Battlefield™ 2042

Review

I consider myself as one of the biggest fans of the Battlefield series, as I have owned all the games since 1942 came out in 2003. I actually topped the game leaderboard of Battlefield Vietnam for a few weeks until my best mate (boyscout) took 3 weeks off work to become the unbeatable number one for many weeks. Then came Battlefield 2, which was excellent, followed by Battlefield 2142, which was nothing special, and I remembered thinking, should I buy the next game of the series. Battlefield Bad Company and Bad Company 2 were next, and they were super fun. After that, battlefield 3 was one of my favourite games of the series, and I clocked over 700 hours of playtime. Then came Battlefield 4, which was so terrible that I quit within 10 hours of playtime and considered it the worst game of the entire series . . . until Hardline came out; a game to forget! And guess what, Battlefield 1 was just stunning, and I clocked nearly 400 hours on that one, too, as well as Battlefield 5.  So, how does Battlefield 2042 stand out for me?

Battlefield 2042 is an online/multiplayer first-person shooter developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts on the 19 of November 2021. The game is available on the Origin Store, Steam store, Epic store, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 and 5.

Wow, I thought that Battlefield 4 and Hardline were at the bottom of the barrel, but to my unexpected surprise, 2042 dropped through the last layer of the barrel. Now, there is some cool stuff in this game, but the overwhelming issues since the launch of the game are just alarming, and to be totally blunt, it should not have been released at all in that current state, especially when you charge people $110 AUD to have the privilege to play the game a week before the release date. All they have done is to ask consumers to pay extra money to extend their Online Beta status until the release date.

What about cross-play? Yes, it is a good idea as long as it is for console only! Don’t get me wrong; it is super fun to play with both of my sons, who own PlayStation 5 consoles. But you can tell it is not as smooth as it should be. And to be honest, I am sick and tired of seeing characters executing a frozen Mario jump as they move throughout the entire map; it’s just crazy! Lag is also an omnipresent issue, but it’s much better if you disable the cross-play option.

In terms of weapons, well, if we go to war in the next 2 decades, we might seriously think about revisiting the entire World War II arsenal; it seems that they had more weapons than we are going to have in the next 2 decades.

Talking about vehicles, forget about the tanks and helicopters, as the manoeuvrability is horrible. The vehicle of future warfare is the hovercraft! They are super resistant, climb high-risers vertically but are also terrible to steer. To their credit, the developers updated a few of these issues in the last patch, which was pushed out a few days ago.

Glitches abound in Battlefield 2042; not only do my fallen characters seem to have some sort of Parkinson’s attack after death, but most of the time they either get stuck, they fly, or they fall through the maps. No leader board, no classes, you could not even select your loadout or spawn on your team leader or areas you hold. These last two points were rectified in the most recent update. There are no game lobbies like the previous title of the series, and each time you finish a game, you get back to the main lobby to find a new game which, thank God, doesn’t take too long to find.

The game does have the feel of Battlefield gameplay, and I do enjoy that. I like how you can modify your weapons while playing, which is definitely a plus. Yes, you have specialists with unique abilities, but I would rather have classes. In terms of maps, they are pretty good in terms of design and very large.

The portal setup is a good idea, but even that is not doing very well as most of the servers are half empty.

People who played some of the previous battlefield games might suggest that the game will be better in a year or two down the track after being patched many times over. I haven’t seen anything as poor as this since Battlefield 4 and Hardline. I am even thinking they are taking their fans for granted, and it shows with the overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam alone.  

I have no doubt that they will patch the game and that it will be decent in the end and be worthy of being part of the series, but I feel it will be too, too late. In my case, I will have a few games with my boys here and there, but no more than that. And I’ll think at least 100 times before I purchase any new Battlefield games.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

Battlefield™ 2042 Origin Store Page