Battlefield 2042

Few updates out now with the last week of Season 1 approaching. First time I've ever grinded out a full battle pass lol

Recent Dev update is here. (Includes some stuff about the Specialist revamp into a modified version of the old class system; also some details on the Renewal and Orbital map changes.)

Teaser lore for the new specialist Charlie Crawford.

And the Season 2 reveal should be in a couple of hours:

Hoping the new map's a good one. I'm basically just playing Exposure and the Kali revamp these days, would be nice to have something new.

I really loved the new map in season 1, but just 1 map didn't tempt me back to play for more than the couple of hours I put in when it first came out. Honestly, might have been better if they just said that they were stopping realeases and updates for a year or so and than do one big one with 6+ new maps and re-works of the old ones, rather than this drip feed.

Even better would be ditching seasons altogether and going back to expansions. I welcomed the move away from them initially, but it is clear that we don't get anywhere near the content from this post release support now and the expansion content before was generally higher quality (using BFV as a gauge more there).

Are we even getting any more re-worked maps this season? I don't see mention on the season 2 page.

Update is out and available for download now. Season 2 should kick off in just under three hours. Tragedy that I'm off work today.

oooooof, new map is tasty for infantry

Yeah it's absolute carnage inside the ship at the moment, as everyone is still working out the angles and best approaches. I do always love this period with a new map, though.

Paik is getting a nerf shortly, which is understandable. I can basically run her wallhack with a K30 and focus only on the CQC battles in the ship to top the leader boards, little skill required.

Performance for me on PC, on the new map at least, is also noticeably smoother than the older ones (bar Exposure, obviously).

I’m amazed this isn’t on gamepass yet. Hurry up, I’ll play it for free.

It now plays really well IMO. I still bemoan the specialists (I want a repair tool AND mines ffs) but it is what it is.

Well, the main reason was that the old menu layout was silly: Three submenus, one which let you select from *two* modes, one which let you select *one* mode, and one that gave you access to a full blown server browser with customizable game modes...

Much better to just have all that stuff in one nice menu.

My biggest gripe with Manifest was that the grappling hook character was pretty much essential. Being able to clamber about the containers was so much more interesting than not being able to. Was possibly my favourite map on the base game because he was able to play around the containers.

All they really need to do is make it so that the containers were ever so slightly smaller to allow for the normal jump to mantle on top. Grappling hook guy would still have a bit of advantage, but I wouldn't feel like I had to be him.

The new map looks like it could be good. Quite a bit of the trailer is showing inside that main building, but that looks to only be a small part of the map. Destruction is highlighted too, although I guess it remains to be seen what kind of impact that will actually have.

I been dipping in and out of it for the last couple of months and it certainly plays a lot better than at launch. Changes to the launch maps make then more playable, though kaleidoscope is still really shit. New maps I have all really liked. A shame that they didn’t launch with the quality of those maps. But good to see them committing to the game and salvaging it. The moment to moment gameplay is mostly fun.

As for the actual game I still get really frustrated with it. The 128 players just accentuate the worst elements of the series - being sniped across the maps from miles away, i have way more matches where either side get steamrolled and you just get ducking shot at from any direction. It’s hard to get settled into it and just reminds you more often how a miserable experience Battlefield can be at times.

I think maybe conquest is just a shit game mode. I played a little bit of ground war on cod last night and had similar feelings to what I have with conquest - it’s often veers into a merry go round of flag capping with little teamwork. The smaller numbers make it a little less frustrating but it just feels a little meandering. Always felt a little bit like that with conquest though. Weirdly yet to really try breakthrough or rush (which I bloody loved on bc2). I miss operations too.

But I still get that battlefield itch, so it must do something for me but I’m hanging on to that one good match out of 10.

I don't know about the re-works, but I always felt the base maps were actually much better in Conquest. Breakthrough was terrible for them, with the big empty areas between points. What little design thought went into them, it very much felt like Conquest was the lead mode in their considerations.

Having said that, I've always liked Conquest. Yes, you are chasing capture points a bit, but it always felt like the true Battlefield experience to me that allows more freedom, whereas Breakthrough is just a bit too focused.

Agree that lack of Operations is a shame though. Was always a fun mode, particularly the BF1 implementation of it.

Can't say I've found 128 players a problem on the new maps. As I've thought since launch, the issue was never the number of players, just the shit design of the maps.

Shame to hear the re-worked maps aren't that much better. 3 good (or even great) maps probably isn't going to hold my attention much to really properly dive back in. Which will be a shame, as they seem to have done a lot of great work on it since the change at the top. I'll say it again, they just need to get some of those Portal maps into the main modes. Those are already tried and tested maps that won't take much work to get sorted (less necessary if Portal actually has players now, but I'm guessing not). They could probably get 5+ of them ready to go by next season.

New update means classes are back and it seems to be a good thing.
However… they’ve completely fucked the controls on console! They’ve run out of buttons which makes some of the key features of 2042, such as the mods, completely broken!

Yeah, I was quite impressed when I played it for a couple evenings after the classes update. I tried playing early in season 3 and thought it was another good map, but found everything all a bit bland. Classes doesn't solve that problem, but did make a massive improvement to the flow of the game and the cohesion of the squad/team. The moment to moment gameplay just feels greatly improved because of it.

It makes me think that they obviously didn't test the removal of classes enough with average players. Perhaps if you are fully organised squad with some kind of plan then the you naturally fulfill the roles you need. The system was perfectly flexible to let you do that. Chuck a random bunch of players together though and that just isn't going to happen. It caused the games to be a mess and teams to be completely directionless. Add just a little bit of guidance with classes though and that seems to go away.

I do still feel the game has very little character to it though. There is just no strong theming at all. Then again, I've never found the modern/very near futures settings interesting and I don't have the affection for BF3/4 that lots of others do. They've done the WWs now and don't think they can do much more with them, but I would love to see them go back to 'nam or a far future game. Or just go completely nuts and do something fantastical (although I expect the community would really riot).