants account XP. If you want to play with good attachments in Conquest or Breakthrough, you have to stick strictly to them and Hazard Zone, playing on the very same maps.

Specialists and progression

Speaking of leveling up, we can’t overlook Battlefield 2042’s new feature – specialists. There are 10 of them to choose from, two of which unlock only after reaching a certain level. But most of them are useless. Irish with his shields is barely needed anywhere, Dozer has virtually no extra abilities and his increased blast resistance looks laughable, while Casper with his drone very rarely manages to provide any real advantage. 

The most versatile fighter is Dr. Falck, who can be given a sniper rifle, an ammo crate, and sent out to wipe out other snipers or enemy soldiers. She is her own medic, support, and sniper with enemy spotting all in one.

The most unbalanced specialist right now is the non-binary transgender Sundance. They have 4 types of grenades at their disposal, wiping out not only infantry but vehicles as well. In 80% of cases, it’s this character that will take you down on the battlefield.

Diagnosis

If you are a longtime fan of the Battlefield series and thought DICE brought back the days of Battlefield 3 and 4 – that’s a mistake and merely marketing bait. A couple of maps, a cut-down weapon count, bad connection and completely busted hit registration, unbalanced maps, only two core modes, and a dozen other issues – that’s what Battlefield 2042 is. Both EA and DICE should be ashamed of releasing such a product at full price in 2021.

Yes, there is the promising Hazard Zone and a partial remake of Bad Company 2, but that doesn't change the fact that everything else in the game is bad. An unbalanced non-binary specialist, an all-rounder doctor, and Boris with his turrets – that’s who rules the main modes, while the rest are simply useless. And the lack of regular vehicle-free Team Deathmatch is baffling – what was the problem with adding such a mode? Buying a new entry just to play “remasters” of old games is a dubious venture that will hardly pay off the spent 3,500 rubles – even emotionally.

Pros

• “Remaster” of Bad Company 2 inside Portal mode

Cons

• Server issues and broken hit registration
• Only 2 core modes
• Few maps, and they are unbalanced
• Few weapons
• Hazard Zone is not for solo players – it’s tough without voice chat
• Useless specialists
• No Team Deathmatch modes without vehicles
• Boring Battlefield 1942 and “broken” Battlefield 3 in Portal mode
• Lack of levolution
• Bugs