After the experiments of the past years, Battlefield returns taking us directly into 2042 but with a hint of old school. Let’s find out about Battlefield 2042 together in our review
Watching so many players flock to Battlefield 2042’s crowded war zones is a great picture of why bigger isn’t always better. Huge firefights have always been without a doubt part of the charm of Battlefield, but the latest “shooter” fads have made mass lobbying slightly frustrating. Fortunately, Battlefield offers alternatives and variety, especially thanks to the new Hazard Zone mode and its Portal tools. But will it be enough to do justice to such a heavy legacy? Let’s find out together in our Battlefield 2042 review!
A leap forward, but with an eye to the past
Battlefield moves the series to a near-future setting filled with high-tech gadgets and freedom of action never seen before in the series. The goal was to bring back the feeling that Battlefield was once again a huge playground to tear each other apart. At first glance it seems that the list of 10 specialists Battlefield 2042 is based on the four original Battlefield classes: Assault, Support, Recon and Engineer. However, unlike previous chapters, where classes had very specific jobs and skills to define them, the skills of 2042 specialists don’t change a team’s dynamic much.
Anyone can equip repair tools (so it’s no longer specific to engineers) and any Specialist can also equip any weapon. There are specialists who have more unique abilities, like Casper getting an OV-P Recon drone to explore with or Sundance getting a wingsuit instead of a parachute to cover more distance while dropping into the map, but nothing that’s a real gamechanger. While this makes the game much more skill-based, on the other it makes it flat and amorphous in the specific choice of specialists.
Game Modes – Battlefield 2042 Review: Bigger Is Better?
There are three types of modes in Battlefield 2042. The main event, All-Out Warfare, has within it the Breakthrough and Conquest modes (64 players for each team). With so many people shooting at each other on such a vast battlefield, chance reigns supreme, however, giving a not indifferent glance. Conquest is the traditional Battlefield mode where you compete to capture and hold multiple points at once spread across a huge map. This time, however, the size of the map and the number of players are increased to 11. This mode, although it is the most classic and fun, requires a lot of teamwork to bring home the goal.
Hazard Zone instead it is the newest mode. It’s basically Dice’s version of “Escape from Tarkov”: 32 players group into teams of four to scour the map for the given targets, taking out both small swarms of AI soldiers and opponents before exiting the map. This mode is the most similar to a battle royale in that once killed you are unable to respawn unless a teammate is able to guarantee a respawn uplink. In Portal, however, you can change everything from active friendly fire for a team to damage. Basically everything you can think of about changing the game, it’s possible. Not only does it allow you to create completely unique experiences and game modes in Battlefield, but it also provides a more hands-on understanding of what’s going on in game balance.
Too many people in a small space – Battlefield 2042 review: bigger is better?
First, in terms of level design, 2042’s map selection is a bit of a disappointment. In the game they are present only seven maps and nearly all favor certain types of players over others. Even their topography or structures generally don’t give much inspiration or variety to inspire varied and creative strategies. And again, these landscapes don’t even come close to the level of environmental destruction that DICE introduced in Battlefield 4. Beyond a few explosive one-offs or an occasional piece like Orbital’s launch pad, very little of what is seen. it can be destroyed.
Added to this is one of the major problems of this new Battlefield: the density of players per map. While in the past the maps were bigger and better built to accommodate huge numbers of players, in 2042 this thing has been lacking a bit. Squads of players find themselves facing each other in too narrow spaces and with few shelters, inevitably falling like flies at the first distraction. This factor penalizes both less experienced players and those who have always preferred DICE’s alternative to Activision’s guerrilla warfare.
Gameplay – Review Battlefield 2042: bigger is better?
As in past games, in 2042 you are free to spawn in any area occupied by your team or on a teammate. Except that there are now a lot more points to capture for each map than previous entries, and on time your squad will soon split into any number of directions because of that. This wasn’t much of a problem in older Battlefields, as capture points were generally quite close together. Wherever there were clashes for supremacy, it was simple enough for your team concentrate or respawn nearby. With more players and a wider range of points, the team will inevitably be divided into different sectors, without a specific centralized push. This makes Battlefield 2042 an extremely teamwork and cooperation game which, as we all know, it is extremely difficult to achieve in such large lobbies.
Without organization, the flow of battles is erratic and confusing, and we rarely find the typical “controlled chaos” in which Battlefield excelled. These ideal moments, when players’ class choices complement each other and attackers and defenders work together towards a common goal, become a rarity in a game where confusion reigns. Unfortunately.
The verdict
Net of what has been played and analyzed in this review, it is clear how Battlefield 2042 tries to do a lot, but only some of DICE’s experiments have been successful. The 128 players of the All-Out Warfare mode feel far too much, but its new (much more strategic) Hazard Zone mode is incredibly fun. The worst thing about the game, though, is that the most fun in 2042 I had was playing reproductions of its previous games in Portal. While on the one hand this option enriches and enhances the game (and entertains), on the other it makes us reflect on how far 2042 is from perfection and even more so from the legacy of an important brand like that of Battelfield. For a game that claims to be the future of Battlefield, depend on the past it’s a mammoth problem and extremely penalizing.
Battlefield 2042 is now available for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One e Microsoft Windows. As always, we invite you to stay connected on TechGameWorld.com for further reviews, news and updates on the world of video games. Also, don’t forget to follow Instant Gaming for always discounted games. Hello and happy gaming!
Bitter in the mouth for what could have been
Points in favor
- Technically remarkable
- The shooting lives up to the name
- Extremely fun Hard Zone and Portal …
Points against
- … but already seen and reviewed
- Too much unwarranted chaos
- Few and not well structured maps
- Classes too irrelevant