Battlefield 2042 – Game Review

Battlefield 2042 is a first-person shooter game developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield 2042 is the seventeenth instalment in the Battlefield franchise and is set in the future, specifically in the year 2042.

This game essentially marked the return to the iconic all-out warfare of the Battlefield franchise. In this game you will need to adapt and overcome the near-future world where you will be dropped into a map, which supports 128 players, with a cutting-edge arsenal.

Publisher: EA
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows

Setting

Battlefield 2042 features stunning graphics and a realistic art style. The game’s environments are highly detailed, and the game features advanced weather effects such as sandstorms and tornadoes that can even affect gameplay.

The game is set in a near-future world where climate change has caused widespread environmental disasters and displaced millions of people. The world is on the brink of collapse, and the United States and Russia are engaged in a new Cold War. In this world of chaos, a group of soldiers known as the Specialists is hired to fight in various conflicts around the world.

Gameplay

Battlefield 2042 features large-scale battles with up to 128 players on next-gen consoles and PC, making it the largest Battlefield game to date. The game features three modes: All-Out Warfare, Hazard Zone, and Battlefield Portal.

All-Out Warfare 

This is the game’s main mode and features two sub-modes: Conquest and Breakthrough. Conquest is a classic Battlefield mode where two teams will fight to control key locations on a large map whilst Breakthrough on the other hand is a mode where one team defends while the other team tries to push forward and capture key objectives.

This game mode features seven different maps, where you’ll then have 10 Specialists and 22 weapons to pick from. Even though each one of these Specialists have their own unique abilities you’ll rarely see people stray from the three or four most popular Specialists. 

You’ll also be kept pretty entertained in this game mode as every week they will bring out Weekly Challenges that you can enjoy and earn rewards as well. 

Hazard Zone

Then next we have the Hazard Zone mode, which is a new mode in the Battlefield franchise and is a weird take on the Battle Royale style. In this game mode you will be placed in a land where Satellite Pods have fallen and you’ll have to fight off other teams whilst collecting as many Data Drives from these fallen Pods as you can before extracting. 

Compared to Battle Royale, this game is more objective-focused and you’ll also be put into smaller teams. If you are on Xbox One or PS4 then you will be put into a game that’s made up of six teams of four, on the other hand if you are playing on PC, PS5 or Xbox Series X/S then you will be split into eight teams of four.  

Battlefield Portal

Then lastly we have the Portal mode, which is essentially a mix of older maps as well as weapons from the franchise that have all been jumbled together. The thing that makes this mode so unique and popular is that all of the assets and maps are at the disposal of the community and they can use however they want. When making a portal game the players will almost have complete freedom and control to either add or change anything. 

You don’t have to create a game or join a player-made game when playing this mode though because you will also have the choice to play official Portal experiences every week in the standard playlists. 

Guns and Loadouts

One of the biggest changes in regards to the guns and loadouts in this game is the decoupling of the utility gadgets from gun selection. The subclass system, from Battlefield 5, was unnecessarily complicated and even though it may have made sense to restrict primary weapons by class when this whole Battlefield series started with Battlefield 1942, those rock-paper-scissors-medic dynamics were far less complex. Now if you take all of the chaos that you had experienced in those older games and multiply it by a lot to create weaponized robot dogs and a woman who is able to scan for enemies through walls, you’ll quickly realise why Battlefield 2042’s freeform mixing and matching feels essential. The ammo capacity tuning in this game is also a little different and now feels just right. So much so that equipping an ammo crate into your loadout would actually feel useful and less like a downgrade compared to other weapons like rocket launchers or AA missiles. 

Then, focusing more on the guns aspect, you will notice that the assault rifles actually don’t feel like the default stars anymore. A huge reason for this is because they perform pretty poorly in long range engagements, which are pretty common in this game thanks to its large maps. Just like in most other battlefield games, the marksman and sniper rifles are still difficult to counter once you’ve been caught in an open space, which can definitely make you pretty frustrated at times. 

Then when it comes to the visual aspect of these guns you’ll immediately notice that these guns are the most gun-coloured guns you’ll probably find in a video game, but you do still have the opportunity to unlock a modest number of skins for them in order to brighten them up a little bit at least. Although the armoury in Battlefield 1 still feels a little more imaginative than 2042’s near-future guns, you’ll still have some standouts such as the huge NTW-50 anti-material sniper rifle that has an extreme level of firepower. To get this gun you will first have to get to level 60 so you may have to wait a while before enjoying its firepower-above-all personality. 

Soundtrack

The game’s soundtrack is composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, who is known for her work on films such as Joker and Chernobyl. The soundtrack features a mix of orchestral and electronic music and perfectly captures the game’s futuristic atmosphere.

Conclusion

Battlefield 2042 is definitely a different Battlefield game and you are able to do a lot of different things, however there are only some things that are actually worth celebrating. Firstly the 128 player matches can definitely feel like a little bit too much at times but then you also have game modes such as the new Hazard Zone game mode, which is definitely extremely fun to experience. 

Although Battlefield 2042 is an indication of where the Battlefield franchise is heading in the future, it has ironically been made clear with the Portal mode that it doesn’t stack up against the previous Battlefield games.